Musings on ... NBA 2K11

I’m not quite sure why I’ve played (ostensibly) 30+ hours of NBA 2K11 I’m not even sure that I like it. To be fair, it has its moments. Scoring a three-pointer in the last second of a game to win it is a great feeling, but for every one of those, there are three moments of frustration at the oddities about the game. The most egregious example of this is the man-marker. A small arrow on a disc spins around your players’ feet, theoretically pointing at the guy you’re meant to be covering. In reality, it often spins around constantly, pointing to every damn player on the field. This is especially annoying in the ‘Be a Pro’ mode, which actually punishes you for letting your guy score.

Yeah, I'm not so great with character creators.

On the other hand, the ‘Be a Pro’ mode is probably the best part of the game. It’s essentially an RPG about being a basketball player. You select a position, apply some skill points, go through training, get drafted and end up playing for a team. You get three objectives per match, one offensive, one defensive and one team. As you play, your ‘Teammate Grade’ goes up and down based on your performance, starting at a ‘C’ grade. When the match finishes, you get skill points for how well you played, winning the game, completing objectives and getting a spot on the highlight reel. You then assign these points to some of the many, many areas to improve your player, and you play again. Occasionally you also have the opportunity to do drills, which are often just excuses for easy skill points.

Which all sounds great, but again is offset by some major frustrations. Getting matched-up against someone way out of your league happens frequently, meaning you have a crap game and lose a bunch of skill points. It’s also hard to tell why you have a screamer of a game one match, and then miss every shot the next.

 

The game probably plays best in multiplayer, but the net-code is so bad that you get massive amounts of lag playing against someone in the same house. This reduces it to playing with someone else on the same computer, which whilst fun, will almost certainly require two game pads. You do not want to play this game with a keyboard.

And yet, 30 hours I have played. There’s something distinctly (to use a phrase I hate) moreish about the game, especially for the Pro mode. It provokes that same feeling that something like Diablo, Torchlight or many MMOs do. Just one more game won’t hurt. Just get that stat up to 75. Just get another massive block on John Freaking Wall (I actually managed that, which will be impressive to basketball fans).

So, I would probably say buy it, if you don’t mind occasionally getting mega-annoyed and you have a buddy who would be up for it. Oh, I should probably mention the Jordan challenges as well. Basically, there are a set of challenges in which you can play as Michael Jordan, and if you beat them all you unlock him in the Pro mode. They’re pretty fun, but not enough to base the whole game on. Black court is pretty cool as well, two teams made up of superstars with no fouls.