A Review of NBA 2k20

My first NBA 2k was on the Sega Dreamcast. This game from the beginning revolutionized simulation basketball. The game looked and felt like how you play real basketball. I was more of an NBA Live fan growing up, and didn't really start playing 2k consistently until the demise of NBA Live in 2010. Live was more of an arcade feel for basketball, but over the years has been unable to compete with 2k. NBA 2k offline is one of the single greatest basketball games ever, but online is where they face a vast majority of their problem.

NBA 2k20 was first made available to the public on September 5th, at nine o'clock pacific standard time. Hundred of thousands of people downloaded the game and were ready to play, myself included. Very eager to play, I loaded up the game and I could not connect to the online servers. I tried and tried, until finally after thirty minutes I was able to connect. I enjoy playing my career. This is a story mode where you guide your player to the NBA and follow the journey. You can upgrade your stats, badges, and accessories. Badges are the players special abilities categorized into rebounding, shooting, dunking, and dribbling.

The first night of playing the game was very buggy, which was to be expected since hundreds of thousands of people were all on at the same time. One of the games quick fixes would be to add more servers or just upgrade the ones they have. I'm not a specialist in this, but I know for a fact 2k has to fix their servers. The guy in the picture who is YouTuber Agent zero, is always preaching for the company to do something with their servers. The game crashed at times for me or would just freeze on the first night. Over the next couple days things started to get worse.

As I started to play the game more, my player on my career started getting negative points on NBA games. Even my badge progression on team practices was going negative. I look on Twitter, and everyone is reporting the same and finding even more problem then I am. People are getting kicked out of online games, or there screen goes blue and they have to restart the game. People were furious that there progression was being negated and using a lot of their time for nothing. People took to Twitter to voice their opinions. Twitter is an excellent platform to be seen and have your opinion voiced. The hashtag fix 2k20 was the number one trending topic on Twitter. Throughout the years NBA 2k does a great job of ignoring when people complain about the game, but they certainly acknowledged this one. The game has been working much better and a lot of people are reporting good things now. There are even more problems on other game modes which are just too much to cover, but in most of the game modes are games not being counted and players having to restart the game. It is still very early in the year, and it is expected of the video game franchise to continue to have their problems. I don't have much faith in them over all these years.

Every year NBA 2k overall looks like a game I would watch on TNT Thursday nights. The face scans of the players and their body types look more real every single year. 2k always does a tremendous job with details. The crowd gets better, the courts are as authentic as can be. The game play for this year is actually very good in my opinion. The reception on Twitter is mixed, but that's almost every year. Shooting is actually more difficult this year, which is nice because in last years game anyone can walk on and make any shot they wanted. The animations are much improved this year. They look like things that would naturally happen in a basketball game. They also made the game more rewarding, and you are able to unlock more things for free. Over the years 2k has received a lot of backlash for making players pay money to upgrade in the game. Gone are the days of paying for a game and receiving everything in the game. Now you have to pay $60, plus new upgrades, accessories, even hairstyles costed a lot until people complained on Twitter.

I like the game overall, I just wish the servers and all the bug issues were non-existent. There is no real competition for a basketball game, as 2k dominates every year. NBA Live is going to be delayed, and even if they were coming out with a game it probably would not be any good. NBA Live has not had a good game since honestly 2007. I use to like more of the arcade basketball game, such as NBA Jam and NBA Street. Honestly I believe 2k knows there is not very much competition, and every year releases and unfinished product. They update the game throughout the year, and it usually changes every time. Players have to adapt to the new way, and then another game suddenly comes out, and you have to adapt once again. 2k was honestly at their best when the game would release in October. They seem to be in a rush year after year to release it early. I just want to be able to purchase a product and be satisfied with it.