Customer Reviews
Still lacking
Introduction:
Alright,
first of all to put this into perspective: I'm an old-school gamer. I
play NBA simulations on the PC since NBA Live 1996 and even before that
the arcade NBA Jam on some Sega console. I played nearly all NBA Lives
from 1996 to 2008 and after that NBA 2k9, 2k10 and now 2k11. I played
NBA 2k11 for about a week now. So I hope my review is able to help
old-school gamers like myself, who are in doubt about wether or not this
game is worth buying.
Also I have to say I didn't try the Jordan
mode yet, because I don't really care about it and I didn't try the
online mode, because I didn't get it to work yet.
The main
emphasize in this review is the AI, the overall difficulty, the realism,
and how much and fun this game is -- playing with and against the CPU. I
must say I'm usually very critical, so maybe I'm too harsh on some
points, although I really don't think so and try to be as fair as I can
be.
General:
I play 10 minute quarters, with the gameplay
setting being set to "simulation" and the difficulty being set to
All-Star (second highest). After a couple of games I slightly tweaked
the gameplay settings so that the CPU wouldn't throw so many ridiculous
alley-hoops, and miss (relatively) too many dunks. In the standard
"simulation" settings I had the CPU throw 3 or 4 alley-hoops per game,
and none of them were fair or plausible, while at the same time missing
about 1 dunk per game, which also mostly wasn't plausible. Also of
course I tuned the graphics according to my system (medium to high) and
disabled commentary because to me it gets annoying after about two
games.
Passing:
Another thing I tried to tweak is the lane
interception thingy. Because the CPU is intercepting way to many passes
in this version. Of course this is generally a good thing, since in all
previous NBA simulations you could throw ridiculous passes from one end
of the court to the other end, with the ball clipping through 2 or 3
defenders and reach the target without problems. So generally I really
like the concept of having to think about the passes you make. But sadly
this concept doesn't work out all that great. There are at least 4
problems with passing overall. The first two problems are due to the
fact that the passer and the guy receiving the pass often times just
don't work together very well.
So problem number one occurs in the
following situation: the guy receiving the pass is standing on the court
in a position that makes a pass very plausible and possible. However,
once you tap the pass button he all of the sudden moves to a different
spot while the ball is in mid-air (the pass somehow is designed to land
exactly at that new spot) although you of course never intended to pass
to that spot, but to his original point where he was standing when you
tapped the pass button. The problem now is that while moving to that new
undesirable spot, a defender is in the passing lane and easily grabs
the pass. There is absolutely nothing you can do about that. You didn't
want to pass to that spot, because you knew that the passing lane would
be crowded, but the CPU causes you to do it anyway and you turn it over
as a result.
The second problem is that the guy you control when
making the pass isn't all that bright (even if he is a very capable PG).
Instead of throwing a lob pass, that flies above the heads of the
defenders making it impossible for them to intercept, he throws a medium
height pass that never has a chance to get to the receiving player
because the CPU easily snatches it. This is very annoying when you try
to pass to your PF or C who is posting up. More often than not you can
not get him the ball just like that, because it is intercepted. Although
generally this should be an easy and common pass. You have the same
problem for example when you try to give the ball to a player who is
cutting. It is very difficult to get it right, just because the passer
isn't throwing a correct pass. I don't know of any way to control this.
Maybe there is one, and I didn't figure it out yet.
The third problem
is that the plain direction passing is flawed. I guess only 60% of the
passes go to the guy you intended to pass the ball to, even though you
of course point LS in the correct direction. The game just doesn't get
it right and attempts some weird cross court pass that is easily
intercepted because of the reasons above, although a much more plausible
pass to a semi open guy was intended. So you should use 'explicit
passing', i.e. the method where you press a combination of two buttons
to precisely select which player should get the pass. This of course
isn't always that easy, because some times the guy usually playing the 3
is currently playing the 4, or because in the heat of the moment you
don't exactly know which button to press, to give it to the right guy.
So you really have to be good, to get this right -- however of course
problems 1 and 2 still occur, even if you are good.
Problem number
four is that none of the previous three problems happen for your AI
opponent. He can throw ridiculous passes all over the court without much
of a problem. He can easily get it to the cutter or lob it in the post.
So usually you will have much more turnovers than your AI opponent.
Controls:
The
controls are very very difficult to master. Like I said before, I'm an
old-school player. I never had problems making super combos on Street
Fighter or Tekken or stuff like that, where you have to make some weird
180 degree or 360 degree rotations with your controller and press a
number of different buttons to make some special move. But in this game
the iso-motion stuff is crazy difficult imho. Even something as trivial
as a behind-the-back dribble is really hard. It really is much easier to
do nice moves in real life than it is in the game. I think this is
because the game is so fast, there is so much going on and you have the
3D perspective and have to think in some weird ways. Breaking your man
down off the dribble is nearly impossible. Even below average defenders
like Luke Ridnour will stop Chris Paul 1 on 1 most of the time (at least
if YOU are Chris Paul). You just run into them and loose your dribble.
Doing spin moves is frigging hard (where in the past you just had to
press one button). Cross-overs and in-and-outs can be done rather easily
but often times won't help too much. Also I always feel like I'm not
totally in control over what my player is doing. Even getting to an
exact spot on the floor is sometimes not possible because of some
animation going on. I know it's very hard to get the balance between
having smooth animations and having great control over your player, but
this game really has too many animations and therefor is difficult to
control.
