NBA 2K19: Rise from The Grave

So, it has been a dreadful 10 months since 2K18 came out at the time. It was already so trash that Bleacher Report made a Game of Zones episode about the game being a nasty bum. And with that in mind, it was time for NBA 2K19. Now unlike 2K18, this game had skepticism. Because 2K18 had so much overhype and potential in which 2K screwed the game up so bad with their shitty greediness, we all ended up hating it despite the game having some great improvements. Because of all the stupidity of 2K18, NBA 2K19 was on watch to be a better game cuz if this game is just like 2K18 where it failed completely, like I’m done. We’re done. We’re done with this series. I’m tired of buying NBA 2K games where some parts of this game is good while some parts of the game is bad. Like, I just hate these next-gen games being so mediocre while also looking great. So I would check on the news almost every day for NBA 2K19, just hoping that it wasn’t gonna suck like 2K18, and as you can see in this blog, it wasn’t the case. The reputation of NBA 2K is back to normal. I haven’t looked into every feature of NBA 2K19, but I’ll look into it, eventually. But for now, I’m gonna talk about NBA 2K19 and how it got us out of the 2K18 fiasco mess.

So let’s see the good things and improvements that made it to this game. Like always, we start out with the main menu. It’s absolutely amazing and gorgeous. The city view makes it that much pretty. The menu has also changed. It’s horizontal once again like 2K15 in a while. The controls have changed. You use the L1 and R1 (or if you found out the secret buttons to use, L2 and R2) to change screens. This change of the menu from 2K18 is mostly good from 2K and makes this game feel like a entirely new 2K than ever before.

The gameplay is great in this game. The controls are improved as well. A new Gameplay feature would be introduced in this game called the Takeover System. Every player is unique with their own skillset and when you get hot with their skillsets, they’ll be in Takeover, which is pretty cool. The game has dramatically less clipping. In 2K18, players’ bodies would morph through each other which would be so terrible. Now there isn’t any, so I’m glad 2K fixed that. The steal system is improved in 2K19 as they brought back the right stick steal. For some” weird” reason, 2K thought it was a good idea to not put it in last year in 2K18, but now in this game, they’ve brought it back as well. There’s a new control called Hard Stop where you stop to break off your defender and go for a open shot or a blowby, which is pretty cool. One of the best new parts of the gameplay in this game is that 2K now gives you the option to change your Shot Meter, which is fantastic. You can have the Shot Meter from 2K17, which is cool. The best improvement of this game is that 2K finally got rid of that layup meter glitch where the shot meter sometimes doesn’t come up when doing a layup, which is a great plus because that glitch was one of the many issues that ruined 2K18 and for 2K to address that issue in 2K19 is very pleasing. I like the graphics. They have once again improved in which the facescans are amazing and the body types are awesome.

Now it’s time for the one thing that has saved this franchise from total shittiness by 2K18, the features. And what better way to start talking about the features is the mode we all love, or in the case of 2K18, the mode we used to all love, MyCareer. OMG! This is what I was waiting for when the game came out. For MyCareer to be good, and it actually is. I’m so happy that 2K made this game’s MyCareer better than 2K18’s. The mere fact that Pro difficulty felt like Rookie difficulty in this MyCareer made me so happy that I enjoy this MyCareer. Now even tho there’s no Rookie difficulty in this MyCareer, I’m just happy that I can actually enjoy MyCareer because the Pro difficulty actually plays like Rookie difficulty. And for that, this MyCareer, by the time I start playing more of it will be the best MyCareer I have ever played. I love the Neighborhood once again. It’s a brand new Neighborhood. It’s got new Playground courts, new Under Armour Cage Parks, 2K Pro-AM, new Stores, and coming back for the first time since 2K15, the Jordan Rec Center. I was glad to find out that 2K was bringing back the Jordan Rec Center. Many fans have loved it from 2K15 and for me to play some games of it in this game was a great experience. The Road to 99 Rep System is back. There are new rewards in it this year and some of the rewards from last year went to lower reps this year, which is pretty great. MyPlayer is back, albeit it’s not on the main menu, but rather in MyCareer. The face scans again are gorgeous. In fact, the entire Myplayer menu is gorgeous. The head selection menu is the best aspect of it as it name the body parts, making creating your MyPlayer and other Create-A-Players very easy. This MyPlayer is honestly the best MyPlayer in my opinion.

