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Writing about those online ideas I had yesterday really got me hyped for this year’s games. I really hope I am right with those predictions since the online stability and utilization in basketball games is severely lacking. Today I am looking at the core single player experience in each game, My Player and Become Legendary (or Be a Pro). Even though Become Legendary hasn’t successfully debuted yet, I am still expecting it to be featured in EA’s next NBA simulation game.
NBA 2K13: More Off the Court Features
My Player saw a nice improvement this year in NBA 2K12. Instead of forcing us to go through draft combines, summer camps, the D-League, and then the NBA, we got to create an automatic first round draft pick. We were also treated with presentation elements from David Stern and more open ended interview segments. The rewards were better too, slick commercials and magazine covers were far better than the billboards and “personalized” shoes in 2K11. For NBA 2K13, I think the off the court activities will continue. Yes, you can send your player to be tutored by “The Dream”, but why not let us re-enact the Dwight Howard session we can watch on YouTube? The lockout summer league games NBA players partook in was very cool to watch, why not incorporate a full offseason of charity games before the real NBA Summer League gets started. While we are at it, why not just say we bowled to increase team unity, why not…yea nevermind, keep it basketball related.
EA NBA 13: FIBA Integration
Even though 2K would be more likely to implement blacktop type events in NBA 2K13, EA has one license that would raise Be a Pro way above My Player: FIBA. The Hall of Fame is a good goal for grinding through each season in NBA 2K12, but playing for the USA or your player’s country of origin in summer FIBA tournaments would be huge. This would be even better considering EA could promote this feature during the summer Olympics this year. The FIBA license will be more important this year than any year since it debuted in Live 08.
Wishlist: Play Overseas
There is one aspect that some NBA-bound players have been utilizing in real life when trying to get into the big league…playing overseas. While EA featured a couple of Euroleague teams in NBA Jam: On Fire Edition they have yet to be included in a simulation NBA game. Simply adding this option increases the replayability of the modes where the user could decide to stay overseas rather than debut in the NBA. I mean, Ben and I weren’t the only two sickos that enjoyed being a D-League star in NBA 2K10, right? Right?
While My Player and Be a Pro will certainly be one of the more popular single player modes in the upcoming games, Association and Dynasty mode is where the hardcore basketball gamers will spend a majority of their time. Comment with your thoughts on my thoughts and I will share my thoughts on your thoughts.
Other Predictions:
Would be great to be able to make your national team. In most sports it is the highest honour so your prediction makes sense. Integrating overseas teams/leagues would be great, even if just for Association so that you can stash draft picks 🙂
agreed, that is a huge issue I’ve been having in my association when the D-League roster fills and I have no where to put my rookies. Being able to draft international players and just keep their NBA rights would be awesome
Being involved in the National Team is cool. But this makes me ponder on, since only a handful of countries are in the game, how could NT’s not in the game appear? Would EA include all countries joining the International Championships?
I’m hoping they’d have all 12 Olympics teams plus another 12 teams, so there is enough for 24 team World Champs. The last Live had 16 or 24 teams I think, including the great New Zealand team.
How about those countries who only reach the qualifiers?
They’ve mentioned they take both rankings and popularity/demand into account when adding the teams. I could see them making a couple of exceptions here and there to round out the teams.
Good suggestions all around. In addition to further depth in My Player, the number one thing 2K needs to do is make sure that all the nagging issues of the mode are addressed before the game is released. Stuff like trade and staff hiring/firing logic, simulated stats, the grading system etc.
For EA, they similarly need to hit the ground running with a mode that’s solid, relatively deep and as playable and error free as possible.