Back for another round
One expects a bit of “sameness” with annual sports titles. They’re on a tight development schedule and generally are only expected to make major overhauls when they aren’t any good (like the oft-maligned WWE 2K series). NBA 2K19 was a very good sports game. The game certainly didn’t need a major overhaul for this year’s version to be a success. It’s a good thing too, because from the menus to the create-a-player and the overall feel of the game itself, it didn’t get one. The areas where changes were made are pretty hit and miss. The new shot aiming feature is a big bust for me (even post patch), and while I enjoyed my time in this year’s My Career mode I liked last years storyline much better. With that said, the dribbling this year feels much improved over last year, and I like the way the Neighborhood looks more this time around as well. At its core though the one major change that needed to be made, the series complete overreliance on microtransactions, is unfortunately somehow even worse than last year’s game. That takes a bit of the shine off what is still, at least on court, one of the industries premier sports simulations.
Let’s start off on the court. The game still plays like NBA 2K. Passing is as accurate and intuitive as ever, making it easy and fun to weave in really smart plays and slick assists. The pick and roll game continues to be strong, and the off-ball player AI is solid. I will say that I feel like the player AI in the My Career mode feels tweaked too hard toward maximizing the career player’s production. I can understand this emphasis, no one is playing My Career for everyone else on the team to put up all the points, but when it leads to inconsistent (and some times downright dumb) behavior it can mean the difference between a win and a loss in a tight game. I found my teammates to be way to quick to pass the ball to my character, even sometimes passing the ball back to me in coverage even when I had just passed to them. This is an area I hope gets tweaked next year. Again, give me plenty of chances to show off my game, but do it in a realistic way.
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: XB1 (reviewed), PS4
The topic that will get the most attention in this year’s game is the new Shot Aiming mechanic. This option (which can be turned off) allows more experienced players the chance to add aiming the shot to the already existing meter timing mechanic. The game very quickly got a patch post release to fix some issues with the shooting, but I still found shooting up close to the basket to be more difficult than last years game. Also, as someone who generally uses the button shooting mechanic, it feels like that method is nerfed this year to encourage people to switch to the stick. I don’t mind the new meter visually, although it tends to make more sense to me vertically based on the nature of a jump shot. All in all shooting feels slightly more difficult to me this year than last year. Some will think that’s a positive, but for me it made last years game a more enjoyable experience.
All the things one expects from an annual sports game are here, including GM and My Team (the collectable card mode). I personally am not a fan of collectable card stuff in these games, but folks who are into that will find a mode that is very similar to last years game.
By far the area I spent most of my time with the game in is My Career. One of the best things about last year’s game was the story that they crafted around a young player and the theme of standing up for what is right even when it has personal consequences was perfectly timed. This year’s game certainly packs less of a punch. It’s a well-acted but ultimately boring story of a young man who is living in the shadow of his father, who was the hero of his college team but was not drafted in the NBA. The story also manages to weave in a romance and an accompanying amount of cheesy drama. The game does allow you more time in high school/college this year, but I found the undraftable underdog working his way to the NBA from the previous year much more engaging.
One thing that helps to undermine My Career mode this year is the fact that the story feels almost completely disconnected from the player’s performance on the court. My player put up a 35 point/10 assist college game, only to be told after the game that more games like that would cause my draft stock to suffer. To know that the game had a specific narrative that it wanted to tell in that moment, so it just pretended like I played poorly took me out completely. This happened several times over the course of the mode and it just feels like the team at 2K has taken the (generally) positive feedback around their narrative career modes and thrown the budget at the narrative and not the actual on court career.
Another returning feature is the online “Neighborhood”, accessible once players reach the NBA with their My Career character. This mode is functionally similar to last year’s mode, with some aesthetic changes, allowing one to play online with other My Career players in pick-up style games to earn additional badge points and VC.
Now we get into my least favorite aspect of this game, the overreliance on virtual currency. VC is used for almost everything people care about in the game, most particularly additional card packs for the My Team mode and (egregiously) My Player upgrades. Player begin the My Career mode rated 60, making even wide open shots much more difficult to hit and rendering them into a bench player at best. Players can earn VC to upgrade your stats but the rate at which it is earned is glacially slow. This means that by the time a player finishes the My Career story and ends up in the NBA, they will still be woefully inadequate, that is unless they pay real money for additional VC to upgrade them faster. The game provides multiple opportunities to do so, either by buying VC directly or by buying an upgraded edition of the game. I was provided the highest level edition of the game for review (Mamba Forever), which netted me a considerable amount of disposable VC at my discretion. I purposely didn’t use it however, so that I could see how the game progressed naturally. Once I had a good feel for how the game played as a level 60 player, and had a good sense of how fast the VC was earned, I spend a large amount of VC to boost my player to a level 80.
The amount of VC that I spent was around 50k, about half of the VC I was given with the Mamba Forever edition. That’s the equivalent of about $15 worth of VC if I were to have bought it in the store. It would have taken me between 55 and 65 games (pending on draft performance and in game performance) to earn that much VC. Obviously the higher the overall stats go, the more VC players will need to pump each metric up, encouraging them to spend more on VC when their character is in the second or third year of their career and (likely) are more invested in the game.
The fact that the VC earn rate is so stingy really feels pretty gross to me, and it definitely impacted my enjoyment of what is otherwise a very good game. It’s a shame that a game that costs $60, and is not that much functionally different than last years game, feels the need to so aggressively pump its player base for money, but that’s exactly what this feels like. It’s especially egregious when combined with the fact that shooting at lower levels feels more difficult than in past years games, pushing players to upgrade more quickly. The My Player stat boosting feature should be completely decoupled from ANY play to win mechanics going forward, especially since the games primary multiplayer mode the Neighborhood relies so heavily on your My Career player.
NBA 2K21 is a tough game to review. On the court, the game is mostly very good. The passing and dribbling feels excellent and the My Career mode is certainly well-acted. It could easily be a high 8 or 9 if the whole progression system didn’t feel so broken. If you know how aggressive the microtransactions are going in, and are willing to either stall your progress or spend the money, you’ll find a really good on-court game here. If not however, it’s likely to be a very frustrating experience.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
