There’s even a nice little overhaul in the career mode in that the choices you make matter.
In career mode, players take the role of a player that is going through his high school, college, and ultimately the professional NBA career. Previous game modes also make a return such as the MyGM and the career mode.
There’s a slight learning curve to the controls and at times you can find a few hiccups, but it’s nothing that would take you out of gameplay experience. Thankfully, NBA 2K16 seems to have both, with controls being finely tuned and an equally challenging AI to face against. When it comes to sports games two real elements need to come together which are controls and AI. You’ll have the ability to attend different promotional events and it’s through these events that you earn currency to spend on improving your player stats. Furthermore, there’s even a focus put on your character outside of the game as well. How successful you are will help give your character an improvement with their stats. It’s all about putting time into practice before games by going to the gym and completing little mini-game challenges. Career mode again doesn’t offer very much, it’s one element that seems to be lacking with the games in my opinion, but there was a rather neat way the developers opted to make choices matter more within the game.īuffing stats and getting your character ready for a game makes a difference.
It was almost a bit more strategic in how you handled the ball, the plays you made, and carefully deciding how to go against an opposing team throughout the game. When NBA 2K17 launched it seemed like the controls were not only finely-tuned but so was the AI. Instead, it was mainly just ranked games. It was limited to local gameplay but that’s not much of a big deal as there were some complaints about the lack of match types within the online play. It was the first game to really make this accessible which included the coastal team along with an All-Stars lineup. With NBA Live 18 players were finally given the ability to play with the WNBA teams.
There are the standard career mode and franchise ownership simulator you could go through but there’s one other important feature to this installment. The AI was also pretty decent at providing some challenge which is particularly nice with the various different game exhibition matches you go play within. With NBA Live 18 the controls feel a bit more simple to understand and pick up on quickly.
Some may find the Live series to feel a bit more of an arcade-style gameplay, but for the most part, you’ll find everything to be relatively close with the counterpart. There are some debates online on what series lands on top each year with NBA Live and NBA 2K. These modes allow players some ability to enjoy some management style gameplay for those that want a more in-depth look at the work that goes into running the NBA. There’s also a game mode known as MyLeague, which goes a step further by controlling rosters, teams, and even season lengths. Players can still go through MyGM which gives you control over how a franchise is handled, stadium salaries, and contract negotiations. Managing to get a contract deal, players have to work at the bottom in hopes of finding a spot within the team. A career mode makes a return with players taking the role of a non-drafted rookie. However, other little improvements may keep players interested in the long run. You can create space and maneuver around with some relative ease. In this particular installment, the controls feel tighter and at times rewarding to go through when facing down an opposing team of AI or other players. NBA 2K15 feels like a small step in improvement over NBA 2K14 though it’s enough that we feel warrants a spot on the list.