Since its inception in 1999, the 2K series has been the pinnacle of NBA simulation, and the fine folks at 2K Sports have returned for the 2008-2009 season to deliver another top tier offering of hardwood action with NBA 2K9.
You'll immediately be impressed with the presentation when you start the game as you instantly recognize how cool the menus look. I seldom, if ever, notice menus in any game, but 2K9 has the slickest menus ever seen in a sports game. The ability to slide up the main menu anywhere in the game by pushing up on the right stick is not only slick but functional.
The presentation in NBA 2K9 is unmatched. The in-game announcing, the pre-game 'television' lead-ins, the menus, the sideline reporting – it all replicates a high quality NBA broadcast down to the last detail. On the note of the announcing, I've spent several hours with the game and and rarely does the commentary feel stale or reused; with the exception of a few team-specific scripts, it consistently feels natural and in the moment.
The gameplay in NBA 2K9, instead of merely being a set of mechanics and controls, is a carefully put together process set on simulating the most realistic NBA experience to date. You feel as if every action yields the appropriate reaction, delivering a soundly authentic NBA experience. The A.I in the game is a consistently accurate representation of strategies and tendencies seen in teams and players throughout the league. As someone who has played and covered the game of basketball his entire life, I can tell you without a shred of exaggeration that when a scenario unfolds a certain way in 2K9, there's about a 95% chance it would have done so the same way in a real on-court game.
In the interest of brevity we'll address the comparison of NBA 2K9 to NBA Live 09 immediately – they are two distinct games with different emphasis and appeal depending on what type of experience the player wants to have. Live is defensively forgiving, it favors a more isolation based offense, and is a fun experience, albeit well short of simulation. The 2K series is unforgiving on defense, you have to put careful thought into your offense, execute plays, and exploit match ups, and the reactions of the A.I players – both your opponents and teammates – is eerily accurate to what one would see any given night watching NBA basketball.
Opposing offenses will often execute their offensive sets more precisely than you will, players will always move to the right spots on the floor, teammates will always hit the open man and players always hit the shots they should. If you're familiar with the fundamentals of a good unselfish offense, you'll be amazed at how well the high rated teams in the game execute. Real NBA squads could use this as game tape that's how realistic it is.
The experience in NBA 2K9 is driven by the team concept, whereas in NBA Live 09 the experience is driven by the player with the ball in his hands. While the latter can often times provide a more fun experience, to see a video game succeed so brilliantly at simulating an NBA game through all ten players on the floor, on both offense and defense, is simply stunning. The more familiar you are with the game of basketball, the more amazed you'll be at just how right they got it.
The feel of controlling an individual ball handler in 2K9 is slightly less rewarding than in Live, but the feeling of controlling your team is utterly satisfying. Player control in 2K9 is less physics heavy and weighty than in NBA Live 09, and has a more hair pin accuracy that can be great at times, but at other times can feel jerky and unnecessarily stiff. The offensive post game is responsive, if only too simplified; the post game essentially boils down to four moves you can use, effective not too bothersome, but unimaginative. Thankfully this is remedied by being able to get into scoring position without always having to go one-on-one in isolation, post up, or go 2v2 in a pick-and-roll. Teammates will run off screens without the ball to get open, cut into open spaces in the defense, pass and cut, and intelligently spot up for open jump shots when double teams or a sagging defense leaves them open. It eliminates the feeling of trying to score with the one player you happen to be controlling at the time, and creates a feeling of utilizing all your players to try and get the best offensive opportunity.
The tough defensive A.I gives you even more reason to bring your best team game offensively. Opposing defenses will help and rotate accordingly every time you try to penetrate or post up and will even deny your players the ball or bump them off course while running around screens to disrupt your offense. If you take a bad shot or try to force a drive into the lane, not only will you be unsuccessful, but you'll likely end up getting blocked emphatically or stripped of the ball on your way to the hoop. The A.I defense is simply unforgiving on all fronts, and if you don't know what you're doing, even on the default difficulty setting, you could find yourself on the wrong side of a blow out by half time.
NBA 2K9 offers all the usual game modes one would expect in an NBA game and then a couple more on top of that. Franchise, single season, dunk contest and shoot-out are all present and all fun. Franchise mode, dubbed “Association”, is particularly well done, executing team building principles like chemistry and player roles in a way NBA Live 09 failed to do. The College Hoops 2K series being on hiatus hurts the franchise mode a little since you can't import the incoming draft class, but other than that the Association offers the full range of roster options.
The online play in NBA 2K9 is probably the only significant short coming. The standard match is serviceable enough to be on par, but the biggest attraction on the online front, Team Up, a five-on-five online match, fails on several levels.
Through several matches we experienced significant, at times crippling lag, and while most games were manageable, it seemed impossible to find a game free of some noticeable lag. Second is that the controls in the online Team Up seemed remarkably unresponsive, perhaps in part due to the lag, but I have to imagine there were some other factors involved, like peanut butter being injected into my controller when I wasn't looking. Trying to control your player was like trying to steer a boat while heavily intoxicated and having a seizure. On top of that the camera angle used in Team Up is infuriatingly awful. It tries to be something similar to a player lock angle, but what happens in a fast paced game (i.e: all of them), is that the camera ends up “swinging” back and forth as teams make their way up and down the court. Moreover the camera always seemed to swing in a direction that would leave me momentarily unable to see the player I was supposed to be controlling, or unable to see the man I was supposed to be guarding, or unable to see down the floor where my teammates were wide open on a fast break. A combination of poor controls, poor connection stability, and horrendous camera angles make the Team Up mode a huge disappointment.
The consistent bright spot anywhere in the game are the graphics, which only help the authenticity of the experience; stunning realism in the visuals makes it almost like watching a game on TV. Some times it takes you a while to realize, because nothing stands out at first, it looks so real it almost looks ordinary until you remind yourself you're playing a video game. The player specific animations also add a great deal of depth, integrating players' specific shooting motions and other mannerisms. At a glance it doesn't seem like much, but combined with the other presentation details in 2K9, it really helps to sure up the experience.
The soundtrack in the game isn't the best, but a couple of tracks do a nice job of setting an appropriate atmosphere for the game. This isn't quite an EA Sports soundtrack, but it's serviceable nonetheless. The real praise to be given for the audio is in the commentary and considering that's what you'll be hearing more of than anything else, it would seem appropriate that 2K Sports nailed it in that area.
In all NBA 2K9 has brought us another stellar helping of NBA basketball. If you're a fan of the NBA, you'll love how perfectly this game captures everything that makes the sport so entertaining. There is something to be said for the casual fan who enjoys the less simulation oriented approach of the NBA Live series, but for the hardcore hoops aficionado, there's no doubt that NBA 2K9 is the premier basketball game on the market today.
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8.6
