As you can see if you've been following me for more than a day or two. (@TheLanceMorris) I love basketball. It's been my favorite sport since I was probably 11 or 12. I also have a passion for video games. The two came together in the game NBA Live 06. Yeah, I loved that game. I played it for multiple years. It even had a pretty solid soundtrack. I didn't have another basketball game for one of my consoles until I got NBA 2K9. At the time, being that NBA Live was the only basketball video game I had played when I did upgrade from the original Xbox to the Xbox 360 the game I wanted was NBA Live 09. My parents gave me those newspaper ads that had pictures of all the games, DVDs, electronics, etc. They told me to circle what I wanted in a couple different ads that we had. I of course circled NBA Live 09 and I remember specifically writing in black sharpie, "I want NBA Live not this 2K game." I was pretty clear about it. Christmas came that Winter. From what I remember, I got NCAA Football 09 with Darren McFadden on the cover, I got a couple random games that I never really played.
I didn't get NBA Live 09.
I didn't even get NBA 2K9, yet.
My dad told me my Grandpa John. Who passed away about a month and a half ago, RIP. Had a game for me that I would get in a couple days when we had our Christmas with just him and his wife. He always got me a couple things of clothes. Usually a hoodie. A nice T-shirt or two, and from that Christmas and the last couple I had with him, a video game. I know my parents helped him with what stuff to get me and what game to get me that year, but his gifts always stood out. I look over my right shoulder as I'm typing this and I can see a few of those Nike hoodies. I wear the crap out of them. I love my Nike hoodies. Thank you, Grandpa John.
The last thing I got that Christmas from him was NBA 2K9. As any slightly ungrateful kid would say, "But I wanted NBA Live." They told me they didn't have NBA Live and that this was what they could get. I'm really glad they didn't have NBA Live. Those in the video game world know that soon after that the NBA Live series fell off a cliff. They made a NBA Live 10 game that I played and it was fun, but it wasn't NBA 2K. They've been struggling to get back in the market and they haven't even been able to put a game out every year because of how bad of reviews they were getting and how bad the game actually was too. I would've had to move on to NBA 2K after that, but I would've been even more reluctant than I was when I got NBA 2K9. After we got all our gifts and everything I quickly went down to my room (it's in the basement for those that don't know) and I started playing. I got hooked pretty quickly. The graphics were leaps and bounds better. The game play was fluid. It was a really good game. I properly thanked him next time I saw him, which was probably my birthday, and told him how much I loved the game. I've been playing the newest NBA 2K game ever since. They've had a couple really bad glitches throughout the years that come to mind. Most notably the spin dunk in one of the early games. Even with those things you had to play the game a lot to even discover the glitch. Plus doing them wasn't as easy if you were playing someone who could actually play good defense.
Nonetheless, I have plenty of experience playing the game and can go through most of its features and all of those types of things and I have some things they need to do. I won't be the first or the last to make some of these suggestions, but I do want to make my thoughts be known.
1. There needs to be some kind of draft mode.
This has to be one of the biggest thing requested about the game. There's Draft Champions in Madden. I'm pretty sure there is a draft mode in FIFA. I'm unsure about if there's one in MLB The Show since I play on Xbox One. I don't see any reason why there can't be a draft mode added. They have the park, online leagues, MyTeam, and the play now modes. People who play primarily in the park are a different breed in my eyes. They almost have their own sect in the 2K community based on everything I see on YouTube and Twitch. That's a different discussion. People will play both MyTeam and the Draft. They have some things in common. I'll get to MyTeam in a second though. There's even different ways you could go about it. You could do it how Draft Champions goes in Madden. Pick a coach and then have 10 rounds where you can pick between the three players that come up in each round. Then have three random average guys to round out the bench. Or you could even just make it to where there's 13 rounds so you can pick every player. There's so many different ways to go about it so I truly don't know why they can't make a draft mode.
