NBA 2K17: The Good, The Bad And The Amazing

The greatest sports gaming franchise is returning with its next annual installment. Even though NBA 2K17 releases Sept. 16 for pre-order customers, 2K is offering “The Prelude” on Friday, a free download which allows gamers to begin their MyCareer a week early. Here, we analyze the talking points from everything we know about the game.

When 2K Sports first launched NBA2K, the series paled in comparison to EA Sports’ NBA Live 1999.

All these years later, it’s safe to say that NBA 2K is the greatest sports gaming franchise. Ever.

At this rate of technological advances, we’re nearing a day when 2K would allow the gamer to assume his/her virtual character while wearing a VR headset, plugged in with the option to literally talk to teammates, coaches and reporters in a simulated reality, not to mention playing basketball.

Very soon, kids are going to substitute real life basketball for NBA2K because the latter is becoming too realistic for comfort! Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

The game has transcended beyond the world of gaming, into a tool, an entity, that helps real life basketball players enhance their skillset. That was such a geeky thing to say, right? How much athleticism do you need to sit in front of a TV screen and play a game?

Karl-Anthony Towns, the reigning Rookie of the Year, can’t imagine life without NBA 2K. When the future MVP isn’t playing, working out or practicing, there’s a good chance he’s playing 2K.

Rookies Ben Simmons and Dejounte Murray were seemingly challenging one another to an online game when the San Antonio Spurs rookie inquired about his NBA 2K17 Player Rating from 2K’s Twitter representative.

D’Angelo Russell has been sharing videos across social media platforms about his love for 2K. Andrew Wiggins and Kristaps Porzingis are unhappy with their Player Ratings.

Is it possible that some of these youngsters are already unable to tell a virtual space from reality?

Media outlets are actually covering the NBA 2K17 Player Ratings of players like it’s actually news. This is no longer just a video game. During the course of the season, real life NBA and NBA2K are so deeply in sync, it’s almost scary.

When Stephen Curry hit that buzzer-beating half-court shot against Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA2K recreated the moment on 2KTV. Every regular season game is also simulated by 2K with latest box scores made available during the course of a game.

Besides the obvious players and team upgrades through the season, 2K does all the little things to give gamers the most realistic experience conceivable.

For NBA 2K17, the game developers traveled to every team’s arena to record sounds that are exclusive to each arena. Simply amazing.

As great as NBA 2K16 was, NBA 2K17 promises to take it up a notch. With enough details emerging about the game, we analyze the Good, Bad & Amazing:

The Prelude

On September 9, 2K allows you to download “The Prelude” and get a head start on your MyCareer.

The free trial (now available) allows users to begin their college careers in an attempt to build their NBA Draft stock, ahead of the game’s release on Sept. 16.

The story starts with Kobe Bryant talking you through some of the basics of MyCareer and what it takes to become an NBA pro. During the end of the intro montage, the Black Mamba teases that if anyone outshines his career, he’ll be forced to come out of retirement.

The greatest part? The NBA 2K17 App, a free download now available on iOS and Android smart phones, allows you to sync the progress (from the trial) onto the actual game. So when you get the physical 2K17 CD and get cracking, your player is already a college pro ready for the NBA.

The developers have smartly blended elements from NBA 2K10’s “Draft Combine” with college elements from last year’s game.

There’s a change in the collegiate options for NBA2K17. Last year’s edition featured Arizona, Georgetown, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan (Wolverines), Texas, UCLA, Connecticut, Villanova and Wisconsin.

This year’s game has Arizona, Georgetown, Illinois, Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State (Spartans), Oklahoma, Texas, UConn, and Wake Forest.

Unlike NBA 2K16, you don’t go through high school but jump straight into college. In “The Prelude,” you’ll play a total of five college games with interjecting storylines to boot. The objective is to try and improve your draft stock ahead of the game’s release (Dec. 16-20).

It’s important to note that you get only one shot before the trail expires.

Other notes: You can’t play more than three-minute quarters during the demo version. Also, GameInformer notes that “coaches annoyingly pull you at crunch time yet again (like in 2K16) even if you’re leading the team in scoring by a large margin.”

NBA 2K17: MyLeague

NBA 2K17 allows you to choose “League Expansion” mode in MyLeague which gives you the option of expanding the league from 30 to 36 teams.

The MyLeague mode has three options: Current NBA Teams, League Expansion and Custom League. According to Brian Mazique of Forbes.com, “Along with expansion, you can still re-brand and relocate current teams, and realign the entire league.”

