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Graphically, this game is outstanding. The player models are excellent, and the marquee stars look almost life-like when they appear on-screen. To add to that, the players perspire throughout the game, and seeing a player’s sweat-drenched jersey towards the end of a hard-fought battle just adds that sweet sense of realism to it all. It isn’t uniform though, a player who only got off the bench for a few minutes will have a considerably dryer jersey than a starter who played 35+ minutes, and that kind of attention to detail is good to see.
There are some issues, however. Lesser known players, understandably, don’t have the same kind of effort put into them. The skin-tone bug rears its ugly head again, Carlos Arroyo and Daniel Green from the Heat and Cavs respectively, being the victims this time, like so. You’ll also notice that Rick Adelman, the Rockets head coach, is translucent. Really. On a more positive note, courts and arenas have been updated, and look great as ever. As do the lighting effects, especially the on-court reflections. It’s not a massive improvement over 2K9, but it’s an improvement nonetheless.
The animations aren’t quite as stellar. They’re fine individually, but it’s the transitions between animations that look extremely clunky. Players try crossovers and half-spins on their defenders, and then teleport back to their original position. When players like Tony Parker drive the lane hard and then dish out to the perimeter, the ball travels at an almost impossible speed to the pass receiver. A player streaking up court with the ball on a fast break will mysteriously slow down near the basket, even when there isn’t a defender in sight. These are just a few of the issues, and the overall quality seems to have regressed when compared to earlier games.
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The biggest problem though, is the framerate drops. In certain arenas, the framerate goes down considerably when on a fast break, playing in the post, or taking free throws. While it isn’t as noticeable on the PS3, the PC and (I’d imagine) the Xbox 360 versions suffer majorly. The 76ers arena is particularly terrible. There were moments when the ball was in my Center’s hands one moment, and was in the basket the next. It gets tiring adjusting shot and free throw releases for certain arenas and situations, and while this was fixed with a patch, it could’ve been fixed easily pre-release with adequate QA testing, something I’ll get to later.
Disturbingly, the gameplay, which has long been the USP of the series, has regressed as well. Problems from 2K9 remain unfixed, and a few new ones show up. It is still far too easy to score in the paint. You could play an entire game just posting up or driving/slashing, not take a single perimeter shot, and still win. That just doesn’t happen in the NBA. Also, the CPU tries too many alley-oops, and it’s too easy to score with them yourself. The gameplay is noticeably more offence-oriented this time around, because the AI will not man-mark effectively. On the flipside, your players will sometimes miss wide open layups or great shooters on a hot streak will miss wide open jumpers. These are real momentum killers, and could end up costing you the game, especially when the CPU is shooting 65% and knocking down contested threes like nobody’s business.
The AI does some inexplicable things, too. It will casually dribble backcourt or out of bounds and turn the ball over, or park itself in the lane for way more than three seconds. Only some of the three second violations are called though, and as one of the worst implemented rules in the NBA in real life, it is realistic in its own warped way. These are just out of the box complaints though, and with the patch fixing most of these issues and custom sliders the gameplay is incredibly realistic, and the two new features benefit that a great deal.
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The biggest gameplay change is the new turbo meter. Gone are the days when you could just sprint with Kobe or Lebron and dunk on defenders’ heads all day. Once you exhaust the turbo meter, you’ll start eating into the player’s stamina, and that will cause him to be completely knackered. He’ll then have to stay on the bench longer to recover his energy. This is a neat addition, because you have to manage your players effectively, or they won’t last the whole game, or more importantly, the whole season thanks to accumulated fatigue. Couple this with the new playcalling system and you have a game that rewards you if you play a half-court offence, as opposed to just arcade style running and gunning all the time.
Where the game really shines though, is the presentation, and that’s thanks to one of the two big new features, NBA Today. This is both a game mode and an in-game feature, so it’s important not to confuse the two. The game mode stays very true to its name. You can play any of the games that are scheduled on that day in the real-life NBA, and the rosters (trades, injuries, form) are updated frequently via the Living Rosters feature. This is all free, by the way, unlike FIFA’s Live Season.
The in-game NBA Today is an overlay system that shows up at various points in the games, across all game modes. Similar to Live’s Dynamic DNA, these overlays highlight stats leaders (player and team), upcoming schedules of the two teams involved, season records and even advertise upcoming games not involving the two teams. While this might not look all that flash at first glance, its real hook is that the commentary reacts to it.
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For example, when an overlay shows up highlighting Chauncey Billups as one of the assist leaders in the season, the commentary team of Kevin Harlan and Clark Kellogg talk about how he’s helping the team by being a leader and a court general. Similarly, they’ll talk about the pros and cons of an uptempo offence when discussing the Nuggets’ high scoring average. They’ll even comment on important games towards the tail end of a playoff race. While it may get repetitive at times, it’s a small price to pay for contextual commentary in a video game. Yes, I really did just say “contextual commentary” in a sport video game review.
The commentary is excellent in other areas too. They’ll react to a player’s performance in any area, be it three-point shooting, turnovers, bench points or assists etc, and never is it off the mark. Cheryl Miller’s sideline reports are back, and again, the coach’s comments are contextual.