MyLeague has gotten some huge improvements this year in 2K19, and it’s bigger than ever before. OMG, when I first saw the MyLeague, MyGM, Create-A-Player Blog, I was so excited for this game. They added new sliders called Ultimate Customization Sliders. Three new types of sliders are brought into MyLeague: Trade, Contract, and Progression. You can sample a player to determine his trade value from other teams by team state, team style, overall rating, and so on. You can determine how much money a player expects to get with the new Contract Sliders. Finally, you can have star players sign minimum contracts. From 2K16 to 2K18, I would be pissed that I couldn’t be able to sign star players minimum contracts. Now in 2K19 along with 2K17 and 2K18 cuz I figured it out when doing this blog, you can finally do this. You can change how fast a player improves or deteriorates. These new sliders make this game the game I finally dreamed of having. Create Draft Class now has Historical Draft Classes. When I saw this, I had already want 2K19. They added real life draft classes of real life NBA players so that we can actually draft them. This is awesome because I can already see NBA comebacks happening. You can import these historical draft classes to the start of every season of MyLeague if you wanted to, so this is just so awesome. If you’ve never wanted aging stars to retire, you can use these draft classes to bring them back, which is so cool. But there is another feature that really got my attention for some more. The feature that has come back from a long time in this game. Player DNA! Yes! They brought back this feature in a while since 2K10 and for it to finally come back in 2K19 makes this 2K better than the rest of them. You can copy any real NBA player or created player to any player, with both their appearance and attributes, or one of the other. You can make real NBA players and put them in free agency and a team if you want to. What makes this feature better than the Historical Draft Classes is that if you suspect a player to retire soon after the season’s over, you can just copy his DNA, export it to create it, and then go to Player DNA and put him on Free Agency. It’s just that cool because I’ll no longer have to worry about players being gone because I have Player DNA. It’s simply amazing! The New All-Star Game Format is finally in this game. The Team Captain Format couldn’t come to 2K18 due to the fact that the game came out before the NBA dramtically changed it during the middle of the season. So now that it happened last season IRL, it comes in this game, along the All-Star draft. Ooh, another cool thing. After making the teams, once all of the All-Star weekend participants are revealed, you can change the participants of the All-Star Weekend. Whether it’s the All-Star Game or the other events, you can put whoever, which is sooooo awesome. That’s not the only thing you can change with players. The Season Awards are now controllable. You can finally select who the MVP is. Want Lebron to get the MVP instead of Steph due to the fact that the Lakers are always dominating the Warriors? You can finally do that. You can train for badges with the new Player Mentorships feature. Young players with a mentor can grind for badges, finally giving badges a reason to be a part of the experience. Instead of random rules popping up, you can choose whatever list of rules you want to change or stay the same. There’s also a new set of rules that are in the game, making this experience of rule changing a little more fun. There’s more new features in this game too that is worth a look into, which is cool. It’s honestly crazy how every 2K improves on MyLeague, but this amount of new features in MyLeague made this game in my eyes the most exciting to play. 2K did a excellent job in all of the features. They make MyLeague more fun than ever and with all of them being packed together, this makes 2K19’s MyLeague perhaps one of or the best MyLeague ever.

MyGM. Awww Man, MyGM deserves some love. I have just played The Saga Continues and it is amazing. Very entertaining story as you build a expansion team and try to become a contender for years to come. Great news for longtime MyGM fans, the old Traditional MyGM is back. You now have 2 MyGMs you can play: The Saga Continues MyGM and Traditional MyGM. Even greater news. MyGM in either one of them has more customizable options. The Salary Cap can be increased. The Trade Override Option is in MyGM and it was awesome to have it in there. In the previous three 2Ks, MyGM would be nothing but ass when it comes to trading, hence why I’ve never gave a damn about it. Now in 2K19, if a team declined your offer, you can override the team’s decision to finally get that superstar you wanted for anybody. And with that being in MyGM, this is where I can easily say that this MyGM is the first MyGM I enjoyed a lot of and that 2K19 MyGM is the best MyGM of all-time.

Ah yes, even tho I love MyCareer this year, even tho I love MyLeague this year, there’s still some issues of the game that honestly ruins it a little by a lot.

#1 Still no 2K Beats Soundtrack in Games

Once again, 2K makes another fire soundtrack. 2K19’s soundtrack is great. Travis Scott did a hell of a job on it. But the one thing, the one thing I wanted back that 2K18 didn’t bring, they didn’t do it! There’s still no 2K Beats In Game Volume slider. I just had a very simple common sense return to the soundtrack. Why, how fucking hard would that have been to bring back the feature?! Just bring back the feature! Why is that a hard thing to do?! The worst part of this still being a issue is that 2K put out a tweet saying “You can now ball out to Sicko Mode and Stargazing in #NBA2K19.” They added those two songs during the year of this game. It made me thought that “ hey, 2K is bringing back the 2K Beats In Game Volume slider, this game is gonna be even more awesome.” And then I got the game, and it’s still not fucking there, so I have no choice but to say 2K did false advertising on this one and they are bullshit idiots for tweeting that shit, only for it to be fucking inaccurate. Granted, you can listen to the soundtrack in the Neighborhood, Playground, Jordan Rec Center, Under Armour Cages, and perhaps 2K Pro-Am (didn’t play it) with your headphones on, but that’s the problem. They didn’t tell you this shit in the tweet, which means it’s false advertising. What the fuck is wrong with you, 2K?!

