NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #455 of the NLSC Podcast!
NBA 2K23 has been out for three months, and the game in its current state is likely what we’re going to have for the rest of its life cycle. As such, this week we’re going in-depth with our definitive review and ranking of NBA 2K23! What are its biggest pros and cons? Where does it rank among the all-time best games in the NBA 2K series? What needs to change in NBA 2K24, and how optimistic are we about the game’s direction? From gameplay to depth and accuracy, to microtransactions and fairness to the gamer, it’s a comprehensive breakdown! We also quiz the community on NBA Live 2003 dunk ratings in this week’s mailbag.
Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:52:50 — 77.8MB)
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Thanks for dedicating an episode to this. Basketball games are a different beast with gaming reviews, and I feel a lot of reviewers won’t go into much detail since they’re on a deadline to get their reviews out.
Honestly, my initial thoughts were how much I hated the game because it really does have the worst MyCAREER mode in recent memory. That being said, there’s a lot of fun to be had with the 5v5 modes. I made it all the way to Level 40 in Season 2 of MyTEAM and will probably give Season 3 a good shake because of how engaging the mode is.
NBA 2K23 is one of those games that is both great and awful at the same time. You just have to know what you want to get out of it, I guess.
“Great and awful at the same time” pretty much sums it up! It’s a shame what they’ve done to MyCAREER. The whole open world approach has given it an identity crisis. It’s kind of turned into basketball’s answer to GTA where you can fail and have to retry story missions, where it should be more like Fallout if anything, where the story can branch appropriately if you fail a sidequest or two. Or, you know, like a traditional career mode in a basketball game!
The superficiality of basketball game reviews is definitely a problem. If nothing else, I hate how most publications are terrified of losing access, so they’ll barely acknowledge issues with VC and the like.