The Backlog: NBA 2K 2024

I chose to play NBA 2K 2024 from my backlog because it was the cheapest game I could find on the list of all the sports games that we could choose from for a college class assignment. And also, I have a brother who plays basketball and I remember watching him play NBA Street volume 1 and 2 back in the day, and those looked really fun.

The game is essentially a NBA basketball simulator. You create a character from a few options, and either play virtual NBA matchups, or interact with career mode, which has you playing for one of your favorite teams with that character you made earlier in an actual NBA season. For a newcomer like me though, in a yearly serialized video game franchise, I felt completely lost. 

The first thing that would be smart to do, I thought, would be to go into practice mode and potentially get a tutorial on how to play. Unfortunately there is no mode titled practice mode. After looking in the menus, for over ten minutes I found out that the actual practice mode was called NBAU. It basically came down to going through some videos on the left side of the screen while you're in a court by yourself, and then the game telling you what moves you can do as a member of a team. This practice mode still was a little confusing to me because when it told me to, for example, press R, I didn't know if that meant the bumper or the control stick, and when I did both, nothing really happened. It's almost like this game was made for those that buy it each year more than people that are just joining its community. 

When I tried really playing the game outside of practice mode, I thought it was only doing those virtual stadium quests I wrote about earlier, as the game didn’t really explain all the modes I could do. I focused most of my time trying to win virtual three on three matches, and I failed most of them. I found it pretty discouraging as it felt like the characters around me had higher stats and could shoot three-pointers, while I could only do close-up shots. There is a leveling system here, but as a level one you can barely play well. There's a weird juggle of trying to practice the moves and actually doing them, kind of like a fighting game, except if all the fighters started at level one and had to be played with for long periods of time to get good enough to beat their opponent. When I finally figured out that I can play a NBA season through the career mode, playing became a bit more entertaining as the animations and close-ups of the characters as they walked about in between playing sessions, made it feel like a real basketball game.

In terms of the sport of basketball being translated into a video game, I think they did a really good job with all the nuances that come with basketball, like shooting, blocking, dribbling, and running with a stamina bar. These aspects of the game are basically what the sport is all about, I noticed though while playing on a controller that just like basketball, the tiniest flick or being in the wrong direction could be everything from getting the ball, and then it being taken from you. When I sort of figured out after playing many matches what each button did, I felt that even if I did press the button I wanted, I was usually off a little bit, and it would mess up everything that I was doing. This is great for a simulation game, but because the controls are so touchy it makes it difficult to steal the ball or dribble around opponents. I kind of wish that there was sort of a handicap for those that are newer to the game though, as I was on the rookie difficulty and I still found it difficult to learn to play correctly.

I've had a little bit of experience with basketball. I’ve participated in some random matches within my local Boys and Girls Club in Oregon, and a little bit of church ball. Playing real games influenced my strategy when it came to passing in NBA 2K. If you’ve ever played basketball, hogging the ball and going straight for the basket doesn’t work, and it didn’t here either. I needed to strategically pass the ball until one of the players was closest to the hoop to get points.