Review NBA 2K12

NBA 2K12 is very obviously built from the ground up by a team who absolutely adore Basketball. Whether it is the painstakingly detailed intro to Kurtis Blow’s Basketball where we see legends of the game take their most famous of shots or the mode where we as the player actually get to step in to the role of our favourite players from the golden age of the game. With improvements across the board NBA 2K12 sets a new standard for sports games and offers a challenge to others who have failed to replicate the intricacies of Basketball in to a video game in the past.

I went in to NBA 2K12 having not played a Basketball game for over five years, having being burnt by EA’s ignoble yearly cycle that eventually scarred me for a long time, pushing me to more of the arcade style games that are easy to pick up and put down without much need for practice, skill or preparation.

So I waded in with trepidation but was immediately drawn in by a crisp and easy to understand system that allowed me to drop directly in to a game or within seconds, be in one of the multiple modes that are on offer. The light tone and easy soundtrack allowed the game to sneak upon me with six hours of game play that I thoroughly enjoyed during my first session. In that time I had pushed through the exceptional training camp drills that explained the intricacies of the game in a very simple manner, never going deep enough for complete immersion, I think, on purpose, to allow entrance to new players without seeming too out of touch. The sim nature of the game, while present in all parts, lay aside enough of the time that if you just wanted to go through a season or play some legend matches you may never need to dig up those menus.

Understanding controls and understanding game play is two completely different aisles in NBA 2K12, while I started playing with an understanding of how things worked, I wasn’t hand held in to the ground when the game started leaving me a little bemused by the rich gameplay that looks exceptional off the bat. Time has been spent on the intro and tweaks to the gameplay means the game flows at a great pace, pushing you to make the better plays by making excellent use of the games commentary system.

Breaking from regular tradition the commentary team has three members who all bring their own spark to the conversation, a fourth member roams the floor with tidbits from team talks and offers her own point of view. The commentary follows the game and the team offers you advice on what your playing and subtly points you away from bad plays while breaking from the monotony when you pull a big play, nothing more satisfying than when you make a break away dunk and they break in to whoops and hollers. After 30 hours the commentary can get repetitive as there is only so much information the team can rely on to give out during a season but this is easy to digest as it is broken up between player and stat breakdowns as well as a TV broadcast set up that will run down how the rest of the league is shaping up at half time, how the next few games for teams are looking and how players are matching up against their opposites.

While playing as a legend is a massive draw and leading a team through a season is an exciting prospect, I’ve always found the measuring stick for sports games to be in the mode where you take your player through Rookie status and upwards towards becoming a hall of famer. This mode, entitled My Player, replicates a lot of what I loved about NHL ‘09’s system when it was first introduced. The addition of skill points and a true progression system leaves you with some great targets to strive for throughout the game and allows you to really see how far you will go throughout the course of a season. Play a bad game and your penalty will be few points to spend on improving your character, have a super game and be named the “Jordan Player of the Match” and you’ll find a nice pile waiting for you. Pre-Draft and Post game interviews drive you deeper in to the immersion and will make you want to make every play count on the field as you begin to understand how younger players feel, matched up with some of the greatest players of our time in a Rookie season and expected to match their performance. I found the pressure a great driver for me to keep playing the game and is the best example of a player system within a sports game I have ever played, packed with drills and scrimmages for you to improve your player and understanding of the game and your teams strengths.

The gameplay feels solid, looks excellent and although I often had bad matches now and again I could often attribute that too a skill based problem rather than software. The game shipped with numerous problems, such as a transfer bug that will auto shift teams halfway in to a season (The same bug present in the 2011 version) which has vilified fans a lot but after starting and playing three different players through their first season I can say I never encountered or noticed it. The interface through career modes could use a little work to present information better as digging through multiple menus to find the most basic information about my league placements is a pain when I’m checking between each match as we lead directly to the play offs.

The online in 2K games is notorious for its problems and that is no different here. I managed to compete in about half the matches I attempted and, when playing, things went excellently, but once in a lobby there was never a guarantee the match would actually begin.

Although NBA 2K12 isn’t a perfect product I am still holding it up as a shining example of how sports games should be made. This game has been produced by a team who love basketball and are now threatened with no NBA this season which adds a little extra significance to every little strength in the game. 2K have provided a game that is enough to quench peoples need for weekly games and is presented in such an excellent fashion that you may think you’re actually watching your favourite team rather than playing them. Many times I was asked what Basketball I was watching from another room due to the TV broadcast replicated coverage that is spread throughout NBA 2K12 and is exactly why this game is enough of a game to carry the torch alone this year.