NBA 2K18

2017 has been my basketball reawakening. After going on a wild wide with my beloved Houston Rockets, I am back into basketball for the first time since I was a kid in elementary watching the Rockets in the finals against a Jordan-less Bulls. I can understand why NBA 2K is part of the basketball lifestyle: It releases right in time to build on the hype of the upcoming season and recent roster moves. This is my first sports game since the Dreamcast-era so I'm coming into this one with a fresh outlook. My reaction is a mix of awe in quality and disgust in 2K's oppressive design decisions that resemble the worst pay-to-win mobile games.

Here's the good: The game looks, sounds and feels amazing. The novelty of seeing my favorite players square-off against each other never ceases to get old for me. Despite putting many hours into both playing and watching others play, I still suck at the game and can't grasp how to make solid plays (a low basketball IQ doesn't help). Nevertheless, I still managed to have fun when 2K's greed wasn't getting in the way.

MyCareer appears to be the main draw of the series and if this entry is any indication I can't understand why. Between its obnoxious, unskippable cutscenes and mind-numbing grind (you spend more time watching cutscenes than playing in games), I couldn't stomach putting much time into it. Between the haircuts that cost in-game currency (the same you spend to level your character) and multiplayer being opt-in where high-level players will actively avoid low level, the game antagonizes you into spending extra money on currency.

MyTeam is more interesting to me since you get to open card packs (I love card games!) and build a roster. Not a dream roster unless you maxed out your credit card on this game. But this is what I came to 2K for: It helps build my understanding of the current NBA roster, who is good at what and how a good line-up is built. I had a lot of fun discovering what low-budget shooters exist and who can dunk on the best without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, this mode has its own problems that soon soured my fun with it.

The mode does very little in guiding the player so some detrimental mistakes can be made at the start. Even something as simple as buying new packs can be a fatal error (better off spending that coin on the auction house for a sure thing). Losing games because you don't have the right players for a coaching system (this impacts overall player performance) while you lose money so you can't buy new contracts sucks. It's the same greedy design of MyCareer in a new package. Even worse, 2K sold more expensive copies of the game that give you Shaq who is obviously a beast of a center. While he isn't the best in the game, it puts most players in a position of there being an unfair advantage -- this is further damaged by the meta of this game being so centered around dunks (there is almost nothing you can do once a good center posts up). I watched gameplay from current top 5 players online and they all follow this strategy, which is stupid since scoring threes is a more fun game and also more accurate to the current NBA.

The real deathblow to this mode was the offline which I found lacking. I wanted stuff like tournament modes but the closest you get is Domination which is a series of full games against teams. I found this way too difficult as a new player. Once I got to the Knicks, I couldn't do anything to get the win. I probably could but I just got too angry at the game. I just want to play and have fun, not stress about how I don't have the right roster which I can't afford. It's like the game demands you have a beast roster from the start, rather than enjoying a nice slow grind of getting gold and emerld cards. Again, they want you to spend more money! And then you have online which is a complete mess due to constant lag (which further feeds into the dunk game).

While I have a lot of complaints about 2K18, I still think it's a must-have for die-hard NBA fans. Maybe you won't be an obsessive that builds a dream roster in MyTeam, but you can still have fun playing the NBA Today matches and casually messing around for a week or two. If 2K weren't so greedy due to their monopoly on NBA games (maybe Live will change this soon), this could have been a real gem. Instead, it's a solid sports game that comes with a lot of caveats. It's also the first game in a long time I had to stop playing because it made me so angry. The sad thing is that seems to be by design. You mad? How about you buy some VC?