NBA 2K14 Review

Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam. Wave your hands in the air if you feel fine, we’re going to take it into overtime. Everybody get up it’s time to slam now, we've got a real jam goin' down.

If you read the paragraph above whilst tutting and throwing stuff around your room in distaste, then it’s safe to say you’re aware that this review of a basketball game is written by a reviewer that has no, shall we say, concrete knowledge of the sport. In fact, before receiving 2K’s latest basketball game in the series, the most basketball I had watched was on VHS in the mid-nineties.

To be fair I'm no dummy, I knew many of the rules and regulations of basketball but upon loading the game I didn't realise quite how substantial NBA 2K14 as a game really was.

I decided to watch a game first, get a feel for how the engine plays itself and the various mechanics involved in the playable and viewable side of things. Astonishingly, NBA 2K14 when viewed as a casual spectator, could be easily and legitimately mistaken for a live basketball game. The player movements, commentary, atmosphere of the crowd and stadium and even the individual player analysis by the commentators is truly something to behold.

From the opening few plays, it was clear to see that other sports games can’t hold a candle to how well 2K have interpreted the sport and, in particular, the modern television format. I've not watched a modern basketball game on American TV in quite some time but I imagine 2K have hit the nail on the head with how each game is ‘broadcast’ in NBA 2K14. EA could take a lot on board from what has been achieved on the visual level alone (though we are yet to see what comes of the next-gen games).

There’s an astonishing attention to detail with trainer squeaks on the flawless wooden varnished court, blessed with near perfect player and advertising board reflections. Player animations when viewed from afar, appear very accurate, right down to the facial animations. Close up, it’s what you expect, un-scripted jittery movements and alterations - making LeBron James look a little like a puppet in some instances. It’s not the worst looking animation you will see, especially for a live sports game but the next-gen edition of 2K's NBA series will rectify the smaller details that will take the level of realism closer to the realms of uncanny.

Now let’s talk gameplay. As a newbie b-ball game player, my first instinct was to search for a tutorial. NBA 2K14 has a LOT of different button and stick combinations, making it really quite daunting for a new player to the series. There are dozens of different passes, shimmys, feints, shots, blocks and quite frankly it was too much for me. I was struggling to get to grips with the basics let alone the multitude of other different things I could do. Each move that you are ‘taught’ (and I use that term loosely), could consist of a slight tap of the right analogue stick or one button press. Sounds simple, but when you are trying to remember 100 or so different combinations in one go, it makes the game less like a sports game and more like the expert level on Tekken.

Furthermore, when you have gone through the tutorial once, you can’t go through an entire set of moves again as before. Once you back out of the tutorial and re-enter, the instant you get the move correct, the game boots you back to the main tutorial menu, where you have to re-enter, just to get booted back out again and again. It’s frustrating to say the least as without having a list of each move physically written down in front of you, or memorising each one, there is no other way to practice the vast amount of, what should be, basic moves, just so you can play the game to any degree whatsoever.

I didn't really know what I was doing when I started up the ‘MyCareer’ mode. The tutorial seemed more of a hindrance than a help, but I created a character and jumped straight into my draft game. I didn't play great, I kept having to pause the game and check the controller options in the menu, where I also found some defending assists that aided in my playing slightly, only when turned up to full. I finished the game, got asked a few questions by a variety of coaches from some middle-tier teams and then eventually got picked to play for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Press and new media is a heavy part of the ‘MyCareer’ mode, with you being able to maintain your social media accounts as well as giving the right speeches at the end of games. Win games, the fans are happy, gain followers on social media and you are more likely to attract personal sponsors. You feel quite involved within ‘MyCareer’, especially when your fans tell you how well you have played, or in my case how badly I've played.

In the earlier games I got subbed a lot, I wasn't playing great but as I progressed through the career I managed to get more game time. It helped me in practicing the game but it didn't improve my game too much. After about a dozen games my knowledge of the button layout and the way everything worked wasn't too much more advanced than it was when I first started and that really bugged me as I felt my hard work wasn't really paying off.

There are a variety of other game modes you can try and get to grips with to practice your full-team game better including the new ‘LeBron: Path to Greatness’ mode, where you step into LeBron’s shoes and dribble through his career, making the choices he did along the way.  Week-by-week matches are also available to play, a common theme in most modern sports games nowadays, where you can emulate the tip-top clashes of the week, aiding in a possible personal redemption after watching your team lose, again

To the advanced player, I can see the appeal. The fluidity, realism and complexity of the game makes it so desirable just from a viewer perspective and I'm sure, given the time and know-how, it would be a thoroughly enjoyable game to play. In the case of a newbie, like myself, it’s perhaps not the complete package.

I really want to like NBA 2K14 and I will continue to try my best to get better, as an alternative to playing FIFA all the time. It’s great to watch, don’t get me wrong and I would have no qualms in watching a couple of my mates play a game themselves, but without the concrete tutorial system and lack of any real aids for a first time player, I wouldn't recommend this game to such a person. NBA 2K14 is pretty and a power-play ahead of its sporting rivals in terms of realism, but falls far short of the basket for those inexperienced in the series.