NBA 2K9

Sep 30, 2008

After the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, the NBA's premier rivalry just might take place in the videogame realm between Visual Concepts' NBA 2K and EA's NBA Live. For years, NBA 2K has won gamers over with more realistic gameplay, which has been as dependable an advantage for the series as the strong defense and "Ubuntu" philosophy the Celtics employed last year to throttle the offensive-minded Lakers in June's NBA Finals. Now NBA Live 09 is going into next season with its version of a healthy Andrew Bynum after announcing the new Dynamic DNA feature, which will allow player tendencies and achievements to be updated every day of the NBA season to provide up-to-the-moment realism. In its tenth season, in the face of Dynamic DNA, will NBA 2K9 be able to reload and repeat as champions yet again?

With the new Living Rosters feature, it looks like NBA 2K9 has no plans on standing pat. Living Rosters will update player and team tendencies, as well as trades and other roster moves, in similar fashion to NBA Live 09's Dynamic DNA, but with a twist (or a killer crossover, if you will). When players start to torch the opposition in real life, new animation packages will unlock for that player in NBA 2K9. So if Miami Heat rookie Michael Beasley starts scoring the way he did at Kansas St., he'll have some new moves in his repertoire which may make gamers more likely to play as the Heat in NBA 2K9. Living Rosters is updated weekly by a real person called the NBA 2K Insider, so it will be interesting to see if there's a difference between NBA 2K9 and NBA Live 09 in terms of how quickly player and team attributes get updated.

Living Rosters might be something that adapts throughout the season however, since the Insider will have his own blog and will respond to user feedback. Since the NBA's regular season doesn't start until November it's impossible to test any online updating feature based on real-life player performance, so obviously we weren't able to see Living Rosters in action. Other new online features include five-on-five online play for the Xbox 360 (only eight players could play at the same time in NBA 2K8) and 2K Share, where gamers can share stuff like rosters, sliders, players and highlight clips.

Another area where NBA 2K9 will branch out is in its utilization of NBA.com in The Association 2.0. NBA.com will offer updates on everything from scores to trade rumors, which gives us the feeling that sports videogames might end up becoming one-stop shops for fans in the coming years, where gamers can read up on their favorite team, run their fantasy league, buy game tickets and even watch games in real time without having to switch to their TV or laptop. Back to the present, NBA 2K9's franchise mode builds on player personalities and roles with the new Player Ambitions feature. For example, a hungry rookie like Eric Gordon of the Clippers might be driven mostly by the desire to win fame and a big contract, while a veteran like P.J. Brown, who has already made plenty of coin throughout his career, might want nothing more than to play for a championship contender.

Those types of ambitions, along with loyalty, are things that come into play when real-life general managers like Danny Ainge are putting together teams, and it can have a major effect on who you can sign to your franchise in NBA 2K9. Also new are Bird Rights, which means you can go over your salary cap to re-sign your own players, as long as they've been on your team for at least three straight years. If all the number-crunching, scouting, drafting, trading, substituting and practicing that can go on in franchise mode just seems like a lot of work, you can now customize The Association 2.0 to have pretty much everything done for you.

Of course, none of the online or franchise updates will mean anything if handling the ball as Kobe Bryant makes you feel like Brian Scalabrine. The gameplay in NBA 2K9 is largely the same as in NBA 2K8, but with a few minor tweaks. The right analog stick is still used for shooting, but now shots can be changed by moving the "shot" stick in different directions while the shooter is in mid-air. We found this feature to be useful inside the paint to avoid shot-blockers, but from the outside you'll need to be careful to avoid pushing your shot off-target. The controversial "lock-on defense" is effectively gone; you can shade your defender in multiple directions with the right analog stick, but no longer can 58-year-old Dikembe Mutombo blanket Monta Ellis (well, before Monta's recent mo-ped accident) in the open court.

There are changes in how the game sounds as well, starting with the announcers. Kevin Harlan returns, although we never heard him yell his signature line, "With no regard for human life!" Replacing Kenny Smith as the color commentator is Clark Kellogg, who's mostly known as a college announcer, while Cheryl Smith replaces Craig Sager as the sideline reporter. While the different announcers shouldn't change the game very much, the musical accompaniment is fairly impressive. The Cool Kids recorded "2K Pennies" just for NBA 2K9, and the song leads off the game and gets the most play. If you like clever raps over spare beats (think: Clipse), this song by the up-and-coming rap duo won't disappoint. NBA 2K9's hip hop catalog goes back to the old school with the Beastie Boys and the Pharcyde, but also dips into the modern indie rock scene with a song from Santogold.

The crowds have also been improved since last year, not just visually but in the effect their cheering has on the game. If you're facing the Lakers at Staples Center, the fans will react the same way they do in a playoff game, although we didn't see Jack Nicholson sitting in his regular courtside seat. Each break between quarters is a veritable highlight fest now, showing replays of nearly every made shot of the past quarter from different camera angles. The NBA 2K series has occasionally been accused of featuring mediocre facial rendering, uniforms and sweat (and who doesn't watch basketball to see Shaq dripping everywhere?), but these all seem to have been improved. Overall, the fluidity of the graphics and tempo of the game are quite good, and the moves one can make with the ball are still extremely varied, as well as the number of set plays one can choose to run. We did notice some clipping issues and instances when player movements in the air looked a little choppy, but we're hopeful that those will be fixed before the final game releases. Finally, the NBA Blacktop is back from NBA 2K8, including the popular (yet challenging) Dunk Contest.

NBA 2K9 looks to retain everything that has made the franchise the top dog in basketball simulation, as well as add some new features to keep it that way. The additions to the online play and the franchise mode should ensure gamers don't feel like they're missing anything certain competing titles are boasting, which is a very smart move. That's because while the feel, control and graphics of NBA 2K9 still look to set the standard, if the series rested on that alone it would risk losing the edge it has enjoyed in recent years. After all, as the Celtics will probably find out in the 2008/09 season, the only thing harder than winning a championship is repeating.