NBA 2K9

NBA 2K9

Features:

• IsoMotion Pro
• Shot Stick Advanced
• Adaptive AI
• All-New Broadcast Team
• Better Replays & Cut Scenes

Product Description
The NBA franchise is back for its 10th season. NBA 2K9 is the premier basketball game for serious players, and delivers the most realistic, stylistic, and feature-rich simulation experience ever available in the NBA 2K franchise - from game play to graphics, presentation and online features.

Better Replays & Cut Scenes - End each quarter with enhanced, multiple angle replay highlights, and be rewarded with true-to-life celebration sequences after you capture the NBA championship NBA 2K Online Features - features like 5-on-5 Multiplayer mode with Total Team Control and a new ranking system--from Bench Warmer to Rookie to Pro to Superstar-- shows you how to match up against your opponents 2K Share - Create, upload, and share rosters, sliders, and even players created with the Player DNA feature. This also includes the Reelmaker, where you can direct your own digital video highlight reels and post them on 2KSports.com or your personal web page
Amazon.com Product Description
The NBA franchise is back for its 10th season.  NBA 2K9 is for gamers and basketball fans everywhere who want to play a fun, stylistic, and feature-rich NBA simulation. With wholesale improvement across the board â€" from gameplay to graphics, presentation and online features - NBA 2K9 is the complete package.

GAMEPLAY FEATURES:
• IsoMotion Pro - An improved dribble system delivers more ball-handling control for changing direction crossing up the opposition.
• Shot Stick Advanced - The Shot Stick control system takes it one step further, allowing you to change your shots mid-air.
• Adaptive AI - Adaptive AI will read, react, and adjust in real time to your strategies. Teammates initiate cuts, picks & post-ups based on how you handle the ball, while opponents modify their strategy to fit the pace of the game.
• The Association 2.0 - An all-new interface replicating the NBA.com experience, plus new features like Player Ambitions, a Player Scouting system, new mini-game Development Drills and more customization options for the casual player make this the deepest and most robust Franchise mode on the market.

PRESENTATION FEATURES:
• 2K-HD - Improved facial and skin textures, better uniforms, improved eye movement and more realistic crowd reactions make the game come alive like never before.
• Styles Upon Styles - More Signature Style has been added with new signature shots, free throw routines, dunks and even facial expressions. Watch as Shaq smirks after plays and KG bangs his chest running down court. In addition, new Signature Defensive Styles have been added; Bruce Bowen plays tight all game, Rasheed Wallace steals in the post, and Shane Battier takes charges.
• All-New Broadcast Team - Analyst Clark Kellogg and sideline reporter Cheryl Miller join color commentator Kevin Harland to create one of the most knowledgeable broadcast teams in the game.
• Better Replays & Cut Scenes - End each quarter with enhanced, multiple angle replay highlights, and be rewarded like never before with all-new, true-to-life celebration sequences.

NEW ONLINE FEATURES:
• Team 2K â€" Put your rep where your mouth is. This feature provides the best online players with the opportunity to be elected to the Team 2K Hall of Fame and put themselves in next year’s game. Each week for 10 weeks the top player will be chosen and receive the 2K Sports royal
treatment, including games, gear, memorabilia and more.
• New NBA 2K Online Features â€" 2K Sports’ industry leading online service gets all-new features like 5-on-5 Multiplayer mode with Off Ball Control and a new player ranking system - from Bench Warmer to Rookie to Pro to Super-star and all the way up to Team 2K.
• 2K Share - Create, upload and share rosters, sliders and even players created with the all-new Player DNA feature. This also includes the newly revamped Reelmaker, where you can now direct your own digital video highlight reels and post them on 2KSports.com or your personal web page for all the world to watch and admire.

Customer Reviews

ALMOST perfect, despite its online failures (2008-11-06)
At the time of this writing, there has not been any patches to correct the issues plaguing the game that the creators were too incompetent to see beforehand or prepare for. Even with these issues, which I'll talk about specifically in a moment, this is still the best basketball game I've ever played.


No matter what happens in the future to correct this game, this will forever be remembered for its absolutely and completely broken online game. A lot of people use hyperboles and exaggerated adjectives to describe an aspect of a game that fails to live up to standards to emphasize their point, but I mean this quite literally when I say it's unplayable. Here's the chronology of how things will play out if you attempt to play an online game: for an Unranked Team Up game, out of 10 tries, you'll fail to connect 7-8 times, when you do eventually connect, the game will either disconnect upon entering, or sometime within the 1st quarter. If you're lucky enough to not experience any of this, even then, your BEST CASE scenario is to play a completely lag filled game for 4 quarters. If it weren't for the lag, I wouldn't be as angry about the disconnects, because at least then, I can still enjoy a quality basketball game online, for however long it lasts (because the gameplay is almost perfect, which I'll get into). It's not much better with Ranked Team Up, your connection success rate is a lot higher, but it doesn't matter since you still either get disconnected midway through the game, or you're treated to a slow-motion, herky-jerky, lag filled game.


