A Massive In Your Face Dunk of Fun
The battle for basketball sims between EA Sports and 2KSports has been going on for several years now and heading into the end of this decade, 2K Sports has edged its way into the lead surpassing gameplay and presentation every iteration. For the plug and play, “I have no time to learn how to play” gamers out there the latest tweaks are not anything that will blow you away but because of the bucket full of game modes and solid gameplay, you can count on having a grand time shooting hoops with the top players of the NBA.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Really Basketball - Basketball
Much like the tasty fake butter spray, NBA 2K9 looks outstanding. When you look at this game you’ll simply be amazed, almost to the point that if you were going to casually stroll past a TV while a game was in progress you might not realize it was a video game. The player animations, the animated crowd, coaches and the stadium have all been improved in appearance making for a clean, great looking game. Now a few years into the “next gens” with HDTVs being sort of reasonable, everyone expects a game like this to look good --but 2K9 has outdone itself.
What Else Is New?Seriously Didn’t 2k8 Just Come Out?
Like football, hockey and soccer, both 2K Sports and EA Sports have their hoops games as perennials. As for new stuff, the living rosters and updates will keep your players up to date with their real life counterparts. A little too freaky for a sim? Maybe, but it’s still cool. The real gem of this year's release though has to be how close to reality the gameplay is. We’re talking about everything from player animations to AI interaction to play calling on offense and defense. Simply put, it’s unmatched. On top of that,vastly improved game modes like the Association have been tweaked to beef up the trades and the multiplayer now has the option to play 5 on 5 with a minimum one person per console. How’s that for some wacky online fun?
It’s great but not all gravy
One of these days, not sure when, 2K sports will make the free throws easier. Not that this is a complaint but when you try to have free throws mesh with the shooting styles of the players you end up with the killer talent of Kobe as well as the brick throwing mastery of Shaq. There are some other quirky things that people could pick at if they really wanted to but for ballers and casual sports gamers alike NBA 2K9 serves up another plate of quality basketball gaming that has the depth and replayability you’ve come to expect from this series.
"NBA 2K9 (X360)" is on sale October 7, 2008 and is rated E. Sim.
