What basketball game is the GOAT?

Talk about any and all other basketball video games including NBA Jam, NBA Street, college basketball games, and more. General basketball video game discussion and comparison topics are also welcome here.

What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby LASquared on Sat May 12, 2018 1:18 pm

I'll start by saying this: NBA 2K14 isn't the GOAT. Both current- and next-gen.

The current-gen NBA 2K14 was essentially the same as NBA 2K13, except...
  1. the Dream Team and 2012 Team USA were removed
  2. you can only make one user profile (even if you made a separate one, going to MyPLAYER only shows the alphabetically last profile)
  3. the NBA 2K, 2K Sports, 2K China, and the VC team were gone (either because they had to make space for Euroleague teams or one of the players on the VC team died and was featured on the Credits screen)
  4. the home screen no longer links to your most recent Association (now it's just Quick Game and MyCAREER)
I'm sure there's more.

There's also golden text, a minor pet peeve that doesn't fit with the game's color scheme of blue. Options > Manage Roster > Rosters shows the players' names on white and golden text on black background on blue background.

The next-gen 2K14 on the other hand lacks basic features, like Create-a-Team. The heavily-advertised LeBron: Path to Greatness is also gone.

Then, the general consensus is NBA 2K11 is the GOAT. I don't think so.
  1. The menu sucks.
  2. The 2K Sports logo on the scoreboard and almost everywhere else is unprofessionally badly zoomed in.
  3. The CAP portraits suck. (Create a player on NBA 2K11 and look at its portrait. Compare that to an NBA 2K12 created player portrait.)
Gameplay-wise, there's two main things that bother me a lot: 1.) just like NBA 2K9, the movement is weird at best and nonsensical at worst. Sometimes it feels like you're ice skating, other times the player's just walking very slowly. 2.) instead of going straight to the rim, most players just shoot in the baseline or in the middle of the free throw line, if you hold the shoot button too early. IIRC, NBA 2K12-14 don't have this problem.

Many people say that "the little things" make NBA 2K11 great. But many of those are also in other games.
NBA 2K11's NBA Blacktop has the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest, 3pt Shootout, Game of 21, and Pickup Games (1-on-1 until 5-on-5). It has everything NBA 2K9 has, except 2K11 doesn't have Dunk School, and the 2K11 3pt Shootout bar is horizontal, not vertical. NBA 2K12 also has those features.
dom2k mentions 2K11's VIP Viewer, which is also on NBA 2K12 (where you can choose between different user profiles to look at). NBA 2K14 also has a VIP Viewer as extensive as that, but only supports one user profile (named "My Profile.USR").

NBA 2K11 has the Jordan Challenge, which I don't care that much for. MJ: Creating a Legend is replicate-able on NBA 2K12/13's Create a Legend, in which you can just choose the Jordan from the '85-'86 Bulls and voila!

NBA 2K11 had the '97 Bulls and '97 Jazz, which were removed from future games because they were the same as the '98 ones except for the '97 Bulls ratings. 2K11 isn't the only game to have a historical team that doesn't exist in future games. NBA 2K13 had the '02 Kings, which NBA 2K14 didn't have.

I'll finish this later.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Murat on Sun May 13, 2018 5:47 am

Actually NBA 2K11 was praised because it was the best ever of its time.

Your post is accurate but it's kind of revisionist history. Considering the conditions at time, NBA 2K11 was the GOAT. It still is considered the GOAT pound by pund. The Jordan Challenge thing and retro teams were unimaginable (though tried by Konami back in 2004 with NBA Starting Five 2005 but the game was exclusive to Japan). Sending Jordan to 2010 with Creating a Legend mode was also nice. I remember playing Jordan with 2011 Knicks (pre-Melo with Amare).

2K13 had terrible menus with too much graphics. 2K12 was released during lockout.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Tue May 15, 2018 10:23 pm

Nice idea for a topic, and certainly a tough question.

It's all too easy to cling to an old favourite that surpassed expectations and was a great release in its day, but has been surpassed at least in some ways by the games that followed it. The more years that go by, the more generations of hardware that come about, the greater the chance that at least one game has equalled or surpassed a great release due to improvements in technology and design concepts.

NBA 2K11 is one of the popular games to hold up as the best we've seen (at least among sim titles), and I do think that it holds up very well. In its time I think it was the pinnacle of sim basketball gaming, or at least a worthy contender for that title. There are at least a couple of games in the NBA 2K series that I think have surpassed it though, especially once right stick dribbling controls were added.

