NBA 2K15 is the year’s best sports games
NBA 2K15 steps onto the court as the reigning champion of basketball sims, but it’s a champion with an asterisk next to its name due to the extended server debacle of last year. Some of those online issues are repeated this year, which cripples some of NBA 2K15’s coolest features. But thanks to some good tweaks and the outstanding MyCareer mode, it’s still a game I can recommend as a strong offline basketball game. Your position on the court, your player’s shooting prowess, and how open you are all factor into the new shot meter that sits beneath the player’s feet. The better your situation, the wider the window for you to let loose a high-percentage shot. You can still knock down a contested jumper from 25 feet, but this indicator gives you a better sense of why certain shots hit while others kick off the rim. The meter also eliminates the frustration that used to come along with mastering each player’s specific stroke. Kobe Bryant and Nicolas Batum have vastly different releases, and previous NBA 2K entries forced you to know each athlete’s timing in order to hit consistently. This time around, you can much more easily determine your release point from the simple on-screen indicator.
Granted, the gameplay has always been NBA 2K's best feature, so it not seeing any major upgrades isn't a huge deal. That said, there are some strange issues I've seen creep up in modes outside of just offline exhibition matches. When playing games in MyPlayer or MyGM mode, I've often found that shots I would normally make with relative ease would just start missing late in games, seemingly out of nowhere. I'm talking about open looks, clean runs through the paint to make a layup, with only the lightest contact with defenders. The kind of stuff you just shouldn't miss. I've also run into a frequent issue in online match-ups with defenses suddenly just forgetting how to rebound. Over the course of several games, I watched repeatedly as defenders surrounding the basket just stared as the ball banked off the glass or the rim, and bounced right to the ground with no one making a move on it. The online game has its share of lag, but this seemed more like A.I. simply finding itself unable to process what it was supposed to do in that situation. I never saw this happen once in any offline game, but it happened quite a bit when competing online.
In previous iterations, your performance in the pre-draft game(s) would be graded, and those grades would influence your draft stock, but you wouldn’t have complete control of where you land. 2K15 gives you the option of joining any team in the league, which allows you to pick the best situation for your fledgling virtual pro. If you simply want to play for your favorite team, you can, but you can also pick a squad that needs help at your position, allowing you to earn a starting spot earlier in your career. I played as a shooting guard and chose to go to the Minnesota Timberwolves, where I only needed to beat out Kevin Martin in the rotation. In 2K14, I might have been drafted to the Lakers and stuck behind Kobe Bryant until I demanded a trade. It’s a night-and-day difference, and makes MyCareer much more enjoyable in the early stages.
This is why NBA 2K15 exists. Create a player, watch him get snubbed in the draft, pick a team with a roster spot up for grabs, get a 10-day contract, prove yourself in garbage time, become a starter, and work your way up the NBA ladder. It’s an incredibly compelling storyline that instantly draws you in. The in-game grading system - which rewards positioning just as much as scoring - determines how well you’ve played and whether or not you’re ready to take the next step in the team’s rotation. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how intuitive the game is, often acknowledging good team defense even when the shot drops (it really knows if you’re doing the right thing). Then, of course, there’s MyPark mode, which allows your player to interact with other fake ballers on the virtual playground (though lag renders this option less fun than it could be). But MyCareer is about as much fun as you can have in a sports video game. Bottom-line: You don’t need to play strangers online if you want to enjoy this game.
NBA 2K15 is completely intertwined with the real sport. The presentation is so good there are even promo vignettes before matches, and they’re different every time. There are half-time interviews with a sideline reporter. A studio with punditry. The commentary is outstanding. Allow yourself to get pulled into the show, and it’s hard to see where real life finishes and NBA 2K starts. It's the best sports series on earth. By a distance. If the guts of the game are available, NBA 2K15 is the best sports title of the year, by a New York mile. The design choices at its edges - either needlessly making offline features dependent on online access, or insufficiently supporting the dedicated online modes - stain what is otherwise a role model for all sports video games.
