Yesterday I attempted to predict which NBA players will show up on the covers of EA’s simulation NBA game coming out this fall and NBA 2K13. Today I am looking at each games’ presentation, making some ill-advised predictions, and sharing some of my wishlist items. Read on to check them out.
NBA 2K13: No Major Changes
2K Sports has done a great job with its presentation year after year. So why change what is already working? I don’t see any major changes to the presentation in NBA 2K13. They will add more lines, maybe some “dynamic commentary” changes, but overall it will probably be a lot like 2K12, which was a lot like 2K11, which was a lot like 2K10, which was a lot like…
EA NBA 13: ESPN
One of the biggest let downs of NBA Elite 11’s cancellation for me was being left with the demo of the ESPN presentation. IMO, they nailed it, and they nailed it good. Overlays, commentary, crowd atmosphere, the only lacking area I wish they will improve on are the replays during halftime and post game. I’m thinking their next game will still feature all of those good things from Elite 11, and do a good job overall replicating the NBA on ESPN.
Wishlist: Multiple Presentation Packages/TNT
Even though I have still yet to play it (waiting for a bigger price drop), NCAA Basketball 10 featured duel presentations between CBS and ESPN. It looked great even if the game has some major unfixed issues. I’d love to see EA do this again with their next NBA game. ESPN/ABC would be simple, but adding in an NBATV presentation would be awesome. All I want for 2K is TNT licensing, they’ve done a great job with their generic version of the TNT broadcast and scorebug, but simply having a TNT logo really does make the feel of the game much more authentic.
Those were some pretty safe predictions regarding the presentation of the game. Tomorrow I am going to attempt predicting the graphics of the games and any features that could come of that. Feel free to comment on my thoughts in the comments below, and if you want to write up your own main page feature, don’t forget about The Soapbox.
Previous Predictions:
Cover Athlete
2K12’s presentation is a facade. It would be nice if they added some depth to it for 2K13. Commentary geared to the game and season in progress over pre-canned stories, for example.
If a key player is injured during an association, mention it.
You’ve been making that same comment about association players not getting commentary about new or healed injuries but I have heard them. Run an association with the injury sliders all the way up, you’ll hear that commentary.
fjccommish is right..we hope that they all add more commentary.for example, in the association they mention the players moves, trade transactions, rookie drafted pick, rookie drafted and traded to another team and etc…
I think the best way they could easily flesh out the commentary is by taking the player specific commentary, and simply make it “generic”. So the bit about the Celtics being old, or last year the bit about Pierce being on the team the longest, he’s the captain, could be applied to other super teams. Just by swapping out the names and only running that bit when certain conditions are met.
NBA 2K has nailed the basics of presentation. It resembles an NBA broadcast sans a real network license, there are anecdotes and organic sounding conversations and reactions to plays and the atmosphere is pretty good. However, there are still issues with logic, situations that are unaccounted for in the commentary and the anecdotes get pulled out a little too often and get repetitive. To a certain extent, it’s an inevitable problem with commentary in sports games but they could probably get a little more innovative with it, with more dynamic commentary and the like. Visually I’m not sure it could get much better, but work can be done with the commentary.
Hopefully the next EA game does something similar, making full use of the ESPN license. A TNT license in 2K or dual licensing in EA’s game, a la the last NCAA Basketball title, would definitely be to their benefit.
If 2K really wants to add more to the classic teams, NBA on NBC, need I say more.
Agreed. Marv Albert and Bill Walton.
2K has gotta to continue to add to and improve dynamic commentary, specifically in relation to transaction and generic draftees. Would be nice to see some reflective commentary down the road in Association about a player who is in twilight of career.
I agree something like NCAA BBall ’10’s dual presentation would be nice touch for EA’s new title.
Yea, again my comment about the player specific conversations getting applied to other players would definitely help the generic draftees.
There’s a little bit of it in there so it’s obviously possible. They just need to expand on it while tweaking the logic for responding to certain situations and find a way to sprinkle some anecdotes in there without them getting too repetitive.
How many of you guys have already turned the commentary off when playing? I killed it after I made the Street mod, but turned it back on for the APB mod.
I haven’t turned it off, but it does kind of blend into the background for me after a while, until a particular line or anecdote I haven’t heard before comes along.
I’m still playing with it on since I’m good at tuning stuff out (just ask my wife :))