The Forbes report noted that players have the option of uploading primary and secondary logos, designing uniforms and arenas. But if one doesn’t wish to endure the trouble, it’s easy to use the 10 new cities and logos that the game offers. These 10 new teams will have total audio support from the announcers, too.

The 10 teams are: The Nashville Stars, Pittsburgh Force, Kansas City Knights, Virginia Storm, Vancouver Ravens, San Diego Surf, Cincinnati Lions, Baltimore Barons, Louisville Liberty and St. Louis Sound.

While the Custom League could be fun, too, the League Expansion mode sounds more fun since the game incorporates 10 branded entities into the league at the click of a button.

And word is that the MyLeague Online just got cooler. According to Mazique, “it will now support up to 80 seasons with player progression, regression, injuries, custom draft classes, lottery, offseason drafts and a new keeper feature inspired by multi-year fantasy sports leagues.”

Play Now Online: No Limitations!

In 2K16, a player was forced to play only against other players in the same tier. You had to get through lower leagues such as Freshman, Varsity, Junior Varsity, College, Development, EuroLeague and NBA before playing against the most advanced players in the Greatest of All Time mode.

And if you lost a few successive games, you’d be relegated back to the previous league.

Unless you get to the NBA mode, it wasn’t possible to play with historic teams like the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls or the 1971-71 Los Angeles Lakers.

But 2K17 is about to change all that.

According to Brian Mazique:

Also, Bryan Wiedey of SportingNews.com has reported that you can now play against your friends with college teams in the “Play Now Online” mode.

For example, you can play an online game in NBA 2K17 with the Kentucky Wildcats vs the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers. How awesome is that?

Live Practice is now Doin’ Work

Live Practice was one of the annoying features of NBA 2K16!

Because once your MyPlayer had maxed out all the player upgrades, you were forced to partake in Live Practice on your off days to unblock more attribute upgrades.

You needed to participate in five different sessions of Live Practice to unlock one upgrade. This forced the player to sim ahead to the points in the calendar (like the All-Star break) to get consecutive off days.

There wasn’t just the option to just simulate through games and enter Live Practice. It was imperative to play the game before the off day. That just didn’t feel right.

Many gamers had requested 2K to do away with this concept. And it seems like 2k has responded with a fun way to upgrade the attributes while still enjoying your off days.

GameInformer notes that “Visual Concepts has put more work into streamlining the off-day simulation to give you more activity options on your days off.”

Doin’ Work, which replaces Live Practice, allows your MyPlayer to scrimmage with teammates or shoot around the gym. You could also run into other players when shooting late night.

With Doin Work, also comes the meter. When the meter fills up, you’ll be able to obtain attribute upgrades. This system helps you track how far along your player is progressing.

Another feature worth talking about is the enhancement to MyCourt. You can now invite virtual friends to your MyCourt and play games together. If you do well enough, you get interviewed by Shaq & Kenny in the studio show. Pretty cool.

Chris Webber is an announcer!

This should come as music to the ears of those who enjoyed C-Webb’s commentary during the playoffs. If anything, it was a shame that we didn’t hear his commentary during the Finals, which was covered by ESPN/ABC. But the TNT announcer is quickly becoming one of the best in the business.

2K17 will introduce a new dynamic commentary system that will select announcers based on the city you’re playing in. Clark Kellogg, a regular fixture since NBA 2K8, is being replaced.

Besides Webber, Steve Smith, Brent Barry and Doris Burke will join Greg Anthony and Kevin Harlan as the primary announcers. TNT’s David Aldridge is now the sideline reporter.

According to Brian Mazique, Anthony and Harlan will be the permanent fixtures while the third announcer would change based on an arena. “Webber, Barry, Smith and Burke won’t all be on the same broadcast, a different person will be on the mic to join Anthony and Harlan each game.”

And of course, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Shaquille O’Neal will continue to do the studio show. Here’s hoping it’s not as repetitive as last year’s, which would invariably have Shaq and Kenny utter the same stuff at the end of every third game.

Still need PS Plus / Xbox Live Gold!

This a bummer for those who don’t like to shell out $9.99 every month for the PS Plus Membership or the Xbox Live Gold.

You can continue to play MyCareer, MyTeam and other solo challenges offline.

But you still need to pay up every month to play Pro-Am, MyPark, MyLeague Online, Play Now Online against friends, etc.