Something to keep in mind is that increased realism has been a bit of a shock for some sim basketball gamers. As I discussed in an article a while back, I'm not sure that everyone truly thought about what more realism meant, especially when it comes to not being able to do whatever you want, or have certain strategies succeed each and every time. Although there are still cheesy exploits in recent games, some of the old "video game strategies" aren't as reliable, which I think has been a rude awakening for some gamers. Likewise, some people probably prefer a bit more of a casual approach to the sim style, which was more common in older games that had less sophisticated AI and lower expectations in terms of realism.

The bar has been raised, and new games can't always live up to the hype, so we tend to fall back on the last game that thoroughly impressed us when we're trying to name the best title. There's also the matter of arcade basketball games, which tend to hold up a bit better than older sim games and have a different appeal. Do we throw all the basketball games into the mix, or do we separate them into the categories of Best Sim Title and Best Arcade Title? If they are all in their together, how do you compare them and pick the best when they each offer their own style of virtual basketball? Do you factor in how good a game was relative to the technology and expectations of the era, and how do you compare across generations of gaming tech?

Just some stuff to mull over as we try to name some contenders for the title.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Dee4Three on Wed May 16, 2018 2:36 am

Great thread.

I actually think the newer basketball games have some more unrealistic gameplay elements. Including but not limited to excessive clipping, questionable passing speeds/physics, cheese (as mentioned above), less authenticity, etc. When I say some of the newer, I'm more comparing this gen to last gen.

Personally, I think the GOAT of basketball video games comes down to a few things. What you personally enjoy the most, and what you think is the best well rounded title. I think those should be two separate categories.

For me, the most enjoyment came from NBA 2K14 (PC and Xbox ONE/PS4), NBA 2K17, NBA 2K9 and NBA 2K13. Yes, its that hard for me to decide. In regards to the most well rounded basketball game, I'd say it's a toss up between NBA 2K11 and NBA 2K17. This includes modes, playability after the new titles come out, overall gameplay, just overall appeal.

Andrew, you didn't give your opinion. If you can't narrow it down to one, could you narrow it down to 3 or 4?
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby [Q] on Wed May 16, 2018 3:24 am

Are we talking overall or "for its time" because Live 2005/06 as well as Live 2000 should be in the mix as well

Hell, I'd say Live 10 has a shot with its multitude of online modes and its DAILY roster updates.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Dee4Three on Wed May 16, 2018 5:20 am

[Q] wrote:Are we talking overall or "for its time" because Live 2005/06 as well as Live 2000 should be in the mix as well

Hell, I'd say Live 10 has a shot with its multitude of online modes and its DAILY roster updates.


Good point, especially in regard to Live 2000.

That's one of my favorite basketball games of all time. I had it for the PC, played it a ton.

Live 10 is probably my second favorite Live.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Wed May 23, 2018 12:47 am

The overall/for it's time question is the main reason I don't have one definitive answer to the question. I feel like it has to be divided up into eras, because more modern releases are obviously technologically superior, but in terms of delivering a satisfying experience and given the capabilities of each generation, it's all relative.

For the 16-bit era, I'd suggest NBA Live 95, though I do prefer NBA Live 96 PC for its superior roster editing and modding capabilities. For the early 3D era, NBA Live 2000. For the PS2/Xbox era, I feel it's pretty much a tie between NBA Live 2005 and NBA Live 06. 360/PS3, I would probably say NBA 2K13. For the current generation, NBA 2K17 stands out to me, certainly as the game I've enjoyed the most if nothing else.

That's the sim-oriented titles. For basketball arcade games, I'd say NBA Jam Tournament Edition, NBA Hangtime, NBA Street Vol. 2, and NBA Jam: On Fire Edition for the aforementioned generations (I guess NBA Playgrounds is the best on the current generation by default). I think sim and arcade do have to be ranked separately, because they are such different experience, and older arcade games hold up a little better because they're not trying to be realistic. There's also been less of them because they aren't annual releases, and I could probably call NBA Jam: On Fire Edition the best arcade basketball game to date, taking all generations into account.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Dee4Three on Thu May 24, 2018 4:53 am

I think I miss the simplicity the most when it comes to games. Not simplicity as much in the gameplay elements (however, I do miss a little of that at times, because I believe many of the new games over-animate)... but more the modes in which people would play. Since online became the most "popular", not only has the gameplay taken a backseat, but the other modes themselves are not talked about/played enough.