Also sometimes it feels like you are playing a Hockey game
instead of a Basketball game. It's difficult to discribe. You just seem
to slide over the floor like a Hockey player. It is much much easier to
get an open shot than to get to the basket. Just slide over the floor a
couple of times (using the turbo button) and your defender is gone.
Getting to the basket is much harder because you constantly run into
your super strong defender and lose the dribble. Although sometimes it
just magically works, because of some animation.
AI offense:
The
CPU opponent plays extremely static with very little player or ball
moving. He runs too many sets, and always the same, even if they didn't
work the last three times. Basically most of the time the PG waits
behind the three point line, three of his teammates are not moving at
all, while the other guy cuts and gets a pass (you'll have to defend the
cutter, because otherwise he'll nearly always will get an open shot
here). Most of the time you'll see the opponents players just standing
around until some guy tries a one on one move, once you successfully
stopped the set play. Your AI teammates are very slow and stupid and
their defense is attrocious. Even though your opponent doesn't play very
smart, you will have to do a lot of player switching on defense to not
let the opponent get easy looks or cuts, because your teammates just
don't get it.
"Basketball is a game of runs":
The developers
took this ancient wisdom far too far. I think this problem existed in
previous versions, but never was it more obvious than in NBA 2k11. I
mean it is really nice to have runs, because that's what happens in the
real game. But in this game this stuff is getting out of hand. When your
opponent is on a run, you have nearly no chance of stopping him until
he somehow finally misses and the game has mercy and allowes you to
score. You have to play as hard and concentrated as you possibly can to
stop a run. It's really brutal. On the other hand, if YOUR team is on a
run, the CPU can not hit anything and looses the ball all the time and
the game becomes super easy. The problem is that now it is really
important to get off to a good start, because if you don't, you already
pretty much lost the game.
If you start the game 2:12, with the
opponent being red hot right from the start, you can pretty much end the
game. Because you will not be able to come back. Maybe this is because
of my difficulty setting, but it really is true. If you don't somehow
manage to get back into the game ASAP, you will find yourself behind for
the rest of the game, because your team will not be able to make
baskets and your opponent will hit 60% of his shots and steal the ball a
lot and win by 20 or 30. On the other hand if you yourself start 12:2,
you pretty much already won the game. The only time it is fun to play,
is if the game starts balanced 8:10 or something like that. I don't
think there is a way to control this behaviour via any gameplay
settings.
Other stuff:
Fadeaways work. I can't remember
another NBA game where you really can hit fadeaways just like in this
game. I generally like that. However now, your opponents PF will hit
7/10 fadeways easily, even with a hand in his face. Also, fadeaway bank
shots from 18 feet out are sometimes no problem for even weak players.
A
good thing is that now shots close to the basket actually go in without
bouncing off the rim in a weird way. In earlier versions many shots
didn't go when in reality those shots would virtually never be misses.
Summary:
It's
a good game. I don't know if it's better than a tuned NBA 2k10. I think
the major reason for getting this game is because of the roster
updates, and because the presentation is better. I didn't really
highlight the positive things here. But the game is more realistic than
ever before. It is also pretty annoying and might cause you to angrily
push the reset button sometimes... Shot animations are better than in
NBA 2k10 I think. Freethrows are still too unforgiving. The graphics are
nice and the animations look great overall. The controls are too
difficult. I think the PC version is worth it because it's pretty cheap
and one can hope that community sliders and future patches will further
improve the gameplay.
A Notable step up
from last year!
I'm very happy to give this
game a full 5 star rating as I look forward to playing this game!
Graphically it is roughly the same, with some slight improvements (it
might just be me, but the court looks cleaner than last year!) The
presentation is excellent, I really like the television broadcast
approach 2k takes on their NBA games, and they revamped the interface
for a new look and it's impressive! Notably, game play is a huge step up
in the right direction, the AI seems smarter and it makes for a good
challenge playing this game against the computer. To me, the Michael
Jordan thing is neat, but a bit of a gimmick, because I can't see myself
playing it over just that of a typical season, but to each their own.
I
read IGN's PC review, and they mark it down because of lag. I
completely disagree. I built my computer about 5 years ago and haven't
upgraded since and it runs smoothly on high resolution, max detail and
x2 anti aliasing. Only on rare occasions have I ever run into minor lag,
but its typically very smooth:
specs:
Intel duo core 2.4
4gb
ram
nvidea 9600gt
Its too bad they don't make NHL for PC, but
I'll gladly take this game, will easily get me through the NBA season.
Best Sports game of the century but .........
There is no sports game
better than this game. I am still a noob an so can only defeat the pro
computer. They can beat me 3% of the time. It is so real. Howevr the
online feature on PC is total garbage just like 2K10 on PC. I owned both
2K10 and now 2K11 and i will tell u that the online feature is not
currently working for everybody, and for those it works for, they happen
to play it on low quality (2K servers forces online video setting to
low quality) with heavy lag. I have contacted their support but they
keep saying the fault is on my own side however many users have been
experiencing this same issue. I have opened all the ports both at my
router and windows fire wall but the problem persist. Many other people
are having this problem. Great game but a no no for anyone trying to
play online. I will not buy this game on PC again. I might have to
consider console next time.
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