NBA 2K16: Living the Dream? – Review
NBA 2K16 and Visual Concepts are more or less in the position of those champions who face few rivals but have to constantly try to improve to stay on top. In this case, however, it is not a question of training, but of reviving your offer from year to year, and things can become more complicated than expected when it is already very large.
The desire not to settle down and break new ground is represented by the innovations made to one of the series’ most popular modes, the MyCareer, which many will likely choose as a starting point to experience the emotions of climbing to the top NBA, this time even starting from high school, living a story directed by Spike Lee that puts her at the center of the scene… but without any appreciable control over the decisions to be made.
The new MyCareer mode is at the same time the best example of the attempt at improvement and the relative risks that we talked about a few lines above. The problems of the new mode are multiple, starting with the story conceived by Spike Lee, which should ideally take us to the beginning of his career in the NBA
Your player’s career will progress through high school and college before making it to the NBA. But just this first part is muted.
It all starts with the classic creation of the player, which is automatically assigned the nickname Freq, which not only sounds like “Freak” but also stands for Frequency Vibrations, the nickname that, like it or not, we find saddled with.
We’ll start by choosing one of the three high schools in whose ranks we’ll have to play three games against local rivals before reaching the state finals, and continue by choosing a college from among the ten available.
All very nice on paper, but the games are very short and interspersed with interludes directed by Spike Lee, which burden the mode with a series of events, squabbles, tension and drama that can only be witnessed as a passive spectator.
In addition to Freq, the cast includes his twin sister Cee-Cee, crazy childhood friend Vic, parents and later a friend, the GM of the NBA team he will first end up on. year and a Vulcan Italian-American agent named Dom Pagnotti (who also has a brother named Lonzo). The mode is full of choices that affect Freq’s life, and that in itself would be a huge plus, but the problem is that none of them will be within your reach.
That’s right, at some point you’re faced with the decision of whether to drop out of school after freshman year and draft, complete with your own interlude, and shortly thereafter watch the draft for yourself without understanding what’s happening. And then, voila, here’s Freq caught by a team. In short, the choice is there, but Spike Lee made it for you.
The range of different modes and ways to enjoy the NBA experience is huge. It’s hard to imagine what else Visual Concepts could invent to further enrich the pack.
The same goes for agent selection and behavior: forget about deciding how to behave, as whatever you choose to do off the field, your reputation will eventually deteriorate. All of this certainly serves to create the tensions that drive the story, but the practical effect is that little (very little) is played out, while squabbles, clichés, monologues, and skits play themselves out.
School career and freshman year of the NBA are condensed into 3 high school games, 4 in college and 8 in major league and at the end of this first round of racing the mode returns to more familiar territory and gives us full control over our operations, also part-time.
Managing contacts, attending events organized by sponsors, following social media, training, or deciding to spend free time with companions or other characters are all operations that you can choose from on rest days and present the opportunity , to shape our ascent by earning additional credits or by improving our skills.
Unfortunately, the first part of the career has another flaw that is not immediately apparent, namely the synthesis of the first year in the NBA. This means you won’t be able to play any games until the following season or after the first year of free agency, with the roster being inevitably changed by the market, sometimes in not very believable ways.
Fortunately, the career mode is certainly not the only one available and the offer of NBA 2K16 in this sense is even richer than in the past, so even newcomers to the series could get confused in the huge array of menus thanks to the lack of an advanced one Tutorial section that can better explain all the available offer and illustrate the commands.
My Park mode, ideal for instantly starting online play, goes through simply selecting one of the three available “factions” before jumping into the fields where you play from free-for-all in 3 to group matches can, always what you want appreciate the street ball. On the other hand, if you are looking for official names and stadiums, NBA 2K16 offers the possibility to manage practically everything that characterizes the league at all levels and even in the role of the GM of your favorite team, to simulate seasons and design all-round decisions, including the Possibility to transfer the excess to another city.