It also seems that local play has basically been tossed aside (Local multiplayer), in favor of a dude/boy/girl/woman sitting in a room alone with a headset and mic talking to someone who could be 11 years old, or getting pissed at the Lag, or getting quit on by the opponent. Its disappointing to me, my best memories with my brothers is sitting in the same room playing local games and just having a blast. I feel like this is a problem with society as well, as a lot of people don't have the same social skills in person as they do online. Kid's are used to socializing, debating, arguing, laughing, making connections online as opposed to doing it in person.

Slight rant, but you see what I am getting at. Obviously it was smart for the video game companies to move in that direction, but I also think it has hurt some core parts of games. I'm lucky that myself and two brothers still get together and play seasons, still great whenever it happens. Pretty sure we will always do that.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby The Human Highlight Film on Thu May 24, 2018 7:59 am

NBA 2K11 is the GOAT. Play a game in 2k14,2k13, 2k17 or 2k18 and then go play 2k11,it's an incomparable feeling.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Danimal on Thu May 24, 2018 8:07 am

The main problem with the current gen games is that game mechanics and animations still look and feel like old gen. 2K18 has the "EA" clay skin texture players and that ruins realism.

Out of the box or with a great set of sliders 2k11 is a blissful experience, even today.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Tue Jun 26, 2018 1:01 am

I've discussed the impact of nostalgia on discussions like this in this week's Monday Tip-Off: http://www.nba-live.com/mto-nostalgia-b ... ll-gaming/

The more years pass, the more likely it is that a lot of the great games from previous generations are surpassed. That doesn't mean they don't stand out as highlights and some of the best games to come along, but I don't feel it's accurate to keep them as the yardstick. Take NBA 2K11 for example. It is still a fantastic game, one of the best we've seen, and holds up quite well. However, its controls are clunky without right stick dribbling moves, and distinct a lack of 1-to-1 animations. The AI isn't quite as sharp or realistic as it's been in some of its successors, and Association - while very deep - isn't on the same level as MyLEAGUE and MyGM. The online experience - when it was available - isn't anything like what we've had recently in terms of the connected experiences and MyCAREER. It didn't have microtransactions or a bad story though, which is certainly a point in NBA 2K11's favour.

The great games from years gone by, like NBA 2K11, are games that many of us can still go back to. However, I think when it gets to a point where you go back to a game and you really start missing gameplay mechanics and features that are in newer games, it's a sign that while the older title may still deserve to be revered and ranked up there, it has been surpassed and is no longer the yardstick. That's how I feel about games like NBA 2K11, NBA 2K12, and NBA 2K13; games I hold in high regard and would rank up there in the debate, but I definitely wouldn't say it's all been downhill since then, or that nothing has surpassed them. There are things about them that I like and miss, or feel were better than some of the things recent games are doing, but I also see outmoded concepts and aspects that have been improved upon.

Like I said though, it's tough. Because technology marches on, it's inevitable that something about newer games will be better, thanks to the new tech and years of developing certain concepts. It's a lot easier to rank games by era than overall, because you've got factors like a game being great given the technology of the time, nostalgia and fun we had with older games despite their shortcomings, bias towards recent games because they're shiny and new, whether it's a sim or arcade game, and so on. It's a lot easier to mention some of the standout titles from each era. From there, you could possibly compare their quality vs. what you could feasibly expect at that time.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Fri Dec 11, 2020 3:05 pm

Funny, just reading this now. Such a good useful thread. I've been playing 2K11, 13 and 14 the past couple of weeks and reading online to see what people say just as a comparison point. It's not often but it does happen that "the best game" of a particular sports game is one I wouldn't give that accolade to. Everyone loves NHL2K8, the latest The Show, NHL 04, and I don't agree with any of them. And one afternoon of looking around for opinions (which brought me to this thread) basically demonstrated that games modes are a huge part if not the only part of what people examine when they judge the 2K series. I've found it very difficult to get a straight sense from people who know the games of which is the best designed package, on the court, offline, as one person playing a basketball game against a computer opponent. Nobody reviews or talks about that anymore. I am so up to here with hearing people talk about "the cheese" effect, an effect which I don't even quite understand. And I think people are so sick of discussing this that it's tough to get answers from more adult players that can talk realism like in this thread. As it stands, I don't actually have a sense of which game plays the best representation of basketball with the least amount of problems.
This game has no blocking, this other game's passing is broken, etc. And I know that playing oneself is the only way to know for sure, it's the advice I give to people all the time. The problem is that I think basketball has peculiarities one needs to spend a lot of time with to really see what's broken and not. This thread was really helpful but again, I have different criteria perhaps and also, far less detailed knowledge of basketball as a sport than I do about baseball, hockey, and soccer. I'm looking for CPU AI skill, simulated results over the course of a single player season, and presentation and season related numbers, stats, playoff hunt, etc to look at during the year that feel authentic (I feel this is lacking now in 2K21 and something 2K from NBA to Baseball to Hockey did fantastically well during those 2004-2010 years). And I'm looking at those criteria in 11, 13 and 14 because I'm not finding them so well in 2K20 and 21. But, anyway, this thread has been helpful.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:38 pm

