Operation Sports Forums - Review of the entire NBA 2k series with thoughts and sliders for 2k14

I decided to write this since I’m part of a dying breed that has played every one and there are some misconceptions about NBA 2k’s rise to sports games dominance. This didn’t happen suddenly but it probably should have. The very first game on the Dreamcast was special. I didn’t see it coming from VC’s previous games. VC was the company that IMO messed up Madden but then Im one of the few people that thought Madden 93 was wayyyy better than 94. IMO Looking Glass put Madden on the map. For it’s time Madden 93 was amazing. I also didn’t see it with NBA Action. NBA Action was VC’s previous basketball game. I barely saw the potential in it. I think I played the last one on the Saturn. My younger cousin could see it and looking back that last NBA Action game was pretty solid.

I was more of a Live fan. Just for some perspective Live 95 was the cream of 2D basketball games as was Madden 93. Live did sorta fall off some but Live 2000 on the PS 1 was decent enough. The Dreamcast was a major step up in graphics from the PS 1 but Sega had left a sour taste with the Saturn. I was on the fence. I thought the Saturn was underrated, my cousin was selling me on Sega sports but I still had one foot in the mainstream. Wait for the PS 2, or even the rumored Microsoft counsel; that was my plan.

My cousin said the hell with that. So just overnight we were playing this sick looking next gen sports title called NBA 2k. NFL 2k seemed to get more pub since it was less cartoony albeit probably less detailed than Madden but I don’t think the gameplay was worth a damn until NFL 2k4 which I loved though I heard NFL 2k3 was a major step up.

NBA 2k was more than a graphical step up. Player vs Player was special. The major exploits only worked against the CPU. The overall defense and collision detection was better than some of it’s predecessors. My rating for that game would have been in the high 8s with one caveat. You needed friends because the CPU was not a challenge. 8.7 with friends, 4.5 without.

2k1: At this point the series was already the top dog. Yeah it was slept on, people weren’t buying the Dreamcast, EA was still getting homer reviews but for its time NBA 2k1 was the best basketball game ever made. Even with a crap lan line connection it was a blast online. Some of the most realistic online play in the series was in it’s first online game. I would have rated it a 9.7

2k2: A step down. The Dreamcast version had a critical flaw. The CPU ran zone all game. The CPU doesn’t run enough zone now. Back then it they ran it all game. The Playstation 2 version fixed the flaws and the animations were a step up from 2k1 but It felt too easy. I beat the CPU on my first try and sorta lost interest after that. 8.7

2k3: 9.8
It was like they designed this game for me. It was so realistic. You could tell their goal was to make the most realistic game possible and it was the most realistic basketball game ever.
Then things changed.
It didn’t help that Live was back. This is the last thing I will say about the comp. Live 2003 was an overhyped, over publicized piece of crap. Live 2004 was good and 2005 was better

2k4: lost the crown. The major flaw in this game was they dumped a lot of good animations and replaced the defensive stance with this weird isomotion stuff as maybe a response to the comp. It was admittedly a new direction and possibly the framework for a better direction but it was not complete. I didn’t play it enough to give it a score.

2k5: 2k5 was the weirdest of them all. 2k4 seemed like the failed attempt to keep up with the Joneses cuz Live was winning (sorry but true) in marketing and 2k3 for all its brilliance was L7. It had nice layup and dunk animations but a reviewer once said every player moved and defended like John Stockton. It was true. 2k5 added some momentum and foot planting but it didn’t really work. The big Xbox wasn’t quite ready and neither were the animations. The seeds of terrible paint defense were planted here but the overpowered double team covered it up. I still played it and enjoyed it some but it was no longer an elite sports game. 7

2k6: Was the return of a king to an extent. The animations were good again. It was the first game since 2k3 that was very good but you still needed to tweak the sliders. Fast breaks were out of control. Online play was a mess. It was the original 2k in reverse. Good against the CPU horrible player vs player. 7.5 if you have friends, 9 if you play alone. The next gen version wasn’t much more than a floppy jersey high res version of the first.

2k7: The comp had pretty much defecated in the bed leaving a lot of people to try the series for the first time. 2k7 was overrated for that reason. The players controlled well but defied the laws of physics. The fastbreak was toned down but online play was still another exploit waiting to happen. If you couldn’t find an exploit just spin in circles in to the paint. The CPU was fun. I’ll say that. I had some thrilling games offline. 8.7

2k8: Better graphics, a decent footplanting engine and for the first time since 2k3 online play was good until then now harder to find exploits were found. The CPU was fun. The patch didn’t fix the exploits. The patch actually made the game worse online. Still for the first time in five years we had a taste of good player vs player gameplay and the rest of the game was steller. 9.2

2k9: Oh boy. I want to say I hated this game but I think a lot of future advancements were made from what 2k9 did wrong. The problem is it did so much wrong. I changed my 2kforum avatar to a paintball gun. The scoring in the paint was so pathetically easy it broke the game. The CPU was ok but even that was a step backwards from 2k8. I did that video comparing it to the college game which was at its time the best basketball video game I have ever played and proof that VC could create a modern game that was more balanced than 2k1 and 2k3. 6.3. Sad cuz this was on the heels of the great CH2k8. I miss College Hoops

2k10: Wasn’t hard to top 2k9. 2k10 will always be remembered for that downloadable minicamp camp combine game that imo played better than the actual game. 2k10 just had too much crap to clean up from 2k9. A lot of exploits made it through the clean up process. Those exploits stood out more because otherwise 2k10 was damn good game. You could tell that if they could somehow address the exploits and some of the more underlining faults they would have something special. Rating 8.0

2k11: With Jordan on the cover and zilch in the way of comp 2k11 was a crowing. 2k11 targeted those lasting 2k9 flaws. 2k9 had horrible pass, defense and woefully unrealistic shot percentages. 2k10 was better in those areas but still a WIP. 2k11 was the first good online 2k game since 2k3. I played that game online more than off. Not since 2k1 did I play online more. The game was out for two months before people started to find a handful of exploits. All but maybe the spinning dunks were addressed and not everyone could do them. Great game for its time and still fun. 9.6

2k12: I think they got conservative. 2k12 felt a lot like 2k11 with better layup animations, better fastbreaks, less defense, less obvious exploits. I didn’t play 12 as much until I had a modded PC version. Life kinda hit me this year. So no review.

2k13: Continuing the theme of a more arcade-like yet polished 2k11 with a ton of animations. I think the devs wanted a loose NBA street feel with realistic probability. Even though the franchise was conservative you could tell they were spending money. The stance still felt like molasses. The physics were much improved. The layup animations were cutting edge, the announcing went from great to freakish. The game was still slipping online but still not bad. 9.1

2k14: 2k14 is a step up. I really have to applaud the effort for this being a late generation sports title. I didn’t think the shot stick and the iso dribble could ever be combined so swell. The shot blocking AI and physics is a major step up. You have damn close to realistic dunk numbers out the box. Best fastbreaks ever. Took out all the BS charges. Still too many fouls called on sim. With the right sliders 2k14 is the best pure basketball game since 2k11, Ch2k8, and 2k3 before. Ratings are still well... video on that

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sliders

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