2K Pro-Am, on the other hand, allows you to create a quintet to compete with online, thoroughly specifying aspects such as jerseys, home floor, and accompanying sounds (by making the team president a friend, you can customize some things as well during your Career); My Team can briefly be called the equivalent of FIFA Ultimate Team, with attached and connected, especially the time it takes to be able to afford packs of relief cards. Of course, there are always microtransactions, which can also be a simple shortcut for the development of your player, who is born with rather low values due to the shortness of the first year of his career, but the virtual currency can still be obtained without any problems, after a while Grind.
In addition to the offer, the presentation can also be said to be improved: 2K Sports speaks of 10,000 new animations and although it is difficult for everyone to count them, what is happening in the field seems to have actually evolved. Players are also more diversely built, and the impacts between bodies provide a very effective sense of weight and inertia: it’s not uncommon for a Sim Bhullar, or other particularly powerful center, to knock down opponents and companions due to their size when attempting to block, but in general, all reactions to contacts are more realistic.
The AI’s behavior is also more alert, which is particularly noticeable during pick and roll, when defenders try to avoid the block either low or high, depending on the situation. The defense phase is always quite difficult to master, since the AI tends to use only a few meters of space well to the marked. From this perspective, there is no lack of progress and more credible action is being taken.
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Graphically, the players’ rendering is, as always, at a very high level, and even the most important second rows have been rendered more carefully than in the past. The engine might not start out quite well with the facial animations, which are a bit stiff overall, but there’s not much to complain about in that regard.
Game coverage is very rich, including pre- and post-game analysis, as well as courtside interviews between quarters, coach briefings in the locker room at halftime, and the occasional cheerleader dance. Some of these sections could perhaps be a bit more curated and less conformist: Personally, I’d rather see a Gregg Popovich respond to an interview with his classic 3-4 words of ritual, or Shaquille O’Neal go wild in the studio with them instead. digital counterparts too plastered and faithful to the written script, but I’ll admit it’s awkwardness… awkwardness that could, however, be the next step for a sim that seems to be looking for the next step in reproducing the league ever more faithfully to what is inspired.
Visual Concepts also seems to have reached the goal well from a technical point of view (although we report various complaints regarding the PC version that we have not been able to try): some patches are certainly needed to fix small problems such as a broken game when the players ready to enter the field of play in online modes or simply to replace the portraits of GMs that are randomly generated and completed with the sweat that generally characterizes athletes during the ongoing game.
The elements that would have to be worked on are few but important: first of all we point out the uploads, which are not only lengthy but also frequent and, with the continuous saving of the profile on the 2K servers, excessively dilute the experience. The online has been behaving reasonably well so far after struggling for the first few days, but the fact that currency is also stored remotely increases the risk of many features becoming unavailable, especially during peak traffic times.
The polygonal models are generally more accurate, as are those of the main reserves and the characters on the sidelines.
The lack of well-developed tutorials should not be underestimated: NBA 2K16, like its predecessors, is a game that offers controls with a thousand nuances, but does not lead the player to the basics. Those who are already experienced with the series won’t have too much trouble adapting to the changes, but newcomers will need to check out the list of commands or some external tutorials to learn how to use the repertoire of moves available .
Small final signal for the European teams, as always predictably limited in the game’s overall economy, but it is understandable that in a game dedicated to the American professional league this is not the main focus of developers and publishers.
In conclusion, in many ways NBA 2K16 represents a small step forward for the series, which is penalized more than anything by the unfortunate experiment of the new MyCareer mode and historical problems that are being felt more and more. In the closing credits of the MyCareer arc, Spike Lee himself says he had an interesting experience and lesson in the making of digital feature film, but perhaps it would be good for the industry to see that cinema and video games are thriving. established tracks. are different and that trying to bring them together at any cost can do more harm than anything else.
The desire to break new ground is commendable, but with the range of modes and customization options now at their absolute maximum, we hope that the now-familiar problematic aspects of the series will be smoothed out as soon as possible, making everything more enjoyable and tearing down those small walls , which have to be constantly climbed, whether it is a long load or an offline server. After all, even champions are constantly working on the basics.
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