tinpanalley wrote:I am so up to here with hearing people talk about "the cheese" effect, an effect which I don't even quite understand.


In most contexts, it basically refers to a cheap strategy that can be exploited over and over again. A lot of people use it in the context of online multiplayer, as there are moves that are difficult to stop because of a lack of game balance (i.e. the offense is much stronger than the defense, or the counter is far more difficult to pull off than the move), and so people just spam those moves rather than employ any kind of diverse or intricate strategy. An example would be the exploitable behind-the-back dribbles back and forth over and over again behind a screen, into a Green release when the defender finally gets stuck to a player setting a screen. It's a cheesy thing to do, hence the use of the word "cheese" to describe it.

Of course, it's traditionally something that we've also been able to do to the CPU as well. An example would be Freestyle Superstars moves in NBA Live 06. A couple of the moves were overpowering, so when you needed buckets in a hurry, you'd pound the ball inside and use those moves over and over again. Most of the time the CPU wouldn't be able to counter that, which is what made it a cheesy strategy. It was taking advantage of AI that had no answer to particular moves and strategies.

At the same time, the AI itself was capable of being cheesy, which is why we sometimes fought fire with fire, such as spamming the Freestyle Superstars moves. When FSS wasn't working, you knew that NBA Live 06's comeback logic was in full effect, and making the game artificially difficult. Artificial difficulty is how the CPU can be cheesy; in short, the challenge comes from the AI openly cheating and manipulating gameplay, rather than being strategic and taking advantage of our errors. It's stuff like your players suddenly losing all their abilities to score or defend while the CPU can hit every shot and make every stop, the AI bailing itself out with foul calls/non-calls at both ends, CPU players seeming to play by a different set of rules, and so on. It feels unbalanced, the challenge cheap and cheesy.

Those are the phenomena people are talking about when they're discussing cheese, exploits, AI issues, and the like. The details aren't always apparent when we use an umbrella term like "cheese", so it comes down to the specific complaints about a particular game.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Sat Dec 12, 2020 3:32 pm

Andrew wrote:Those are the phenomena people are talking about when they're discussing cheese, exploits, AI issues, and the like.
Ok, thanks for explaining. I didn't understand because cheesy means cheaply made or at most excessively melodramatic so I wasn't understanding the use of the word.
Anyway, speaking of realism, as was mentioned above, I've gone around reading all the posts I could here and elsewhere on older 2Ks which is how I found this one. I'm trying to compare them to 2K20 and get people's opinions. But it seems people base realism on game modes, how well certain moves can be done, and what the online experience is like which leaves people like me in the dark. And it's tough because what I want to know is purely on the court realism which to me is how well a game represents real NBA basketball (understanding that it's a video game, of course). Also it appears that often the things people complain about are things that DO actually happen on the court but that they don't like. But they say they're unrealistic. For example to use another sport, technically FIFA and PES are both really unrealistic for one simple reason: there is no rampant diving and rolling around by players on the pitch trying desperately to get fouls called. Also, I don't know how people are able to distinguish so clearly between 2K11, 2K13, and 2K14 because I see extremely similar games, game modes notwithstanding. I know somebody who said to me, "you know what?..for entirely offline play, just play the newest game because the offline game just gets better and better every year in minor ways" (this was said before the new shooting mechanism of 2K21). But would it be safe to say that if offline single player seasons was all I was interested in, that really any game would be fine?
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Sat Dec 12, 2020 8:59 pm

When it comes to gameplay getting better or worse from year to year, it's often the little things. Minor improvements or regression with AI, controls that have been changed in a way that either makes them better or more contrived, player movement being freer or stiffer, gameplay tuning (speed, shot percentages, etc)...again, it depends on the title. Games that come out within a year or two of each other that are running on the same engine are going to be similar in a lot of ways, and it's usually those subtle changes that people feel make them better or worse.

