Alright 
Starting from Prelude to 10 or 15 games into the season.
The Prelude you download is quite simply a cock tease. Not long enough to get a feel for the game and more of a waste of time than anything. The Prelude section in the game segues okayish into the actual career. You can basically dominate the prelude section with ease and it feels like you're a higher OVR than you really are. Your movement is nice and quick, your open shots hit, things just kinda feel right. The feeling continues into the one or two games you end up playing with your team because you still feel like you can make a difference on the court. Yeah, the competition is a little tougher but it's bearable.
Transitioning into the NBA is a bytch. If you don't have any VC... god fukking speed breh, I hope you enjoy being a scrub. My first character I had about 10k VC to play with from the 5K preorder bonus and VC from the app. I put that into 3PT shooting and mid range, wound up at like a 62 or 63 OVR. In game it was a struggle, I averaged maybe 5-7 points on 12 minute quarters and could really only score from the free throw line IF, big emphasis on IF, my shyt didn't get blocked from a big coming from half a mile away. More often than not if you're lucky enough to get within a shout of the rim you'll get stripped or blocked, or your guy will ignore your intentions for a layup and either pump fake or pull up for a low percentage shot. Because of this BS I thought, "well ok maybe a 6'2 SG (secondary SF for what fukking reason 2k
) isn't the way to go. So I remade a 6'6 SG, still primary 3PT Shooter but changed my secondary from Shot Creator to Passing & Ball Handling.
This go around the prelude section was even more of a damn tease. We rolled over those bums in all 3 games and I had to average something like 15 or so points. The scrimmage games were damn near as easy. They shoulda sent the bench to the D-League and put the starters on the bench after I got through with them. But then I played my first NBA game. When I said god speed if you don't have VC... Jesus fukking Christ man. Breh breh sits there and misses wide open shots with no player within 15 feet of him. You could pull a real life scrub from the YMCA or something and they wouldn't miss those shots. Try to get to the rim? Good luck again. Your player doesn't have the wherewithal to protect his dribble. If you have a clear lane you might be in luck IF, once again emphasis on the IF, a big doesn't rotate from half a mile away and block your shyt. Not make your shot uncomfortable, but outright block the shyt out of you like a grown man playing against a toddler. Struggle through that bullshyt and you wind up with 500VC and maybe a few extra for stats. Try to upgrade? Well nah think again buddy. Any meaningful upgrade is going to cost you well over 1K VC. So that's at least 2 games of struggle for maybe 1-3 points in an area? It's no wonder dudes are spending hundreds on VC. Play an 82 game season and you'll net 41K VC at minimum, and that won't even make a dent in your primary attributes. So really it kills the potential incentive to play 12 minute quarters because you really don't get that much extra. You already know you'll pull 500 minimum if you don't blow your teammate grade, so why not just play 5 minute quarters?
On the subject of badges, the grind isn't necessarily that bad to get to bronze. I got Deep Range Deadeye and Limitless Range to bronze on my initial character after not too long. The issue comes in the form of needing good attributes to get the badges. In the case of the Limitless Range drill I was doing, you needed I think 3-5 makes to get the full 1000 experience points. But if you're a scrub then you'll be lucky to make 1 shot. Even more so for Deep Range Deadeye, you need at least 3 makes in 10 attempts. Contested shot + bum = frustration. Another thing, make sure the target on the floor is lit up when you shoot otherwise your made shot is a waste.
If you're already 85 OVR you don't get to complain about the badge grind because it'll be easy, time consuming, but easy. Experience from practice plus games should have you bronze before long, silver after a couple of weeks, and gold a few more weeks after that.
So far I'm giving career mode a
out of :wowhand2:.
On to some gameplay concerns.
They said you won't get locked into animations and movement is 1:1. That's bullshyt. Anyone who has done the Deep Range Deadeye drills will be familiar with this. Catching the ball off of movement will drag you a few steps beyond where you really want to stop. It's noticeable with the wing shots but at the forefront when you have to shoot from straight on.
The player doesn't seem to want to understand that you want a layup on the drive sometimes. He'll pull up for a bad shot way more often than he'll attack the rim. Sometimes when he does attack the rim instead of going into the layup animation he'll pump fake but you've held the button down for long enough to trigger a shot. That leads into some more bullshyt:
It's a block party at every game. My bigs are getting blocked at equal or greater frequency to how much I'm getting blocked when I'm on the inside, and that feel's like 60%+ of the time. Sometimes these blocks are coming from way far away on the weak side too. I don't know what's up in this area.
The game's concept of an open/lightly contested/heavily contested/smothered shot seems to be all over the place. What you would regard as an NBA open shot can at times be lightly/heavily contested. When you probably should be regarded as smothered it's called heavily contested. I'm personally pretty close to turning off shot feedback so I'm less worried about what the game thinks is a good shot. I don't want shot percentages to be tweaked to make shooting easier, I just want shooting to make sense. NBA players don't just miss open shots like what happens in 2K.
Maybe I'll revisit this review in a few weeks after I have a higher rated player but the initial fun factor for someone who isn't about to pay for a game twice is really low. I'm sure MyGM/MyLeague/Play Now are more fun.
Starting from Prelude to 10 or 15 games into the season.