Some other points:


--The 2K Camera view LAGS in offline single player mode. How is this happening. How can you knowingly release a game knowing that two main elements of your game are severely flawed. I can almost buy the online excuse that they didn't expect this many players to bog down their servers, but how do you not see that the camera view you've used for the last NINE years lags. Well, this is supposedly being patched, we'll see, no patch as of now, 11/5/2008, 11:30pm EST waiting for my shift to end..


--There's way too many blocked shots around the basket that END UP GOING IN ANYWAY. If the impact of the block was loud enough to be heard clearly, then surely the trajectory of the ball should change enough to NOT go in the hoop. Every now and then sure, but it happens too often.


--Lot of people complain about the right stick menu navigation, but my problem is with the pause system (what's up with me and pause menus?) In most games when you pause, you have the separate menu options to choose, and there's usually a menu option that you can click for something like "resume game," or "return to game," or if you're a normal human being, you'll simply press the equivalent of whatever the B button is on your controller, no matter what console or game it is (or you'll press Start again, thereby returning you back to the game). Well guess what, you can't do that here. You have to specifically choose the menu option that says "resume game." It may seem like nitpicking, but I despise bad, unintuitive controls. It just shows thoughtlessness from the designers. It's like putting the ignition to a car six more inches to the right, sure, it doesn't affect your ability to start your car, but why not make it as comfortable as possible?


--The only reason I play this game is because of the included option of playing as ONE player on the court. This feature has had many monickers over the years, but always been poorly implemented due to the fact that it's only superficial. Previously if you controlled one player, most of your teammates would just stand around waiting for you to call for the ball, doing absolutely nothing. The last game I played that had this feature properly implemented was Slam 'N Jam '95 for 3DO. 2K9 finally does it properly because even while you control a single player, your teammates are still reacting to what's going on on the court, hitting the open man, taking open shots, cutting, passing YOU the ball if you're open. It's a fun challenge to see how well I can carry out my assigned duties and play within the offense, and thanks to the on screen diagrams, you know where you have to be at what time, and what you're supposed to do, whether it be to curl, set a screen, etc. My only complaint is the location of how to access this feature. They've got this thing hidden in the button configuration menu, and even then you have to access the advanced subpage of it, where you designate whether you want to play PG, SG, etc. Why isn't this under the GAMEPLAY menu??? I just wonder how many people even realized this feature existed..


--When you're double teaming someone, once you are in that double team animation, it's impossible to break out of it. If I want to harass a post player, once I'm locked into my animation, I have no way to run back out to the now wide open player at the 3 point line. I don't care if they go 5/5 from the 3 point line, at least give me the option to run at them and put a hand up. This, and the camera issue is the only gameplay flaws that made me give it less than a perfect 10 score (the broken online doesn't factor in) Problem is, although the camera problem is supposedly going to be patched, I can guarantee you this gameplay flaw will most definitely NOT be patched. They may correct it for next year by chance, but they won't waste their time patching it this year, they probably don't even realize it's an issue.


--Speaking of doubleteams, when you doubleteam someone, if you don't pass the ball out fast enough, it ends up as a jumpball. Well here's where the problem is, you end up with 2-3 jumpballs a game. Instead of the end result of not passing it resulting in a jumpball EVERY time, how about simply a TURNOVER. That'd be much more realistic, and wouldn't ruin the flow of the game so much. In the NBA, a player who gets caught in a trap or doubleteamed in the post rarely gets in a jumpball situation, they usually end up getting the ball stripped. The jumpballs happen when someone's going for a layup or a dunk. Hopefully they realize this for next year and have the jumpballs be a result of a defender getting a hand on the ball as you're taking it up, and not because you were doubleteamed (again, those should result in a turnover).



Apart from all that, I've never played a basketball game that was this realistic and this close to perfection. The gameplay is unbelievable. I can't believe the number of nuances and details they have in this game:


--I really like the driving mechanic on this game. This game has a perfect sense and understanding for feel of *space and *momentum. It breaks down in a couple ways: depending on your relative positioning to your defender, you either have the space and/or the player quickness to get by that defender or you don't; and if you don't, you can then dynamically switch directions, or come to a quick stop, and your defender will realistically be off balance for a split second, giving you the time and spacial advantage to bury a quick jumper, or drive AGAIN and this time get by them, since you now have a step on them. I really like the sense of being able to fully control your dribbling player and school the defender.