My take is that the single player gameplay experience has regressed somewhat since NBA 2K16/NBA 2K17, because there's been a great focus on the online modes. This means that the game has been tuned in a way that suits the competitive online scene, but not necessarily gameplay against the CPU. An example would be layup timing. It balances things in user vs user games, but it can be unfair in user vs CPU games, because the CPU is far more adept at getting good releases, being far more precise than a human ever can be. NBA 2K18 also introduced a new motion system that has never really worked as well as intended in my view. The focus on the online modes has also meant that less attention has been paid to AI, leading to teammates being ineffective at both ends of the court.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby sticky-fingers on Sat Dec 12, 2020 9:21 pm

i would add NBA2K15 in the debate. Unfortunately, we had few tools and mods back then.
But gameplay and AI are IMO the best on this gen with 2K16. I was pleasantly surprised to see the CPU call a double team on KD when Robertson was on the court. But no double team when he was replaced by a shooter.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Sat Dec 12, 2020 9:41 pm

I agree, NBA 2K15 is up there as well.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Sun Dec 13, 2020 7:16 am

sticky-fingers wrote:i would add NBA2K15 in the debate. Unfortunately, we had few tools and mods back then.
But gameplay and AI are IMO the best on this gen with 2K16. I was pleasantly surprised to see the CPU call a double team on KD when Robertson was on the court. But no double team when he was replaced by a shooter.

2K16 was around when I started picking up NBA2K again on a more regular basis. Really good game and I would say a significant drop to where we are today despite the fact that 2K20 looks really nice. I say "really nice" because I actually find all the player models and animations incredibly robotic and non-human. And on the PS5 I think the drop is even more pronounced, I may be only one of a few who thinks so but I do know a few people who agree with me. Because now on the PS5 in addition to feeling inhuman, everyone looks made of plastic. When are game developers gonna learn that people don't move their eyeballs to the left and right without their heads turning in some way? It's like the NHL series. Yes, it looks pretty good. But they've somehow managed to make everyone look like non-interactive zombies that don't interact with the world around them. It's like they're in their own little bubble. The moment games moved to realistic player models, they lost the more "animated" look which while maybe less realistic, permitted them to be designed better. Like the debate about the animated and CGI Lion King. In the newer film the characters all just look dead behind the eyes. And the movements ridiculous because a cartoon can display anthropomorphic movements and we don't mind, it's a cartoon, it's understood that there is a willing suspension of disbelief about what they can do. But a CGI lifelike character looks weird doing that because you've established they're meant to be lifelike, so why is a CGI wild boar smiling? Likewise with faces that grimace or smirk and then snap back to their default half asleep, generic mannequin mode which happens in current sports games. Also weird is characters that do a little business with a ball or their uniforms and then snap back to "Generic Model Standing Still Position X". And why do players jump into the same slow-motion, canned "oops, I've lost my balance" animation when they bump into something regardless of what they've bumped into with no regard for what inertia is doing to their bodies? And then while standing back upright have their feet slide into a predetermined position. In previous gen this didn't look so bad and it's because things were not made to look so realistic whether by intention or lack of technology (I don't like the term photo-realistic, it's a term that is heavily misused online).

I'm on a bit of a tangent here, excuse me, but for me, despite the lighting and depth of field, characters in PS5 sports games look literally made of wax and I have to be honest, the lighting, chroma, effects are exaggerated and perhaps this bothers me more because I'm a filmmaker and cinematographer. I don't mind it when people play with lighting in fantasy, action, or more cinematic video games, but when studios get people who don't understand traditional lighting and optics to do lighting for sports games, it's very trying for me to not rail against it. All this is why I get a more pure, ironically more true to life experience when I play the last gen PC NBA series than the current one and even on the gameplay footage I've seen of Madden, FIFA, and NBA2K on the PS5. Or as my wife put it the other day when she was looking at NBA 2K20 PC footage, "These characters look physically more like their real life counterparts but they're incredibly awkward to look at. The older games you play look more on the surface like video games, but players feel and move more like real NBA players even with their jerky movements". We watch lots of sports together even though we don't play sports games when we play games together, so she's well versed enough to say what does and doesn't look and feel realistic in sports games. So, I think it's an interesting observation from someone who doesn't know sports video games much more than seeing them when I play and only has televised sports to compare to.

