NBA 2K22: Kotaku review

I can not do this anymore. This is the year when NBA 2K turned me into a Joker.

To be clear, this year’s game vulgarities are nothing New. There’s nothing here that will inspire longtime fans of the show to do a double take with bulging cartoon eyes, or that score. NBA 2K22 like something which, highlighted in a vacuum, is particularly guilty by its loneliness. That’s the thing with the drops that break a camel’s back, though. Whoever gets there ultimately doesn’t look too different from those who came before him.

I’ve been reviewing this game, or at least parts of it, for almost a decade now., and with each passing year, they are more and more disappointed with the direction it has taken, moving further and further away from the “big basketball game with a broken but interesting single player mode” to the “psychological trap and economic exploitative ”.

Each year my critics have grown a little more frustrated, a little more exasperated, and a lot less tolerant of this money-driven shift away from the core of the series. 2k22 does not constitute a huge one more step in that direction, but after eight years of submitting to it every year, that’s enough for me. from the Serie :

2K18: Maybe the explanation for this tone (or at least the process that led to it) is the amount of Branding ™ in this game. From Sponsored Storefronts and Sponsored Bonuses to Sponsors lining up to sponsor your career, it is overwhelming. There is literally a “thank you” message to brand Jordan said out loud during the intro without a shred of self-awareness. That level of advertising would be out of place at the best of times, but when you pair that with the surge in microtransactions, the whole MyCareer experience starts to feel disgusting.

2K19: Playing 2K19 is about being in a constant state of denial and denial, always aware that in every aspect of the game, from gyms and shops to the action on the field itself, you can either spend money. VC, or be told that you’re missing something.

2K20: It’s the breadth of how NBA 2K20 views an act of personal sacrifice, an act that barely scratches the surface of some of the most pressing issues affecting college sports and how it compensates the athletes who generate its profits. Like a marketing stunt. The opportunity to sign contracts. As they watched Colin Kaepernick’s struggles with the NFL and all they got out of it was his contract with Nike.

2K21: NBA 2K21 is the contemporary 2K experience, seen through the eyes of an exhausted fan base, pushed to its logical conclusion. It is an exercise in reflection on a sports game, an experience with a publisher seeing how little it can offer players while maximizing their profits. This game is the simplest of upgrades, in some cases a downgrade from what came before, and yet at every step you are still forced to spend real money on trinkets and upgrades , even in single player game modes, although it is already a full game. – retail price.

2k22: * screaming into the void *

NBA 2K22 just isn’t a basketball game. there is basketball inside, but it is not the point. Rather, it is a huge shakedown, an ornate palace built with endless attempts to coax more and more money from the player despite the cost of full admission, some of them clever and subtle, most of them them odiously obvious and disgusting in their persistence.

It’s exhausting to be around this game. If it doesn’t require you to spend real money, it requires you to relentlessly perform the most basic and joyless tasks, like the worst aspects of the game. MMO and mobile game design found each other and thought “let’s launch an exciting new startup business in the AAA gaming space”. Turning it on every day felt like work, like grabbing a helmet and a flashlight and putting a change into a mine of virtual currency, munching on inert slabs of menus and advertisements, the prospect of it just being a game. fun on basketball being little more than a distant memory.

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Do not help 2K22 is that when you manage to put a ball on the field and play, the whole experience is so stale. The gameplay of the series, like most sports games, creaks with old age; going back to the old reviews for this year i looked some gameplay from 2K15, so game of 2K22 and while there is an expected increase in fidelity, overall the way the game is structured, controlled and played is tired.

(Note that I played the game on PC which has latest generation technology while the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions have more pleasant visuals, smoother animations and some additional features, like a larger global zone and a WNBA career mode; that said, the bones of the game and its economy are the same from one generation to the next)

I’m never the type to jump on the crowd “sports games are just hurnh hurnh list updates” because it’s always unfair, but I’m never the type to buy these games every day. year, look at a handful of chip upgrades and think nothing’s wrong with the world, either. For me, there’s an elasticity at play here, where I’m willing to make room for these series because making a play every year is hard work, but there’s also a point where you have to say, OK, it’s just getting old, and things have to change. You may have understood where I am with the NBA2K Series now.

Now this is the part of these reviews where I normally go through my economic and grind-related complaints and say, you know what, it’s okay, because basketball is always good, and then I spend a few paragraphs saying that the shot meter is easier to understand (it’s a lot better this year), or the transition buckets are easier this year, or the AI ​​is a little better at protecting the paint. Objectively, it’s always right, because that is a great game of basketball, although our standards for what it could and should be are meaningless since this game has no competition.

But this year I’m tired, and 2k22 does not deserve absolution. The game hustles and harasses the court is so relentless, and I’m so exhausted after so many years that it sucks the life out of basketball itself. MyCareer is so ruined by its flawed branding and constant ads that I wasn’t even that worried about what the story was called, and multiplayer modes are so overrun with microtransactions, grinds, or the advertising exhibition (or all three!) I didn’t want to spend time there either.

I’m sure there will be fans who will read this and consider abusively tweeting me saying that I put too much importance on things off the pitch, and that they are able to take the pressures very well. of 2K and continue to enjoy basketball and some game modes (MyGM is probably the least obnoxious) as they are.

I think the fact that you have to work so hard to ignore the shakedown in a full-price retail game should be enough to wave red flags in front of even the most easy-going fans. 2K22 monetization follows you endlessly, biting your heels in every menu, taunting you at every boot screen, driving you crazy with observations like the fact that every cutscene in the game is instantly jumpable except for the first five seconds of ‘a game strongly marked by Gatorade. free time.

I don’t want to have to work just to enjoy a basketball game. I just wanna … enjoy a game of basketball, and 2K22 the only place I can do it in peace is the insignificant collection of one-off ‘play now’ modes.

What drives me craziest about it is the fact that it doesn’t have to be like this! 2K doesn’t work in some sort of sports game vacuum. Rival EA did Billions in digital sales by some of the most disgusting means imaginable, to the point where national governments have taken legal action, but at the same time, these modes are reasonably protected by a firewall. You can buy FIFA Where Madden, play multiple career modes, and aside from purchasing cosmetics, enjoy it in relative comfort if you don’t specifically want to jump into the bottomless pit.

You can’t do that with 2K. Hustle and bustle is everywhere here, and it is not a modern sports game problem, it is a NBA 2K problem, entirely of his own selfish action and a decade in the making.