The Prelude you download is quite simply a cock tease. Not long enough to get a feel for the game and more of a waste of time than anything. The Prelude section in the game segues okayish into the actual career. You can basically dominate the prelude section with ease and it feels like you're a higher OVR than you really are. Your movement is nice and quick, your open shots hit, things just kinda feel right. The feeling continues into the one or two games you end up playing with your team because you still feel like you can make a difference on the court. Yeah, the competition is a little tougher but it's bearable.
Transitioning into the NBA is a bytch. If you don't have any VC... god fukking speed breh, I hope you enjoy being a scrub. My first character I had about 10k VC to play with from the 5K preorder bonus and VC from the app. I put that into 3PT shooting and mid range, wound up at like a 62 or 63 OVR. In game it was a struggle, I averaged maybe 5-7 points on 12 minute quarters and could really only score from the free throw line IF, big emphasis on IF, my shyt didn't get blocked from a big coming from half a mile away. More often than not if you're lucky enough to get within a shout of the rim you'll get stripped or blocked, or your guy will ignore your intentions for a layup and either pump fake or pull up for a low percentage shot. Because of this BS I thought, "well ok maybe a 6'2 SG (secondary SF for what fukking reason 2k
) isn't the way to go. So I remade a 6'6 SG, still primary 3PT Shooter but changed my secondary from Shot Creator to Passing & Ball Handling.This go around the prelude section was even more of a damn tease. We rolled over those bums in all 3 games and I had to average something like 15 or so points. The scrimmage games were damn near as easy. They shoulda sent the bench to the D-League and put the starters on the bench after I got through with them. But then I played my first NBA game
. When I said god speed if you don't have VC... Jesus fukking Christ man. Breh breh sits there and misses wide open shots with no player within 15 feet of him. You could pull a real life scrub from the YMCA or something and they wouldn't miss those shots. Try to get to the rim? Good luck again. Your player doesn't have the wherewithal to protect his dribble. If you have a clear lane you might be in luck IF, once again emphasis on the IF, a big doesn't rotate from half a mile away and block your shyt. Not make your shot uncomfortable, but outright block the shyt out of you like a grown man playing against a toddler. Struggle through that bullshyt and you wind up with 500VC and maybe a few extra for stats. Try to upgrade? Well nah think again buddy. Any meaningful upgrade is going to cost you well over 1K VC. So that's at least 2 games of struggle for maybe 1-3 points in an area? It's no wonder dudes are spending hundreds on VC. Play an 82 game season and you'll net 41K VC at minimum, and that won't even make a dent in your primary attributes. So really it kills the potential incentive to play 12 minute quarters because you really don't get that much extra. You already know you'll pull 500 minimum if you don't blow your teammate grade, so why not just play 5 minute quarters?On the subject of badges, the grind isn't necessarily that bad to get to bronze. I got Deep Range Deadeye and Limitless Range to bronze on my initial character after not too long. The issue comes in the form of needing good attributes to get the badges. In the case of the Limitless Range drill I was doing, you needed I think 3-5 makes to get the full 1000 experience points. But if you're a scrub then you'll be lucky to make 1 shot. Even more so for Deep Range Deadeye, you need at least 3 makes in 10 attempts. Contested shot + bum = frustration. Another thing, make sure the target on the floor is lit up when you shoot otherwise your made shot is a waste.
If you're already 85 OVR you don't get to complain about the badge grind because it'll be easy, time consuming, but easy. Experience from practice plus games should have you bronze before long, silver after a couple of weeks, and gold a few more weeks after that.
So far I'm giving career mode a
out of :wowhand2:.On to some gameplay concerns.
They said you won't get locked into animations and movement is 1:1. That's bullshyt. Anyone who has done the Deep Range Deadeye drills will be familiar with this. Catching the ball off of movement will drag you a few steps beyond where you really want to stop. It's noticeable with the wing shots but at the forefront when you have to shoot from straight on.
The player doesn't seem to want to understand that you want a layup on the drive sometimes. He'll pull up for a bad shot way more often than he'll attack the rim. Sometimes when he does attack the rim instead of going into the layup animation he'll pump fake
but you've held the button down for long enough to trigger a shot. That leads into some more bullshyt:It's a block party at every game. My bigs are getting blocked at equal or greater frequency to how much I'm getting blocked when I'm on the inside, and that feel's like 60%+ of the time. Sometimes these blocks are coming from way far away on the weak side too. I don't know what's up in this area.
The game's concept of an open/lightly contested/heavily contested/smothered shot seems to be all over the place. What you would regard as an NBA open shot can at times be lightly/heavily contested. When you probably should be regarded as smothered it's called heavily contested. I'm personally pretty close to turning off shot feedback so I'm less worried about what the game thinks is a good shot. I don't want shot percentages to be tweaked to make shooting easier, I just want shooting to make sense. NBA players don't just miss open shots like what happens in 2K.
Maybe I'll revisit this review in a few weeks after I have a higher rated player but the initial fun factor for someone who isn't about to pay for a game twice is really low. I'm sure MyGM/MyLeague/Play Now are more fun.
. I have no clue who is on my team
the mobile app is trash now. the VC from random cards is gone 