Until NBA 2K15, it was possible to access some of the online modes without the PS Plus / Xbox Live Gold subscription. However, Sony decided to go this route during the E3 2013. It seems like almost every next-gen console game needs a PS Plus subscription to access at least half the modes.

Here’s wishing that 2K would consider the option of pricing the game at an additional $10 instead of charging gamers nearly $60 a year to access its best modes. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s more to do with Sony and Microsoft’s politicking, forcing gamers to subscribe to experience games to their fullest.

2K16 VC doesn’t count!

There are many who have over 100,000 Virtual Currency (VC) bundled up from 2K16. But it doesn’t count for anything.

Despite your PS/Xbox user name tagged to the 2K server, all the VC would vanish into thin air.

This is a little disappointing.

The fact that a gamer has invested in the new installment is telling of his/her loyalty towards the franchise. Shouldn’t returning players be rewarded for returning?

Here’s a suggestion: Why doesn’t 2K at least give us the option to carry forward a percentage of VC into the next installment?

For example, if User X had 75,000 VC left over from 2K16, allow at least 25 percent (19k,000 VC) to be transferred into the new game.

2K has nothing to lose by doing this. Their fear, presumably, is that returning players can create highly rated MyPlayers on the first day of the release and dominate online modes such as MyPark and Pro-Am. But hasn’t a player earned to right to do so by dominating in the previous editions?

Besides the VC, even previous game saves don’t count. For example, if you built up a dynastic team in MyTeam, MyLeague or MyGM, you can’t carry forward the progress.

MLB The Show is one of the few games that allow this feature. Hopefully, NBA2K can follow suit.

From Freq to Prez!

Weren’t you tired of the nickname “Freq” during NBA 2K16?

In NBA 2K16, you had to wait until Season 3 to drop the “Freq” nickname but not during the actual story mode (first few seasons). So the announcers would continue to refer to your MyPlayer as “Freq.”

One of the things on the NBA 2K17 Wishlist was to allow gamers multiple nicknames.

Alas, Operation Sports notes that’s not to be.

Let’s hope 2K provides us with at least three or four options next season.

The 4-point shot/36-second shot clock?

This is very interesting.

When you’re playing MyLeague or MyGM, all owners convene to discuss rule changes during the offseason. If enough owners see fit, you have the option to introduce rule changes such as a 4-point shot and a 36-second shot clock.

While 2K is yet to confirm that these features will be made available, it has been confirmed that “the rules committee (virtual) will meet to determine if there will be any changes,” according to this Forbes report.

Erick Boenisch, one of the key developers at NBA2K, said that changes related to the shot clock can be made. According to Boenisch, the rule changes are being “investigated heavily” but would require work with regards to playcalling, tendencies and behaviors of players.

If these rule changes receive positive feedback, NBA 2K could very introduce them in 2K18 as options in normal Play Online games and offline modes.

In fact, one reddit user notes that the 4-point shot was already an option in NBA2K16 in MyLeague.

Are we going to witness a virtual Stephen Curry stop at halfcourt and fadeaway to glory? No, thanks.

2K would be best advised to restrict the rule change to offline modes. It must be viewed as an experiment and shouldn’t be an option during cut-throat online games. The shot would kill the competitive edge.

Face scan app

This is arguably the most positive news to come out of the 2K camp.

Until previously, you needed a console camera to scan your face and create the MyPlayer who endures his MyCareer besides taking his explosive talents to MyPark, Pro-Am and other online modes.

Now, all you need is a smart phone. The NBA 2K17 app, which releases on Thursday, allows you to scan your face from your mobile camera and upload it to the 2K server. This process enables the creation process for the facial appearance besides cosmetic options.

And then you can proceed to sculpt the MyPlayer besides choosing his height, weight, wingspan, shoulder, playing position, etc. before playing starting your collegiate career. (You had to go through high school in NBA 2K16 in Spike Lee’s Livin’ Da Dream)

When the face scanning app was first launched with NBA 2K15, it was an unmitigated disaster (see Tweet above).

The developers couldn’t fix the glitches in NBA 2K16, either, but 2K representative Ronnie 2K said in 2KTV’s season finale in June that the new face-scanning application would be top-notch.

On Thursday, several gamers tweeted pictures of a successful scan job. Hurray!

It seems like 2K has taken a tip or two from EA Sports, who introduced face scanning through a mobile device in NBA Live 16. Even though the game, itself, is still far away from competing with 2K, its face scanning app, called Game Face 2.0, proved to be a hit.

