The Best Gets Better
Year to year, it’s up to the the developers to focus on making their next offering for a sports game more than just a roster update. A couple of weeks ago, I ran a preview article on NBA 2K9 where after having a chance to talk with the developers in a conference call, I described many of the new features and changes found in this year’s version of NBA 2K. When the guys at Visual Concepts described how so many changes and improvements were made and that they believe this year, for the first time, they’re offering the ‘total package,’ I took note. Sure, many of these changes are fairly minor and if you haven’t been playing the series for a few years or aren’t a big NBA fan, you may not even notice or care about some them. On the other hand, for 2K fans like me, it’s a noticeable step forward.
So perhaps the biggest addition this year is an online feature known as Living Rosters. With Living Rosters, you can allow your game to connect to 2K’s servers to retrieve weekly updates regarding player ratings, tendencies, rosters, and even unlock new animation packages depending on how players are performing in real life. You also get to participate in user polls and read up on the latest news and 2K Insider’s blog posts – just check out the screenshots for more information.
Let me use an example as to how the player ratings feature of Living Rosters works. Take a rookie who’s performance in college has built up a lot of hype about how good he might do in his rookie season in the NBA. He was great in college, so his player rating out of the box for 2K9 is pretty good – but as the real NBA season goes on, maybe he won’t be so good; or maybe he’ll perform like another Lebron. Depending on what happens in real life, the ratings, tendencies, and available animations will change in the game, cool stuff. These new animations allow for more snazzy looking plays, but unfortunately these unlocked animations are not available in online play because for online play, a common or equivalent roster must be used across each console. And while it may not be updated quite as often as NBA Live’s service, you don’t have to pay any more for it – EA is charging an additional $20 for their similar service. Living Rosters is also integrated in such a way that it requires exceedingly little or no input from you; it’s all handled in the background. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how well this feature works throughout the NBA season.
The online feature of Living Rosters is a good segway into discussing other NBA 2K9 features. For the first time, you can play full five-on-five basketball with up to ten consoles, which sounds awesome if you can find a group of gamers who are dedicated to playing as a team. The developers admitted that there isn’t anything directly they can do to ensure that you’ll play with team-players, but did indicate that there would be a rating system whereby players get marks for playing as a ball hog or loner or as a team player. As is the case with most online ventures, it shouldn’t be very long for a dedicated community to start forming teams, so I have confidence that this feature is going to work out pretty darn well for itself.
Good teams require players that know their roles, when they have the ball, are defending the ball handler, and all times in between. One new feature I love is that in multiplayer games, CPU players on the opponents team have the same color ring at their feet as human controlled players. This is so that you know who you’re technically supposed to guard, and this helps out a lot to keep defense straight amongst multiple human players.
NBA 2K9 is packed with controls that cover every scenario for players with and without the ball, on offense and on defense. The manual is an improvement from last year by far, but it’s still more of a list of controls via a dozen or so tables than much else. Heck, even the manual states that NBA 2K9 is a complicated game with a lot of controls and it provides a web address to their site where you can find a more up to date and complete manual. That said, the sheer number of motions is simply amazing; all matter of shots from floaters to leaners are supported, ‘up and unders,’ ‘step throughs,”hopsteps,’ ‘dropsteps,’ they’re all here and can flow into one another in a lot of occasions. There are many controls for players without the ball on offense too, including functions for making moves in the paint and on the perimeter to get open and slip out from coverage. Most controls involve using the some combination of R2, L2, and either one or both of the thumbsticks, but you must also be aware of the situation too, involving the direction your player is facing, what hand is controlling the ball, and so forth.
Coupled with the improved, or should I say, expanded, right thumbstick functions, the number of controls in NBA 2K9 is staggering. However, it’s not necessary to know how to do each one, and I can say from trying that it’s very hard, at least for me, to do a lot of these really intricate moves consistently. Still, it’s cool that for the true hardcore fan, there are so many intricate options for players with and without the ball.