Anyway, I play 2K11, 13, and 14 and I don't have this issue of the game looking and feeling awkward. The problem, which I was hoping to find help for by researching, is that I can't figure out between those three if one is particularly better for representing basketball. In the NHL2K series, 2K8, 2K10, and 2K6 are the three stars of the series (ignoring 2K5 only because of a lack of up to date rosters). 2K10 looks the best and has the best physics/feel despite some cartoony animations, but you need a degree in slider-ology to get it to play well and when you get it right, it's absolutely brilliant. 2K8 look absolutely atrocious, the menu UI is infuriating, but on-ice the game is well animated, and there are nuances only a true sim hockey fan would love in gameplay, strategy, and controls. 2K6 is dated in look, and needs tweaking to tone down the pace and energy, but plays an amazing and fun game that feels a little dead in UI and limited in controls. But ALL three have amazing strategy manipulation in-game. So, for me 2K10 is the way to go. Because in addition to all of that, much like MLB2K12, it just feels so true to life playing along in a season with the commentary and fun things to follow in the news portions of the season menus. This is all single player offline season mode/exhibition only. I have no clue about franchise play, trade or draft AI, I play only season mode with all that stuff and injuries off. That's the sort of thing I'm looking to understand about the PC NBA2K previous-gen era. And just to turn back around to the cheese stuff, it all seems geared to online multiplayer as with videos on Youtube. Watched a "review" of 2K20 the other day and literally two 45 second sentences talked about on-court gameplay, physics, and mechanics in an 8 minute video.

Anyway, my point is that all this visual stuff for me is part of what games gets qualified as "greatest".
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Sun Dec 13, 2020 4:02 pm

People definitely get wowed by graphics and overlook core gameplay issues, no question.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Thu Dec 17, 2020 5:43 am

...just gotta say, I've spent more time with 2K13 this week and holy cow, I never noticed the lack of dunk blocking before. But after playing several days, it's rampant, and the game is a little dunk happy it feels like. Was there never a patch for this? I can see why people don't bother and just go with 2K14 or stick on 2K11.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Thu Dec 17, 2020 2:13 pm

There wasn't a patch for it, to the point where "dunks can be blocked" was almost a selling point when it was brought up during the preview season for NBA 2K14.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Thu Dec 17, 2020 3:36 pm

Andrew wrote:There wasn't a patch for it, to the point where "dunks can be blocked" was almost a selling point when it was brought up during the preview season for NBA 2K14.
Holy crap, thats hilarious.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby Andrew on Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:27 pm

It was. It's interesting though, because it's one of those issues that we put up with because we could benefit from it too. If we needed a bucket, we pounded the ball inside and dunked it, and there was nothing the CPU could do about it; except perhaps foul and force us to make the free throws.

I'd suggest that a lot of time, our view of a basketball game is affected by whether or not we can beat it and do cool things. Unblockable dunks went a long way in making NBA 2K13 a bit easier with games being more winnable, so even though many people agreed it should be fixed, they still managed to enjoy the game regardless. It was an effective weapon that could counter the CPU trying to tip things in its favour.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby tinpanalley on Fri Dec 18, 2020 1:38 pm

Andrew wrote:It was. It's interesting though, because it's one of those issues that we put up with because we could benefit from it too. If we needed a bucket, we pounded the ball inside and dunked it, and there was nothing the CPU could do about it; except perhaps foul and force us to make the free throws.

I'd suggest that a lot of time, our view of a basketball game is affected by whether or not we can beat it and do cool things. Unblockable dunks went a long way in making NBA 2K13 a bit easier with games being more winnable, so even though many people agreed it should be fixed, they still managed to enjoy the game regardless. It was an effective weapon that could counter the CPU trying to tip things in its favour.

Well it's like one timers in any NHL before 2000. I personally have always had to keep a house rule about one-timers in NHL even up until today. The 2K series made them a lot harder to pull off. I have to be honest, I just finished saying that it was dunks galore in 2K13 and I just played a game where the CPU DID still dunk too much but I blocked three of them in one half and also picked off a handful of layups too. I'd say with a bit more time on these games that overall, 2K13 is fine. But 2K14 refines the 13 experience and I think the presentation is infinitely better. Which matters when you only play offline seasons like me. And as I've said before, I can...not...stand....Jay-Z. The only thing I think 13 does do miles better than other years is the right stick. Not having to worry about the right stick shooting when I don't intend it to is amazing. I always play with the shoot button.
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Re: What basketball game is the GOAT?

Postby skoadam on Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:39 pm

Gameplay? 2K13.
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