NBA 2K17 is the latest basketball game from 2K games. The game sees you as the player be able to play as all the teams in the NBA with all the real life players in each team. Fans of the NBA will love this game because they’ll get to play with their favourite teams and their favourite players for hours and hours and hours. But that’s not all you can do, you can also create your own player and experience the life of an up and coming and later, successful basketball player.
If you’ve played any of the NBA 2K games before then you’ll probably know a bit about what you can expect from this one. When looking back at last year’s game and comparing the two, I’d say they are fairly similar (although somehow this one felt a lot smoother and easier to play). I’m not sure if it’s because last year, NBA 2K16 was my first basketball game experience, or because this game seemed to teach me what to do in a better way, but things felt a lot better. Almost like possibly NBA 2K16 was too hard, while that game was quite good, I remember getting annoyed with at times, but that didn’t happen this time around.
The game will see you control various players on the basketball court. If you’re in the career mode you can only control the unique player that you created, so you’ll be sticking to just one person only. But if you’re in the arcade style mode, you’ll be able to play as a whole team of players, switching between them as you pass the ball. The career mode is quite good if you’re learning what to do, you can just focus on one person, learn how to pass, how to shoot and how to defend. I myself am a terrible defender, but by the end of my play time, I did feel that I had become quite good at shooting hoops. Once you learn all the moves, playing as a team is a lot more fun, you can switch players and play effectively.
Commentary and the atmosphere of the stadium was great. The commentators didn’t seem at all annoying and sometimes were funny to listen to. In the story mode if you’re playing badly, they often criticise how you’re doing and if you’re doing well they quickly switch to praising your abilities. The college section of the game was my favourite, there are some pretty impressive entrance scenes for the teams before they appear on the court. Everything is all a big spectacle and it adds to the fun of the game. I loved the mascot moments!
The story mode itself is alright. The voice acting is okay and does seem a bit better than last year. I still do not find the story to be anything super special or inspiring. But it is a bit of fun and for the hardcore fans who like to play through the life stages of the game, it does get the job done. For some veterans of the series though, I can see the training sessions possibly getting a bit dull, I’m not even really that good at the game and even I found them sort of boring.
The gameplay is overall quite good. The game to me felt much smoother and better compared to the last one. While it’s only a minor improvement, last year’s game was already very good so it’s more like this seemed like a super polished version of last year’s game. Each point in the game that you make always seems well earned and games aren’t easily won either. Things for me were always pretty close and the challenge of getting a win was always there. The game doesn’t really feel like punishingly difficult and it’s not too easy either, it’s just the right kind of challenge and I do love that about it.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with NBA 2k17. My favourite thing about the game was the atmosphere of the court, everything from the pre-match discussions, the drums playing in the stadiums and even the mascots running around, it all helps to make NBA 2K17 a positive and enjoyable video game experience. Gameplay is smooth and provides a great challenge. The story mode is really just okay, but this is a game you buy for the gameplay experience of playing basketball, with the best players in the world and in that area, NBA 2k17 delivers everything you could want.
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