NBA 2K

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off by envisioning a return to modding.

I’ve said it before, but even though I haven’t been regularly maintaining a roster update for over a decade and my modding output in general has been sporadic, the interest – indeed, the itch and the urge to mod – is still there. Lingering memories of burnout and the more finicky and frustrating aspects of modding don’t exactly help me to get motivated, but I also fondly recall the creative satisfaction of the hobby. It’s why I’ve dabbled here and there, without committing to any larger projects.

To that end, this isn’t some grand announcement of a huge return. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from other attempts at returning to modding over the past decade or so, it’s to avoid jumping the gun and announcing a big project that I can’t guarantee I’ll deliver on! At the same time, my casual dabbling with minimalist modding and other ideas has encouraged me to get more involved again, and even consider tinkering with NBA 2K25. I touched on this when I shared some of my roster mod philosophies, but as I envision a possible return to modding, it’s essential that I choose projects that appeal to my interests, not to mention suit my current habits on the virtual hardwood.

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on the annual honeymoon phase that accompanies the release of every NBA 2K game.

NBA 2K25 will be out this Friday – or Wednesday, if you’ve pre-ordered for the Early Tip-Off – which means it won’t be long before we get our hands on this year’s release. It’s always an exciting time, as the community prepares for another year of basketball gaming. All of those offseason moves that created intriguing new lineups? We’ll get to see how they fare on the virtual hardwood! Although they’re the cause of the New Game Blues, the fresh start and clean slate in MyTEAM and MyCAREER can also be enticing, especially with the prospect of more content to come.

And of course, we’re eager to see whether all of the improvements that were hyped up during the preview season are as good as advertised. We shouldn’t expect perfection; beyond being an impossible standard in general, any Triple-A game that’s developed in the space of a year is going to have a bug or two. Even with all the pre-release QA testing, there are going to be glitches or gameplay quirks that aren’t discovered until a game is in the hands of the masses. It’s important to remember that, but at the same time, we shouldn’t ever pretend that everything’s perfect, and refuse to criticise a new game. Too many people forget this during the annual honeymoon phase for NBA 2K.

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the various iterations of 24/7 mode in NBA 2K.

There are many features, modes, and concepts in basketball video games that are older than we may recall. To that point, MyCAREER has been a staple of NBA 2K since its debut as My Player way back in NBA 2K10; a game released in 2009. For that matter, the story-driven approach to MyCAREER has been the standard for over ten years now, debuting in NBA 2K14 Next Gen and appearing in almost three times as many games as the original version of the mode. In short, a single player career mode is nothing new at this point.

However, the concept is even older than that! While we didn’t get a fully-fledged NBA-oriented career experience until 2009, earlier games did experiment with single player campaign modes. Indeed, NBA 2K branched out into this area very early on in the series, introducing 24/7 mode in ESPN NBA Basketball (aka NBA 2K4). It was relatively short-lived as it was phased out after NBA 2K7, but it stands as a creative concept that undoubtedly paved the way for modern career modes. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with a few thoughts on the lure of online team play.

I haven’t bothered putting any serious effort into levelling up a MyPLAYER since NBA 2K21 on PlayStation 5. As I’ve explained in detail before, I was fed up with the grind, and weary of the toxicity in The Rec and NBA 2K’s online scene in general. After revisiting some old favourites and giving other older releases a second chance, I realised just how much fun I was missing out on, and quit the grind. Changing my basketball gaming habits has been so refreshing, and it’s obviously given me new topics to discuss as well. I left online team play behind, and I haven’t looked back.

Well…sort of. Kenny, Leo, and I gave 3-v-3 Pro-Am and The Rec another try in NBA 2K23 on PlayStation 5, and for the first month, we actually had some fun sessions! Of course, by Season 2, the community had figured out the meta and the hardcore online gamers had levelled up their MyPLAYERs, at which point the lack of matchmaking kept throwing us in there with super serious, souped-up opponents. It wasn’t a tough decision to leave it all behind again, and honestly, NBA 2K23 dropped out of my rotation entirely not long afterwards. However, that brief return and fond memories of NBA 2K16 and NBA 2K17 demonstrate that there’s still a lure to online team play.

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five things that should never cost VC to equip or use.

When we talk about what basketball video games should and shouldn’t do, it does pay to think about the business side of things. Granted, that shouldn’t be our concern as consumers, but as far as feasibility or the likelihood of certain ideas, it’s something we have to keep in mind. After all, “get rid of all microtransactions” would be a fantastic suggestion in my book, but it’s just not going to happen! Sadly, including freemium mechanics in Triple-A games has proven to be too profitable for companies to not do so if they can get away with it, so it’s not a realistic request or expectation.

With that being said, I’m ultimately always going to advocate for value for money, fairness to consumers, and a quality experience when it comes to basketball video games. Again, I’m going to tailor any suggestions based on what we know is highly unlikely or unrealistic, but I’m on the side of gamers, not the suits and billion dollar corporations. Unfortunately, there are too many people who excuse or even outright shill for recurrent revenue mechanics, which has emboldened NBA 2K to place more and more content behind VC paywalls. It’s done nothing to enhance the experience for us, so to that end, here are five things that we should never have to spend VC on.