The MyNBA2K17 app is a must-have.

If you’re into the MyTeam mode, the app has a lot to offer. Also, My NBA 2K17 allows you to earn a ton of VC by playing the card game in the app.

Even if you don’t like your real life face and prefer to create a new one, the 2K17 app offers a lot.

My Park “After Dark” Mode

If you’ve created a superstar MyPlayer, there is nothing quite like hopping around the NBA 2K virtual space, looking for other players to play a two-on-two or three-on-three pickup games. There are also the few halfcourts where you can play one-on-one games.

The swagger element is the highest in this quotient of NBA 2K17.

Steve Noah of Operation Sports has reported that “2K is introducing a new MyPark “after dark presentation, which turns the online action into a party complete with DJ, special effects and a crowd.

The MyPark mode in NBA 2K16 was pretty slick as it is. These additions will only add to the fun.

There’s also good news for the newbies who invariably get posterized by the ones who spend at least one third of their lives playing 2K.

There is a new matchmaking system which ensures that you only play with and against players who are closer to your skill level.

Those who played MyPark on 2K16 know how frustrating it can be for newbies to stand inside the matchmaking/waiting circle for lengthy intervals since the advanced players prefer playing with each other. Now, there is an automated system which allows for a more even playing field.

Oh, and the “After Dark” mode will also feature dunk contests and three-point shooting competitions. There will also be a Mountain Dew-sponsored tournament.

Your Robin, Serious Basketball Stuff!

There is no Spike Lee to curate Livin’ Da Dream in this year’s MyCareer.

Many gamers were put off by last year’s story mode which put way too much emphasis on off-the-court drama, which intensifies during the death of your MyPlayer’s best friend, Vic Van Lier.

The worst part was there was no option to skip through some of the scenes (at least during your first go around in MyCareer). You had to sit through them all.

This time around, most of the story mode is focused on your actual basketball career. You still have to reportedly endure interactions with your family, high school coach, closest teammate and a love interest, but the focus is more on basketball.

After your MyPlayer turns pro, his friend “Justice Young” is drafted in the second round of the same 2016 NBA Draft. The character and teammate is portrayed by actor Michael B. Jordan.

According to Matt Bertz of Game Informer, “This character, named Justice Young, is the Robin to your Batman. Your goal is to become the next great dynamic duo in the league, following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen and Shaq/Kobe.”

Bertz noted that your running mate will work out with you on your MyCourt, besides sharing hours of laughs with “Denver Levins,” another character in the story mode.

Operation Sports revealed that the concept of the Dynamic Duos, which basically allows you to control the character Justise Young just as much as your MyPlayer.

Ben Bishop of 2K Sports breaks down the exact differences between the MyCareer modes in NBA 2K17 and its predecessor.

There is another character named Jason Richmond, who plays a journalist that chronicles the step-by-step development and exploits of your career. It would be a TV show.

Coach K, the tutor

NBA 2K17 will feature the 2016 Team USA which traveled to the Rio Olympics.

Due to the partnership between 2K and USA Basketball, Coach Mike Krzyzewski has been incorporated as a character in the game.

Also, The Prelude trailer shows your MyPlayer receiving a phone call from Coach K. This could mean the possible involvement of your MyPlayer in Team USA.

The Prelude will also introduce a new featured named 2KU, a new tutorial mode narrated by Coach K which explains basketball fundamentals.

Krzyzewski is also featured as a downloadable offering (DLC) in a similar tutorial mode (when the game releases) to help you sharpen your skills such as defensive positioning, defending against the pick-and-roll, moving off the ball, etc.

While the 1992 Dream Team and 2016 Team USA are playable on most offline and online modes, NBA 2K17 is also introducing college hoops this year.

According to SB Nation, there is now the option of playing with a college team (from the 10 options named earlier) against other college teams in the Play Now Online mode.

Due to a previous licensing issue, 2K could not feature college basketball in its games. But over the last few editions, that trend is changing. There’s also been a request to introduce the 2008 and 2012 versions of Team USA but that hasn’t happened yet. Don’t bet against a future DLC, though.

Rachel is still around….

And finally, those who enjoy watching NBA 2KTV due to the beautiful Rachel A DeMita can continue do so in NBA 2K17. The new app which launches on Thursday will feature NBA 2KTV episodes all through the season.

Also, those who’ve pre-ordered the NBA 2K17 Kobe Bryant: Legend Edition (Gold) will be receiving the following:

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