I'll try to keep it brief because I've been so long-winded about this in other threads, but I do not believe you're missing a ton. I love the idea of an official dunk contest and three point shootout but I found both modes to be very poorly executed.
For starters, the dunk contest does not allow the gamer to control the player. A gamer selects which type of dunk they'd like to see happen, then cut scenes play of your player beginning their turn, running toward the hoop, and beginning their takeoff. Then everything goes super slow motion and a Guitar Hero screen pops up, where the gamer must then input a 20 button sequence that does not at all correlate to the actions of the dunker. Depending on how accurate that input is, the dunk may or may not go in, and a score of 1-100 is given.
The 3-point contest felt incredibly clunky and unresponsive to me. The idea of making a functional shootout seems much simpler than the complexities of dunk control and creation, but it still seems to fail. As I mentioned elsewhere, it may be the least responsive controls I've encountered on the XBox360. It is very difficult to find a consistent, flowing groove. Instead, many gamers will settle for playing this shootout like a robot: press button to grab, let animation play out until player is standing idle, press button to shoot, let entire animation play out until player is standing completely idle, repeat. It just does not replicate the feel of performing a basketball action on any level. Further, many of the releases seem a little jacked up.
Essentially, I did not find either mode to be particularly enjoyable, nor realistic in their control schemes. As such, I do not believe anyone's really missing out here.
All that said, I'd love to see this mode fixed up, altered, and brought back for 2K14. There's a lot of potential in an All-Star Weekend mode. I actually think 2K's best course of action may be not trying to completely re-invent the wheel. I think it's okay to borrow ideas and schemes from past video game dunk contests and three point shootouts. There's a reason why folks have such fond memories of NBA Live 05's All-Star Weekend effort.
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