Next page: IVG verdict
Crowd noise is great. You’ll hear the front rowers egging their team on, you’ll hear the crowd erupt when the home team hits a clutch basket, you’ll even hear them chant “MVP” when one of their players who has played really well goes to the charity stripe. Add to this the TV style replays and post-play cuts, and NBA 2K10 has the closest thing to a TV Broadcast you’ll find in a video game anywhere.
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Again, this is not without its issues. Sometimes the overlay stays on the screen too long obstructing your view of the game, and that is especially frustrating when it’s the standings or the upcoming schedule overlay, because they take up almost the whole screen. But, at the risk of sounding like I’m beating a dead horse, this has been fixed in the patch.
The game modes haven’t changed much, save for one (we’ll get to that shortly). The two modes that you’ll likely spent the most time on are the Association and the new My Player modes. The Association is NBA 2K’s Franchise mode, and it’s excellent as always. Its already incredible depth was increased further with the new NBDL integration, and now you have to develop your young players properly and give them good minutes, or they won’t progress. Apart from that, there’s nothing new to write home about, apart from the aforementioned NBA Today making the overall experience better.
The game’s biggest addition is also its best. My Player is 2K10’s RPG component, and it is by far the most addictive mode in a sports game ever. You create a player, choose a position and play style, and partake in the uphill struggle to become an NBA pro. At first, you take part in the Summer League. If you impress a few people, you’re invited to an NBA training camp and if you perform well enough there, you make the step up to the NBA. If not, you’re sent down to the D-League to hone your skills before you eventually get a call-up.
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When I said uphill struggle, I meant it. My Player is incredibly challenging, especially in the early stages, because your player is terrible. Not “not as good as an all star”, but downright horrible. He’s comfortably the worst player in the game’s world when you start, with his overall sitting pretty at a paltry 40. You can improve him by playing well in the games, completing objectives and milestones, and accumulating Skill Points, a la XP. And believe me, it takes ages to get your player to a good enough level.
What makes this mode good is how much of a hand-in-glove fit it is to the game of basketball. You’re one of only 10 people on the court at any given time, and you are heavily involved in every play, be it offence or defence (man-marking). The rating you receive is a “team-mate grade” that changes with every action you make on the court. Of course, this includes taking good shots, making good passes, dishing out assists and getting rebounds. However, this game rewards you for being a good team-mate. The little things that a casual wouldn’t notice, like boxing out, challenging shots and setting screens, are rewarded too. This is in stark contrast to the individualist tendencies of a sport video gamer.
The game does penalise you for the stupidest of things, however. It’ll mark you negatively for “holding on to the ball too long”, which is ridiculous when you’re a point guard bringing the ball up the court and holding on to it while the team sets up its offence. Also, regardless of how good you are, it is stupid to expect you to hold Bryant to 10 points in a game. That really doesn’t take anything away from the overall experience of the mode, though.
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What’s surprising is the amount of depth this mode has. Unlike FIFA’s Be A Pro, where no player transactions happen, the NBA GMs will trade merrily, like usual. For example, my Mavs GM traded Josh Howard for Kevin Martin, and signed Big Z from free agency, which was really smart because we didn’t have a good Center. I can’t wait for the off-season when Kidd retires (I forced him into it by taking his starter spot), and Dampier and Dirk’s contracts expire. I wonder what kind of moves the GM will make. When a sports game mode builds up this kind of anticipation in you, instead of getting stale after a few weeks, it’s a very good thing.
Unlike everything else though, this mode was completely broken pre-patch. You couldn’t set the number of minutes each quarter had, which completely skewered the stats against you, because the rest of the league was playing 12 minutes a quarter, while you were playing 5! Also, there was a clone glitch where your player would get cloned and halve your stats when you switched teams, and the small matter of the game freezing during off-season. Seriously, these things should’ve been tested beforehand, considering it was a new feature.
The game has a function where you can crew up with different players and form a team with your My Players, which is a lot like the clan systems in FPS games. You then take on other crews and rise in rank, as you accumulate wins. However, the other parts of the online component aren’t very good. You can’t use custom sliders online, which means ranked games will be full of “cheesers” as the 2K community calls it, who just score in the paint all day. And that’s if you actually connect to someone, what with the netcode being as terrible as it is.
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Other things include the menu, which while giving the system the overhaul it needed came with the side-effect of being ugly as hell, and the soundtrack which is very serviceable, even to non hip-hop fans.
Conclusion
NBA 2K10 is a really fun game to play, with immense replay value thanks to the Association and My Player modes. However, it is a let down because of the potential it had of being the best sports game ever (it still makes a very strong case when patched and used with custom sliders). Out of the box though, it is nothing but a rushed and untested game with a couple of nice ideas. And in a country like India, where the majority of gamers are PC users (where the patch is still in development with no date of release set), or people who don’t have their consoles hooked up the net, that really doesn’t cut it.
(+) Fantastic presentation, almost TV Broadcast quality
(+) Incredibly deep Association and My Player modes
(+) Still the most realistic sim experience around when patched and used with custom sliders
(-) Buggy as hell out of the box
(-) Below-par online component
(-) Ugly menus
Title: NBA 2K10
Developer/Publisher: 2K Sports
Genre: Sports
Rating: 3+
Platforms: PS3 (Rs 2,499), Xbox 360 (Rs 2,499), PC (Rs 699)
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