#2 2 Classic Teams are missing

This is just the most stupid thing that 2K has ever done. The 1971 Hawks and 1972 Lakers are missing. I don’t understand why 2K did a downgrade of the entire roster. This makes no sense whatsoever. Why didn’t you bring them back? Y’know, back when I was playing 2K18, I played every single classic team because I wanted to try them all because there was a small chance that every single one of those classic teams wasn’t gonna be in 2K19. There were classic teams in 2K11 that didn’t make it to any of the next gen games. So I played every one of them in 2K18. And this BS happens. How hard could it have been to add these 2 teams back. Naruto Storm 4 had the largest roster ever in a fighting video game at about 106 characters, which is surprisingly large, and they still got pretty much everybody (except for one but that’s another story for another day). I just can’t imagine that they had no time to add them back in.

#3 Classic Teams are becoming more fucking inaccurate

This is the most fucking laziest thing that 2K has ever done. Matter of fact, it’s the most fucking laziest thing they ever done since 2K11. The classic teams, Oh My God, the classic teams, they’re more inaccurate than ever. Teams that used to be fun to play with have more real life players that are missing. The 2013 Heat are missing Chris Bosh. Why in the Hell is Chris Bosh missing?! This is stupid!!!!!! You wanna know what’s the worse part about 2K being stupid with classic teams in this game? Throughout their entirety in every 2K that they have classic teams, 2K has had only one team that was completely accurate, and that was those sorry ass 2016 Golden State Warriors in 2K18. Now this year, they fucked this roster up. Now, they updated it because they knew they were being dickheads with those generics, but there’s one player missing, and that’s Festus Ezeli. Wait! There’s fucking more. They didn’t get the damn pictures right for two players. Leandro Barbosa has a picture of Anderson Varejao and Anderson Varejao has a picture of Festus Ezeli. Who made this shit?!!!!!!

#4 Playoffs Mode is Trash!!!!!!

This pissed me off last night when I was playing the game. I just don’t understand. Of all the modes to be bad, of all the modes to be stupid, it’s this one. Playoffs Mode is Trash!!! It is Absolute Trash!!!!!! You can’t use custom rosters in Playoffs Mode?! Who the fuck thought this was a good idea to downgrade Playoffs Mode by not allowing you to use custom rosters?!! You wanna know a more dumber thing? It’s been two straight years now since Playoffs Mode came back in 2K17 and you can’t edit the players, and they have the fucking nerve to say “completely customizable experience” every year. That is Absolute Donkey Shit!! This is the most returded shit that 2K has ever done to a mode this year other than MyCareer last year. This is terrible!!!!!! I was already happy that MyCareer, and MyLeague, and MyGM were better. I was already happy that this game is way better than 2K18, but this idea to downgrade Playoffs Mode and make it more worse is just fucking asinine. Therefore, I’m not playing this year’s Playoffs Mode, because it is horse shit! And that’s the bottom line, cuz I… fucking… said so.

So now we review. NBA 2K19 has exceeded our expectations in what has become a comeback year. They made MyCareer great again, and made MyLeague and MyGM great as well. Adding Player DNA once again in a long time. Improving custom roster customization. This game with all of the new features in it makes me easily say that this game is better than 2K16, 17, and 18. But it has its fair share of issues like any typical 2K has. Note I am still mad about Playoffs Mode. This is far from being the greatest 2K like 2K11, although I like 2K19 better, but if you combine everything I said in this blog, it’s a good game. It’s not perfect the way we wanted it to, but with all of these improvements, it’s the best 2K right now. I highly recommend it. You’ll have fun with this game. It’s what you would expect with this game. Just having fun, doing whatever you want, and it’s very close. NBA 2K19 makes the NBA 2K franchise come back from being dead and goes up to the top of the sky, at least momentarily. With the future of 2K still on hold, NBA 2K19 may perhaps be one of the greatest 2Ks of all-time. Well, I hoped you all have enjoyed this blog. I’m Tavon and I’ll see you guys later! Peace!