Create A Player, D-Lock, Association 2.0
The Create A Player option has been expanded in interesting ways to help solve a problem the developers saw in sharing created players. Called 2K Share, you can now upload your created player to 2K, where it will be viewable other users, who can then download it. At the time of this writing, I haven’t spent any time trying this new feature out, but it sounds simple enough that it should solve the problem of sharing created players.
Another enhancement comes in the form of an improved D-Lock system. D-Lock itself isn’t new, but it’s changed this year in such a way to help exploit mismatches rather than encourage them. A large center trying to guard a small swift point guard isn’t going to cut it this time, and the D-Lock will essentially break, allowing the point guard to slip by the larger defender, which honestly is more realistic than not. Players can keep an eye on their D-Lock status with the small icon that appears next to the defended player when the D-Lock is initiated.
The Association is basically 2K’s Franchise mode, and this year they’re showing off version 2.0. I like the overhauled interface that features small, efficient menus that, with a few button presses, can get you into the gritty details of whatever you’re looking to change, be it individual gameplay sliders or roster stats. This year is also the first time I have used the Association mode, or heck, any Franchise mode for any game. You can have the CPU handle most tasks for you, like drafting or salary negotiations, or you can have full control of it all. I think each player will easily be able to find a nice balance for themselves that lets them get the most out of their experience.
Thus far in my seasons, I’ve gone to the trading block a few times, and it’s clear that the AI here has been changed from recent years. The AI will no longer accept just about any trade you put their way, which again is a more simulation and realistic feature than not, so I’m cool with that. There are also three way trade possibilities, although I haven’t experimented with this yet.
Association 2.0 also integrates NBA.com. In between games, an RSS feed style view of NBA.com is presented, with recent news involving happenings from your own season. It’s cool to see a headline along the lines of “McGrady powers Rockets past Suns in OT” or something like that after you just played said game.
Other Thoughts
I suppose no discussion of a new sports title is complete without mentioning graphical changes. The graphics from 2K8 to 2K9 aren’t earth shattering, but they certainly are significantly better. Player models look more realistic than ever, and that goes for the coaches, too. New animations took me by surprise and wowed me; the way players react when bumping into one another in the lane during a foul or big dunk is just great. You’ll no doubt notice other subtle details during play that further impress upon you how solid of an NBA sim this is.
Changes in the audio department include a new color commentator and side line reporter. Cheryl Miller is roaming the sidelines while Clark Kellogg takes over for Kenny Smith in the color commentator seat. Kevin Harlan reprises his role from last year, and the commentary is a step up from last year. Many of the same lines are used, some of which get old (i.e., “this should be the highlight of the week..no, the month, no the year!”), but Kellogg does a better job of providing concrete, informative analysis than does Kenny Smith.
As far as complaints or negative aspects, I don’t have that many. Most importantly, most of my issues aren’t with the core gameplay itself. I will bring up that I agree with many out there in that free throws are still a pain in the neck to be consistent at, unless you’re shooting with a great free throw shooter. For me, anyone who’s percentage lingers below the 80s is likely going to miss more often than not. Also, any time my team inbounds the ball after a timeout, there seems to be a very high chance that the inbounder will just fling the ball to the other side of the court and out of bounds, I had this problem in 2K8 as well.
Also, I wish replays were longer and easier to save. Throughout the season there are so many wonderful highlights, and I have dozens and dozens of saved replays from NBA 2K6, 2K8, and now already in 2K9 I have about twenty. I wish that replays could last longer than the fifteen or so seconds that they do, in fact I wish the entire game could be saved for later reviewing and playback enjoyment. It’d also be nice if replays could be automatically saved with just a button press, rather than having to press save, name the file, confirm you want to save, then confirm the confirmation that the file was saved.
Gamers should also be aware that the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions are identical to one another this year in every way. And, for the first time, 2K is bringing the action to the PC for $19.99, although interestingly it lacks any online play.
Let’s wrap up…