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five things that really should carry over year-to-year in NBA 2K.

Many years ago, I reflected on what I described as the New Game Blues. In short, when you’ve come to really enjoy a particular release in an annual basketball video game series, it can be tough to move on. The new game doesn’t feel as familiar and welcoming as the one you’ve been playing religiously for the past year. On top of that, all your progress is effectively gone, since it doesn’t carry over. Whether it’s a career mode game with a maxed-out avatar, an awesome squad in a card collecting mode, or a franchise mode game that’s five years in, it’s in the past now. Starting over is a pain!

Naturally, this has only gotten worse as the games have become greedier and pushier about microtransactions. That annual loss of progress is even harsher now that we’re confronted with the pressure to spend above and beyond the cost of purchasing the games in order to really enjoy them to the fullest. Also, as the online scene in NBA 2K has becoming increasingly toxic and elitist, being mistaken for a newcomer is just as miserable as actually being one. It’s a long shot given the greed that permeates the Triple-A gaming scene nowadays, but if these five things carried over year-to-year in NBA 2K, it would generate a ton of goodwill, and greatly improve the experience.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #539 of the NLSC Podcast!

Several former EA developers are working on The Run: Got Next; a 3-on-3 basketball game that’s being described as a spiritual successor to NBA Street. This week, we join the community in sharing our thoughts on IGN’s early preview of the game, which suggests a direction that many basketball gamers who remember NBA Street fondly may not actually enjoy. To that end, we also discuss whether it sounds like the game is truly carrying on the legacy of the iconic series, especially after revisiting NBA Street Vol. 2 over Parsec. We also react to a New York Times article that called out the predatory practices in 2K Sports and EA Sports titles, an issue that we’re certainly passionate about.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:06:51 — 46.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #538 of the NLSC Podcast!

As we wait for the NBA 2K25 preview season to kick into high gear, we have another PC basketball game to keep an eye on: Full Court Heroes, a retro-style 5-on-5 game in the vein of Basketball Classics. Since the demo is already available on Steam, we share a few thoughts on its gameplay, fictional teams, and planned modding capabilities, as well as what we want to see from the full version. We also recap a session in which we played NBA Live 2000 PC and NBA 2K for the Dreamcast back-to-back, leading us to compare the two games and reflect on the intertwined history of NBA Live and NBA 2K. Finally, in this week’s mailbag, we ask the community about double-dipping with NBA 2K25 on PC and console.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 55:05 — 38.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with a look at how Terry Hanson is beginning to spawn a multiverse.

When you think about it, basketball video games create a multitude of realities; a multiverse, if you will. For example, from my gaming alone, the Chicago Bulls have won their seventh championship – and sometimes an eighth title as well – on several occasions and in different seasons. In my NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, I’m working on an alternate timeline spanning from the 2014 season through to today. With millions of people playing basketball video games, all manner of scenarios are happening on the virtual hardwood, repeating as new games come out and wipe the slate clean.

Technically speaking, Terry Hanson doesn’t have any “official” appearances in video games. After all, as a generated and thus fictional player, he’s not official to begin with! With that being said, he is functionally a part of the reality that has been created by my aforementioned NBA 2K14 MyCAREER, so that’s “officially” where he’s from. However, that’s not the only place that he shows up these days. My enthusiasm for this generated player – truly a Virtual Hardwood Legend – has ensured that from here on out, I’ll be doing my part in creating a Terry Hanson Multiverse. And so, I’d like to share with you how Top Floor Terry has leapt beyond his original game!

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with some thoughts on how to go about crafting an alternative to NBA 2K.

At this point, it’s painfully apparent how important alternatives and choices are in the sports gaming space. For years, too many people in the basketball gaming community seemingly delighted at NBA Live’s struggles. They relished in its shortcomings, eager to pounce on every preview with snarky mockery. That’s not to say that there weren’t valid criticisms, even the ones delivered drenched in snark. NBA Live is dormant for a reason – several reasons, actually – but too many gamers wanted to see its downfall. “Just give up and go away,” they sneered. “It’s NBA 2K’s time, now.”

Misguided as it may have been, that stance was at least understandable when NBA 2K was at its peak, delivering quality on the virtual hardwood and fairness to the gamer. It was easy for the series to become the darling of basketball gamers, while Take-Two became the “good guys” who kept virtual hoops on PC when EA Sports abandoned the platform. As I said in a previous article however, Take-Two has become EA now, from greedy practices to games that fail to innovate and excite as they once did. NBA 2K is admittedly in much better shape than NBA Live was at its lowest, but there’s still room for viable alternatives. The question is how do you craft a competing title?

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five players whose NBA careers could (and indeed, should) inspire future MyCAREER stories.

