It’s around that time when the NBA 2K brand comes out with its annual basketball game that has sports gamers salivating.
For starters, the broadcasting that you would normally hear in NBA: 2K16 would be the likes of Clark Kellog, Greg Anthony and Kevin Harlin. 2K17 brings new people to the table like Doris Burke, who would only do halftime interviews but is now doing the color commentary. Some new additions that have never been in the game include former NBA players like Chris Webber, Steve Smith, and Brent Barry. David Aldridge also took over the role that Doris Burke had in previous games.
In My Career, which is a gameplay where you create your own player and hopefully win a championship, there are a lot of new features that has never been brought before. For starters, the halftime reports as well as post game interviews have always been held with the TNT crew of Shaquille O’ Neal, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith in the past, but this game expands on how different the interviews can go.
According to Samit Sarkar of Polygon.com, the game will include a bunch of new cut scenes like never before: “You’ll chat with them at halftime and after games. Developer Visual Concepts is also adding more than 200 clips of coaches talking with players on the sideline during games — plus facial and body animations to match — as well as over 150 new recordings of halftime and postgame interviews with coaches and players.”
A brand’s gameplay flow always resonates the reaction of the fans, and 2k17’s flow of the game is almost unmatched. It’s almost as if, from a distance, one would confuse the gameplay for a real life NBA broadcast.
A problem with last year’s game was that the dribble moves were always overpowered and playing online was even worse. This year, a gamer would have to perfect how to maneuver their console sticks in order to create a desired dribble move. But not to worry, the defense can actually keep up with the players in the game who have sick ball-handling skills. It’s almost as if the game is somehow harder, yet more simple.
In previous games, either the offense was overpowered and the defense was too hard to maintain, or the buttons limited how much you can actually do on the game, but this year it seems different.
It also has to be noted that in order to be great at the game, one has to actually sit there and know how to dribble, how to defend and do other various moves. Before, I could easily just press a few buttons and it would be easy to win a game by 20 points, but this game is different. It’s almost as if you are forced to play team basketball instead of for example, picking the Golden State Warriors and letting it rain 3’s.
I would give this game a 9 out of 10 just because the game has widely improved, from the face scans of players, to the graphics of the game, all the way to the post-game interviews. NBA: 2K17 hit stores on September 20th and its retail price starts at sixty dollars.
