NBA 2K16 runs at a staggeringly smooth and fluid 60 frames per second. The players are much easier to control than they were in NBA 2K16, gracefully flowing from one action to the next. Animations (there are now more than 6,000) are smoother, shorter, and less distracting. You can dribble, crossover, back down your man, and turn to shoot the fadeaway in one fluid sequence. Previously, this would have been several distinct actions, each with its own animations, and you had to wait for one animation to finish before you could trigger the next. NBA 2K16 looks and feels like an actual NBA broadcast.

 

For the most part, this is true. Bugs aside, NBA2K is still a solid basketball game and really the only team in the league worth talking about. EA gave it a good effort this past year, but NBA Live is still nowhere near as all-around good as NBA2K. I love this game. I spend more time with it each year than any other game and consider it my favorite series of all time. As usual, the best way to send a company a message is to vote with your wallets. Stop buying VC. Stop buying Day One. It's that easy. While face scanning has created some buzz, there are still a lot of facets of NBA 2K16 to look at.

 

The 2K team also added new dribble and dunk packages (which weirdly include an absurd number of left-handed jams), further decreasing the repetition of animation seen in 2K16. With that said, one-on-one defense in 2K16 is significantly harder than it was in last year’s title, largely thanks to the implementation of improved ball-handling abilities for guards, notably things like “double moves” (a combination of two dribble moves). Man-to-man sets seem to be the way to go, especially considering the infamous 1-3-1 trap defense has been removed from the game.

 

When I flick the thumbstick (or “Pro Stick,” in NBA 2K parlance) toward the baseline to perform a drop step, it is mimicking on a smaller scale with my thumb the explosive dribble-step of the move. Mechanically, NBA 2K15 does an excellent job of translating the physical experience of playing basketball to a digital game controlled by a couple thumbsticks and a few buttons. Many of the actions of fingers mimetically reproduce the actions of the body on a court. Flick the thumbstick backwards to perform a behind the back dribble. To perform a crossover, move the thumbstick from the ball hand to the off-hand. Logical, right? NBA 2K16 controls are definitely not easy, but they make sense against the logics of real world performance. In a game with dozens of offensive skill moves, from dribbling to post maneuvers, this is no small feat indeed.

 

What if a user wants to create a slashing guard who isn’t a great three point shooter but can finish at the rim and has a nice mid range game? They have to waste VC to put into the attribute categories and raise his Shot Three and and increase his Post Hook just to raise his Mid range and Layup game. That is unacceptable and really limits players in what they can do with their MyCareers. If they expanded on this idea and perhaps had 20+ categories to invest in with different combos of attributes, the mode would be much better. Or just resort back to the individual upgrades, not sure what was wrong with that. The Upgrades cap they introduced in an attempt to limit players buying 99’s right away is a terrible idea which should be removed for next years edition. I can tell you right now exactly how to limit players from buying 99 overall players as the game comes out.

 

Loading is one consequence of all sports video games, and as is customary, 2K16 decorates a lot of them with commentary and stat sheets. Regardless, loading into a game takes about a minute each time and loading to the menus from a game takes 30 seconds. The 49-gigabyte install makes skipping commentary, game time events, and celebrations absolutely seamless and lag-free, but the install does nothing to shorten the time it takes to load games. This goes double for the MyCareer mode, where absolutely nothing goes on except watching a progress wheel in the bottom right corner count up to 100%.