As I’ve previously discussed, there are some real players whose careers bear some entertaining similarities to a few of the stories we’ve had in MyCAREER. I’ll admit that making those comparisons made me see those tales differently, especially the saga of the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER! I also still really enjoy how “The Way Back” in NBA 2K19 resembled Andre Ingram’s road to the NBA, including a debut towards the end of the regular season. Obviously that was coincidental, but it does make you wonder which other players have stories that would be suitable for MyCAREER.

Now, you might be inclined to say that just about every player who makes it to the NBA had an interesting journey that would be viable as a MyCAREER story. That’s true to an extent, but many of them – while impressive and compelling in their own way – are very similar and straightforward. They don’t necessarily set up a unique scenario from a narrative or gameplay standpoint. We’ve already seen a variety of MyCAREER stories from triumphant tales of highly-touted prospects to underdogs scrapping for opportunities. Again, we’ve even seen a DJ become an NBA star! So, could any real players provide a template for future stories? I believe I can name five.

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Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five real players whose careers produced stories that are similar to a MyPLAYER.

Although interest has shifted towards its connected experiences, MyCAREER is a mode that has allowed us to step into the shoes of an NBA player. Mind you, while MyCAREER has tried to replicate the NBA experience from earning minutes and endorsement deals to becoming a star and mulling your options in free agency, it takes a flexible approach to realism. Most of us end up posting some truly ridiculous numbers on route to being enshrined in the virtual Hall of Fame, and the adoption of a story-driven approach has led to some weird, overly-dramatic, and unlikely tales.

With that being said, as the old saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction. As it turns out, there have been some players whose careers bear striking similarities to our MyCAREER journeys. No, no one has ever quit basketball to become a DJ and then made it to the league following a streetball tournament – though Rony Seikaly did become a DJ after retiring – but there are players whose road to the NBA and rookie seasons can be compared to a MyPLAYER. That’s not to say that their stories are exactly the same, but there are some fun parallels between real players and our NBA 2K avatars. Indeed, some stories may not be as unrealistic as they originally seemed!

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Join me as I begin the week here at the NLSC with my opinions and commentary on basketball gaming topics, as well as tales of the fun I’ve been having on the virtual hardwood. This week, I’m tipping things off with a clear message for Take-Two: when it comes to historical players, CTC; cut the cheque!

Browse the classic teams or the lineups in MyNBA Eras, and you’ll be able to compile a lengthy list of players who are missing. Now, getting everyone into the historical rosters in NBA 2K is easier said than done, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever see complete lineups outside of community-made projects. It should also be noted that 2K has made significant strides here, working diligently with Kenny Gattison – former NBA player and now Vice President of membership and Player Programming for the NBRPA – to get more alumni onto the virtual hardwood.

Even with his assistance, it’s not an easy task. Some players are difficult to track down, while others may not be interested in participating. If they’ve passed away, their family may be understandably reluctant to sign over their likeness rights. And of course, other players may simply be unimpressed by the offer Take-Two has made to them. In fact, three of the biggest names who remain absent – Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, and Rasheed Wallace – have been pretty clear that they’re dissatisfied with 2K’s pitch to be in the games. Indeed, when Sheed was asked about his absence, his response was CTC; cut the cheque! As such, I believe Take-Two should cough up.

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From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #520 of the NLSC Podcast!

Which generation produced the best NBA Live and NBA 2K games? This week, we join the community in nominating the golden age for each series. We also recap our exciting co-op Parsec sessions with NBA Live 2000 PC and NBA 2K2 for GameCube, which in turn leads us to reflect on the 2000 Phoenix Suns and the fantastic NBA of the 80s. Additionally, we check in with Troydan’s ongoing quest to pull 100 Overall MyTEAM cards, discuss the drawbacks of digital ownership and the need for physical media, and note an unfortunate side effect of declining the new Terms of Service in NBA 2K24.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:02:58 — 43.6MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

March is here once again, and that means we’re tipping off the seventh annual March Modness! If you’re unfamiliar with the event, throughout the month of March, we make it a point to celebrate our modding community. Modding is always going to be an evergreen activity here at the NLSC, but March Modness is a time to reflect on the hobby, and ideally get even more productive and creative.

As always, this celebration includes a giveaway. If you upload a mod for any basketball video game to our Downloads section during March 2024, and include “March Modness” in the description, you’re automatically in the draw to win a copy of NBA 2K25 PC later this year (full terms and conditions can be found below). Congratulations once again to last year’s winner, Pep!

I’ll also be covering some topics related to modding in my weekly articles, and I’m certain that Dee and I will be discussing mods on the NLSC Podcast as well. Once again, I’ll be looking to spend some time in the “workshop” myself, with an eye to at least releasing a couple of small mods here and there; especially since I’m on such a retro gaming kick these days!

Hopefully, we can all look forward to a fun celebration of modding this March, and some great releases from our talented community. Thanks as always to everyone who contributes to our Downloads section, and supports the modding community here at the NLSC! We really do appreciate people freely sharing their work with their fellow gamers.

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