by Spree#8 on Sun Oct 09, 2011 4:01 am
Overall, I definitely like the game. With the release of 2K12, 2K have proven that it IS possible to release a basketball video game which is NOT horribly glitched in just about every possible area. The last 2 years made me pretty convinced that's far beyond their abilities. Sometimes being wrong is good, I guess.
I do have a few complaints, though.
Might just be me, but the movement on defense seems stiff. I feel like my guy is always a step or two too slow and the CPU guy can just send me any direction he wants to with me having little to no control over it. There are probably people who will say that's my fault and I can't defend but in previous years I was able to keep my man in front of me unless he really had a speed advantage. On top of that, I'm still often left shaking my head looking at what the heck my teammates are doing on defense. I'm having 2K10 flashbacks when I see my teammates running around like headless chickens and collapsing to the basket, leaving their sharpshooting men open on the perimeter even if they're told to guard them tight. It's not as bad as it was in 2K10, but it's bad. It's also bad when a CPU driving player can just run around everyone and get a layup, because the CPU-controlled teammate won't bother to bump him or do anything. Nonexistant defensive awareness for CPU teammates is definitely a problem as I cannot control everyone at once. Increasing the user defensive awareness slider doesn't really do anything in that regard. The CPU makes contact shots a lot more easily than I do, so there's something to mess around with in the sliders.
I like the idea of overhauling the post game and I like all the new options we have this year, but I feel some things are now way more complicated than they need to be, an up and under for example. I will probably get into it with time though as I love to post and did so a lot in previous games. However, the game doesn't tell me how to perform a dream shake... or am I just completely missing it?
Teammates in My Player are basically the same story, unfortunately. If you have some kind of superstar on your team, he is likely to do something once in a while, but anyone else is useless. Doesn't 2K see that making this mode a 1v5 ruins the gameplay for many people?
NBA's Greatest... I think everything has been said about this already. I appreciate historic teams, legends and all that but if it wasn't for presentation, these games wouldn't differ from ordinary quick games at all. That makes it hard for me to even call it a separate game mode. Also, 2K's idea of peaks for about half of the included players is nothing short of ridiculous. Hopefully, once we're able to crack the files, someone replaces the doubles (well, the only team literally doubled are the '98 Jazz, but '71 Lakers and '72 Lakers is also a double for me, and so on) with some more worthy teams.
I love the new ball physics stuff. I hope that means no more undefeatable animations. I would get seriously pissed off when the CPU made a shot with the ball going right through my guy's stretched arm or when they would pass it through my back etc. Now a stupid CPU pass is a steal for me and that's how it always should have been. Overall, a great addition and a very necessary one, too.
I've noticed that while the CPU teams guard the paint heavily, they leave me quite a bit of room on the perimeter, resulting in many easy threes without even doing anything to get open. Nevertheless, I miss many good shots with green releases for some reason. I have both shot quality and jumpshot feedback on and when a shot quality is an A or B and I get the green release, it should go in more often than not, right?
It's a good thing they're expanding on shoes and accessories. While it took them 2 full years to fix the half calf sleeve glitch, it's finally gone. And a lot more shoes this year, too. I would be way more pleased if they added more Reeboks, but it's not something to make a big fuss about.
Presentation is superb, of course. They've been doing a good job on that and not much really needs to be said here. By the way, I don't think I've seen any missing heads thus far - another good sign. On a side note, I'm not very keen on this year's soundtrack. Not a big deal, but thought I'd share my opinion anyway.
All in all, it's clearly the best NBA 2K game ever, choosing from the ones released for PC at least. I'm happy to say it's playable and enjoyable straight out of the box, something I wasn't able to say about 2K11 or 2K10. Just fix the issues that are there, please. Preferably sooner then April, assholes.