It’s nearly impossible to translate the rhythms of basketball to a video game, but for the past five years (at least) 2K Sports has been doing a better job than anyone else.
NBA2K11, Reviewed: Who Wants To Relive History With Michael Jordan?
So when I was approached about reviewing this year’s release, of course I jumped at the opportunity. It wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but along with NCAA Football and Fifa Soccer, NBA 2K is on the short list of video games that I still play these days. And if you polled NBA players, there’s no question which game reigns supreme on the hoops scene.
So I was excited to begin with. Then I remembered... Michael Jordan.
It wasn’t a given that having Michael Jordan involved would take this game to another level, but thanks to some insane execution from the 2K developers, Jordan’s more than just a coverboy.
So, because the game’s finally in stores today (October 5th), let’s talk about it. And again, we have to go back to the degree of difficulty here. Football translates perfectly to a video game. Soccer doesn’t do quite as well because the individual moves are harder to implement, but it still works pretty well. Hockey, I’m convinced, is cooler in video games than in real life. Baseball... I won’t pretend to have ever played a baseball game.
But basketball’s a lot tougher than any of those, for a few reasons. First, because there’s only five players, meaning every misstep gets magnified--if one guy stands frozen in place for 10 seconds, that means 20% of your team is dead onscreen. That sucks. Plus, basketball’s so fluid and spontaneous that it’s hard to just apply an algorithm to account for everyone’s movement. That’s on a team level.
The final problem comes with the individual. Sort of the way FIFA struggles to capture the spontaneous brilliance of someone like Lionel Messi--or the way Madden could never come up with a way to translate Barry Sanders’ greatness to the game--basketball games have trouble when it comes to capturing the individual magic that makes real basketball so special. That’s always been the problem. Where other sports have one or two guys that break from the mold and defy digital rendering, that’s true of nearly every superstar in the NBA.
How do you rate someone's ability to hang in the air for five seconds and knock down a backbreaking fadeaway, like Kobe Bryant? How do you give Carmelo Anthony the most unstoppable first step in the league? How do you make Steve Nash as slow as he is in real life, but as unstoppable as he is in the open court? It's like trying to quantify what makes Angelina Jolie so hot. There are certain measurables to give you an idea, but then... There's just something about her.
Basically, the only superstar that's ever translated well to video games is Tim Duncan, and that's because he's actually a robot. Everyone else, it's much harder to pin down. So, obviously, building an entire game around Michael Jordan was sort of the like the holy grail of hoops game development.
But they nailed it. I mean, they NAILED IT. Michael Jordan in a basketball game should be like Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl, and that’s exactly what he is here. When he gets hot... It’s over. His signature moves--the ball fakes, the finishes, the tongue--it’s all there.
What NBA2K11 did was take a great marketing idea--Jordan on the cover--and turn it into an entire gaming experience. That sounds impossibly nerdy, but there’s no other way to put it. It’s an experience; you can play in ten different games from the course of Jordan’s career, completing different challenges as you go along.
It’s a very cool idea, but it works because the developers did such a good job with MJ, the player. You feel like you’re playing with Michael Jordan, which makes the whole thing a thousand times cooler.
NBA 2K11 is really two games in one. There’s the typical NBA game, which is as good as all the other 2K NBA games. The pacing is as realistic as any game you’ll find on the market, the player movement got even better this year and remains the gold standard on the hoops simulation market, and the ratings do a nice job accounting for the gap between superstars and average players. Basically, it’s all there with NBA 2K11--as a standard basketball game, it’s still the best.
But the Jordan mode... Whew. They outdid themselves. It’s like a completely separate game, and it’s so good, you have to wonder: What can they possibly do to top this?
The “Jordan Challenge” consists of ten separate situations from throughout MJ’s career, even matching the games with announcing from the given year. For instance, the “Shrug Game” against the Blazers--where MJ knocked down six threes to put a stake in the Blazers--begins with the announcers wondering aloud who would prevail in the battle for supremacy between Clyde Drexler and Michael Jordan. Because back then, before the shrug game happened, that was still a question.
It's indicative of the detail dedicated to each of the games in the Jordan challenge--from Jordan's 63-point coming out party against the '86 Celtics, to the Double Nickel Game in Madison Square Garden, to his Flu Game against Utah, to the Last Shot. Each of these challenges features specific goals (including shooting percentage), and more importantly, it allows you to relive some of the greatest moments in NBA history with the best basketball video game ever.
The game’s not quite perfect, of course. The shooting takes some getting used to, the trading in franchise mode is actually a little too easy, and again, it’s impossible to totally capture the flow of basketball and turn it into a video game.
But NBA 2K11 comes closer than any of its predecessors, and it does so while creating after maybe the most ambitious game mode in history. The 2K series has been great for years, but even by their standards, 2K11 is a whole different level of awesome.
Want to relive the greatest career in history? 2K11 lets you do that. It’s in stores now, so check it out if you get a chance. In the meantime, some music to get you in the mood...
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