Review: NBA 2K16

To begin, let me just say that NBA 2K16 is strange.

For a game that looks more realistic and life-like than any other sports simulator, 2K16 starts off by presenting a weird, cartoon-like player. He outmanoeuvres seemingly evil, red-eyed opponents as he traverses a mountainside – always dribbling, never travelling – until reaching its summit. There, he battles the most evil basketball demon ever to exist, Michael Jordan, for some reason I have yet to really understand.

From there, it doesn’t get any more normal. Playing on an Xbox One, the game’s MyPlayer system kicked in, offering me the chance to scan my own face to use in-game. Before we get to my experience, let’s just throw up this video that highlights how easy the scan is to perform:

My attempt? Well, it was the stuff of nightmares.

It took me thirty minutes to even get the box around my head to turn green. I tried multiple light sources and angles. Nada.

Almost ready to give up, one last-ditch attempt actually began the scanning process. I waited with bated breath as my face was recreated on-screen… and almost screamed in horror at what was produced:

Still, that’s what the game decided I looked like, so I went with it. I promise it wasn’t the result of the game trying to mimic the look of frustration on the “before” photo I chose to include above, either.

NBA 2K16 is, as its cover proudly declares, “A Spike Lee Joint”. Jumping into MyCareer, the man himself jumped on-screen, interrupting four motion capture actors who were busy recording footage for cutscenes. Lee yelled out, “Shazam!” – no, seriously – and went from live-action to in-game model alongside the voice actors. Then, my monster-me was inserted in place of one of the motion capture models… and there I was: a white man named Steve Wright, professional circus freak, inexplicably living with a black family in Harlem.

Actually, I was a dude nicknamed “Freq”, but why split hairs at this point?

MyCareer, which I assumed would be about my rise into and through the NBA, suddenly became about me living-but-not through a scenario Lee had filmed for 2K. It was jarring to say the least.

As I’m familiar with basketball, but not really one to play in real-life or on consoles, I used my first high-school-centric MyCareer games learning how things work. That’s code for “I sucked, and how”, yet MyCareer didn’t seem to mind. Even though I was throwing bricks and lost games at some record-setting level, my siblings were super proud of me and scouts were banging at my front door, all clamouring to sign me at the college level. This origin story, combined with my grotesque appearance (and the fact that I was about two feet taller than those around me) made high school and college ball hilarious to take part in.

Long story short, it didn’t gel. Comparing MyCareer to NHL 16’s Be A Pro, which I can’t help but do, NBA falls flat. In NHL, every little thing you do matters; in NBA, that’s simply not the case until you get through said Spike Lee Joint. You’re on a script until you’re actually drafted into the big league, and it’s there and only there where your skills and decision-making actually count.

Weirdness aside, it’s easy to see why NBA 2K is preferred over NBA Live. Improvements have been made across the board, from a new bounce pass (read: that even I could master), enhanced MyGM offerings and a reappearance of online leagues. Controls are easy enough to pick up, yet you know those with a true appreciation of the sport will be able to perform circles around you.

Despite the strange opening cartoon, the rest of the game could easily be mistaken for an actual broadcast at any point. It’s the little things that really stand out, too; it may because I’m an NHL gamer and collision detection to me means seeing two people smash into one another and tumble to the ground, but it’s amazing to see two basketballers jostle for position in the key.

NBA 2K16 is a tight little unit. While the strangeness surrounding MyCareer will distract you, some time spent with the game will prove itself as a technical marvel. As such, it comes highly recommended to basketball fans.

NBA 2K16 was reviewed using a promotional code on Xbox One, as provided by the publisher.

Review: NBA 2K16

The good Once you get past the weird, it’s hard to deny everything is polished and tight.	The bad The first handful of hours of MyCareer are weird and scripted as hell.

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