The newest iteration of EA’s “NBA 2K” boasts its “Spike Lee Joint” as an additional reason to buy the game. While the main reason people will buy “2K16” is for the gameplay, the integration of Spike Lee’s story actually makes the gameplay experience worse and this must be acknowledged.
However, the Spike Lee aspect of the “MyCareer mode” is a reason not to buy the game. The story contains virtually no character development and does not in any way make the player care about any of the characters. In addition to the poor story arc, the cutscenes have poor lip-sync at times and the character models don’t take into account the height difference of the created character: even at five feet, eight inches, everyone in the cutscenes is at least a full head shorter than the player. If this weren’t enough, there is an odd plot hole in which, if the created character is white, the player’s twin sister, mother and father are all black.
During the story, the player faces a few high school and college games before being drafted to the NBA. At this point, the player is fairly high-leveled and can play relatively well, even with no experience with previous games. However, immediately after the Spike Lee story is over, the player moves into the the normal “MyCareer mode” and the character’s skill level is lowered to the point that basically all one can do in a game is pass and wait for the game to end to gain points for upgrades.
It is clear that “NBA 2K16” does not cater toward new players at all. While most games begin the story mode with some form of tutorial, “2K16” does not. The controls are not explained and one must take on the “figure it out on your own” mentality after pressing play. This would be fine if the game weren’t complex or if the controls were intuitive, but neither case holds.
While tutorials exist in the game, there is nothing on the home screen to let the player know that they’re present. However, if the player has the time to put in the many hours (and it does take many hours) to improve the character as well as learn the gameplay, the experience can become incredibly fun and gratifying. Veteran “2K” players will likely enjoy the game just as much as previous years’ due to the updated rosters and the “myTeam trading card” function, also present in EA’s recent “Madden NFL” titles, which allows a player to create their own custom team assembled from various virtual card packs that are unlockable in game.
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