The CPU's inconsistent relationship with physics in 2K18

[isdatyt]

Let me start by saying I love this game. It's BY FAR the best basketball game ever created. In terms of replication of the real product, it's the best sports game I've ever played. The game play is so challenging, yet rewarding without feeling cheap. Players emulate their real life counterparts so well that it's scary. I've seen so many little updates in this game that have driven me to bragging about it to people who couldn't care less, but I just have to talk about it. As much one issue I've always had with 2K still unfortunately remains... Physics.

Now in general, this year, physics are pretty good. I also fully understand the obstacles developers face when making a decent physics system, let alone a near perfect one. I'm not asking for perfection, rather equality.

The first time the physics of this game got me pumped up was something very minor. I had gone up with Shaq to get a rebound, and while it was an uncontested board, his momentum carried him out of bounds. I was upset that the shot clock reset, but in awe that this game accounted for the fact that no, a 340 lb man can not fly through the air and stop on a dime to avoid stepping out. This was the first time I'd seen it, but not the last. This system of momentum established itself to me, as the norm for this game.

Sadly it was not. In a later game, against the Nuggets in Historic Domination, LaPhonso Ellis, who is no Shaq, but still a sizable man in his own right, ran full speed to chase a Mutumbo block into the corner. I fully expected him to save the ball and fly off into the front row, but no. He lunged while in mid-sprint, grabbed the ball, and immediately halted all momentum. He landed in bounds as if the corner had some sort of padded wall that only worked for Nuggets.

This was not a one time occurrence. The CPU in this game can consistently work outside of the systems of physics that govern user controlled players. Whether it's stopping on a dime to avoid going out of bounds or one of the other many ways they somehow shirk the system.

Another, more frequent example is the new dribble/ball security system in place. I love it... on the user end. If I go into traffic, it's a turnover. Try to force a pass to a guy with a man draped all over him? Deflected. If I do a dribble move directly into the defender, it's going the other way. It's perfect, no more cheap spammers or turbo boosting from unskilled players.

Yet once against the CPU doesn't seem to care about this logic. 90% of the time I've seen the CPU involved in one of these interactions, they don't turn the ball over. Hell, sometimes it doesn't even interrupt their momentum. The amount of times a CPU ball handler has done a behind-the-back move and sent the ball right through my midsection as if I was a ghost, is staggering.

What really makes this frustrating is how insanely good the CPU is. I run Kyrie Irving at PG and I know he's an awful defender. I love when the CPU ISO's against him and I have to try and lockup with a guy who would much rather be doing jelly layups on the other end. I am endlessly entertained when I fail, because it's real. Kyrie gets smoked all the time. My issue is, when I'm in the correct position to stop the CPU but it doesn't matter because the physics don't apply to them. Ricky Rubio must have pulled the aforementioned behind-the-back through-the-chest move on me 15 times in that game. This aspect of the game ruins the satisfaction of finally locking up the CPU. I love when I get beat fairly, because I know in real basketball the defense gets beat a lot, but I hate that when I actually do beat my man to the spot, it's routinely ignored.