--It's perfect the way they captured the essence of *getting by someone. Once you have a little bit of space and you get that first step on them, your player lowers his shoulder as you barely get by them.


--The triple threat option is done perfectly. You can do all kinds of footjabs and ball fakes and your defender reacts so realistically and perfectly as he desperately shifts his body weight keep up with you. The AI won't react the say way every time either, you can jab step to your right, and they may not bite, then you pump fake, and quickly jab step a second time, and this time the defender might shift in that direction thinking this was your real move, as you take off towards the left side towards the basket. The same thing goes for a live ball, just like I said earlier, you really have a sense of rocking the defender as they respond to your every dribbling move to keep up with you, and depending on their reaction, if you're quick enough and savvy enough, you can pull off some really cool appropriate counter moves (I say 'appropriate', because sure, maybe you can react and do the same exact counter move every time on the opponent, but for the true NBA fans, you'll want to try to do the most realistic move given the situation, and you have a lot to choose from).


--How's this for authenticity, on one occasion I jumped into the air trying to anticipate a CPU player that I assumed was about to shoot the ball so I could block it, but before he jumped to shoot, a foul was called on someone else off the ball, so in order to get two shots at the line, the CPU player actually JUMPED INTO ME while I was in the air to initiate the contact. And yes, it looked exactly how you would imagine. Show me one other basketball game that does that.


--The motions and movement of people's bodies in this game in general is amazing, particularly on the defensive end. Defenders are keenly aware of the man they're guarding, relative to where the ball is. So he'll kinda put his arm out, to keep contact and feel his man, as he tries to also watch the ball on the other side of the court.


--The faces of players may not look perfect, but the details of their bodies are crazy. Sure, we all know about T-Mac's protruding vein on his right arm/shoulder, and obviously Sheed's white patch on the back of his head. This is nothing new, but who else noticed that they actually included Kobe's NECK FAT? I watch enough basketball to pick up on small details like this, and Kobe has this layer of fat on the back of his neck. Any game that's detailed enough to draw someone's neck fat definitely has my respect.

unbearable frustrating (2008-10-30)
I only play offline seasons. I had NBA 2k8. This version is much harder. I could win most of my games in 2k8 on rookie. Shots get blocked much more often. Harder to get steals. The computer can drive straight through your defender to the basket. The game is very streaky, I win several game in a row then nothing I do works. Every layup gets missed. Every pass gets stolen. Every shot for the computer goes in and it impossible to win.

Best B-ball game on the planet!!! (2008-10-28)
Let me start off by saying I've been a advocate of live since the begining. Never played any of the 2k series until this year. What made me get the game was that I was so dissapointed in live 09. I mean the freestlye control is really no control what so ever. The game is to choppy which means its crap compared to 2k9. In 2k9 you have total control over what your player does offensivly and defensivly and the graphics are very good also...very detailed. Gameplay is very smooth I mean its everything you could ask for in a true hoop game. Live09 ya'll need to get in the lab and get busy asap...your graphics are good and player dna could be something..but you are missing the most important aspect which is game play. I've moved on 2k9 is where I'm at from now until....

A week is enough (2008-10-25)
First off I have bought every nba 2k game since about 04. I played 2k8 online quite often and was very good it it. Was in the middle hundreds of the hundreds of thousands that played (rank). NBA 2k9 has been reinvented maybe a bit too much. I experienced freezing, errors, not impressed with game play.

The controls are awkward and very hard to learn. I started to learn how to play online, but the 2k camera is not in option in multiplayer. Foul shot timming is off on online. In normal play Id make 80% and online about 15%. The games been reinvented a little too much. Probably putting in hundreds of hours on 2k8 about a week of gameplay of 2k9 was enough for me. 2k only updated the rosters 2 or 3 times last year nba live claims they do it daily. Nba 2k is no longer my favorite game, in fact im selling it. People can still pause the game during online with or without the ball, which you will experience people doing this during foul shots to make the timming quite difficult.

Ultimatley the game was pretty much just changed, not so much for the better but just different. Defense seems more difficult, so spamming with yao, kobe, lebron. I recall last year spammers with yao and kobe shooting 50-60% 3pt while being double teamed. Can't say nba live is better since I havent played it, but I will probably give it a shot.

Nice graphics bad gameplay (2008-10-21)
Been playing nba 2k for a while and I am disapointed by this years' version which I bought it 2 weeks ago.

My issues:
1. Lag when playing OFFLINE in 2k mode
2. Online mode - no 2k view. I don't like any of the views they have

on the positive side they have really tried to improve graphics (which is what creates offline lag) and lack of certain views online. also they made the game a lot more realistic which means you cant cheese(use one methodology to score) as much as in the past.