2. Fix the Charging Calls
Based on the countless games I've played in this year's game this is a big in game issue. Now there are charges that are legit. Most of the time they are not. Most of the time they come around half court. If you so much as think about trying to sprint with your player when bringing the ball up the floor and there's a player from the other team within 10-15 feet of you they will find a way to run towards you and force a charge to be called. Even if the other player doesn't set his feet and take contact. It is especially annoying when you want to bring the ball up quickly and play with tempo as I usually do when playing. You can avoid the 'charge cheese' as it is often referred to if you don't sprint with the ball while dribbling up the floor, but it like I said can slow the game down and take away whatever moment you might be trying to build.
3. Rebuild MyTeam
Overall this is the most played mode by people in the 2K community, or at least by the people who play the game on platforms like Twitch and YouTube. MyTeam is the mode where you build a team up to play online and go through the Bronze, Gold, Emerald, Sapphire, Ruby, Amethyst, Diamond and Pink Diamond Leagues. When you start a team you pick a player to build around. Russell Westbrook, Steph Curry and LeBron James were a couple players you could start with. Here's where it gets tricky. The thing that MyTeam develops on 2K will tell you is that they heavily, and I mean heavily. Rely on people spending money to open packs to improve their team. I'll talk about pack odds more later. Basically what 2K has turned MyTeam into is that you need to spend money in order to have a really good MyTeam. When you start your MyTeam you get a bunch of silver and bronze players to use along with whatever player you pick as your starter player. The problem there is that the player you pick as your starter player is a free agent card. That means after you use him in five games that cards disappears and it's gone forever. So then you're stick with a team of guys and the best player among those you still have is a 74 overall. That just isn't good. That is why people feel the need to open packs because the odds are you will pull players out of those packs that will instantly make your team better. Lots of people don't have disposable income to throw into the game that they paid $60 for. While you can grind through the game with those starter players it is incredibly challenging. You earn MT (the MyTeam currency) when you play games and do challenges, but even then you can't get a really good player unless you save your MT for a long period of time. 2K needs to give users that can't drop money on the game a reason to play the mode. You can grind on Madden and make your Ultimate Team better but you really can't do that in MyTeam. 2K also needs to add and improve the mode overall. If you are good enough to get through all of the leagues (I'm in the Diamond League right now after losing too many in the Pink Diamond League) then you're done. Once you earn all the rewards there's nothing left to play for. Granted not everybody is just flying through the different leagues but why would you want to have it to where you can complete everything? You always want to be improving the mode itself. While I like the players they've added in the different packs throughout the year that is only have the battle. Not to mention the dynamic duos that in my eyes were a big L. They added them to all the lower tiered player at the start of the year but never really added them throughout the season. Then when they did add new ones they weren't really relevant to how the mode was at that point in time. MyTeam should be the most popular mode but 2K just can't seem to put all the pieces together to make it great. Oh, and fix it to where when you beat your opponent so bad they quit early on in the game that you don't get a loss you don't deserve. That has happened to me way too many times for it to be acceptable.
4. Servers, servers, servers
No, I'm not talking about the lovely people who serve you food in a restaurant. If you've ever played a game of 2K then you know exactly what I am talking about. I won't go into too much detail here because I don't really need to. Just improve your servers. Please.
5. Increase pack odds for MyTeam
This can probably be said for the other games where you open packs but the pack odds on 2K are for the most part pretty bad. I have pulled four throughout the year. I didn't start playing MyTeam this year until pulling diamond was even possible and still the luck hasn't been great. For those that don't know. When you're pulling players out of the packs the level of player you can get is the same as the tiers except for Pink Diamonds. Now I'm not saying you should be able to pull multiple diamonds and amethysts every single box you open, but there has to be a way to make it to where if you can spend money on packs that you are getting what you paid for. Not the same crappy bronze and silver players you can get when starting your team.
I could probably add more things to this list to nitpick. I am usually yelling, "2K!" whenever I am losing. While I may complain about 2K I'm glad to have a pretty good basketball game to play. I hope they can keep improving and make the game better because if they keep giving the people at EA time they will make a comeback with NBA Live.
As always, thanks for reading!
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