Tag Archives: The Long Shadow

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 presentation of some MyCAREER story awards, which I’m calling The Grindies.

Believe it or not, we now have ten years’ worth of NBA 2K games that have featured a story in MyCAREER! The approach has been divisive, receiving plenty of praise and scorn alike. Generally speaking, the production values are held in high regard, particularly beginning with “Livin’ Da Dream” in NBA 2K16. Conversely, the way in which some stories have intruded on the gameplay experience has made the story-driven approach unpopular with other MyCAREER gamers. Nevertheless, it remains one of the most popular modes in NBA 2K, if only for the connected online scene.

As someone who has been a devoted MyCAREER gamer since NBA 2K13, I have mixed feelings about the mode featuring a linear story. In some ways it’s enhanced the experience, but it’s absolutely detracted from it as well. I’ve been critical of many of the stories, yet I also find them fascinating. It’s an interesting concept to evaluate, and given the debate about whether or not video games are art and a medium capable of in-depth storytelling, there’s a lot to sink our teeth into. And so, I’m going to hand out The Grindies: awards spotlighting the best and worst aspects of the MyCAREER stories to date. Why “The Grindies”? Well, if you play MyCAREER, you’ll know!

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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 outlines five changes that would fix some of the stories in MyCAREER.

As I’ve mentioned on several occasions, I have a love-hate relationship with the story-driven approach to MyCAREER. I can appreciate the production values and some of them have been enjoyable tales, but others have been poorly-written and intruded on the gameplay experience. I’ve made snarky jokes about them, but I also find them fascinating to analyse. Perhaps it’s because it feels like the concept of a MyCAREER story has so much promise, but the execution has too often hindered my enjoyment, or just been somewhat disappointing.

While I don’t believe in dismissing criticism with “let’s see you do better”, I do think that critique can be bolstered by identifying potential improvements. In other words, the fact that I’ve never written and produced a MyCAREER story doesn’t disqualify me from having an opinion on them, but I should be able to suggest ways in which the stories could improve rather than just dismissively calling them bad. On top of that, it’s an interesting exercise to consider just how much we’d need to change in order to provide – in my opinion, at least – a much better experience. With that being said, I’m going to give it a shot! Here are five changes that I’d make to MyCAREER stories.

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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 aspects of MyCAREER stories that are played-out at this point.

Honestly, I admire the ambition and creativity in some of the MyCAREER stories over the years. I can’t say that it’s prevented me from spending many enjoyable hours with the mode, and indeed, when I finally played through NBA 2K14’s tale, I had to admit that I’d been somewhat unfair towards it. However, there’s also a reason that I’ve been critical of MyCAREER featuring a cinematic narrative. Some of the tales have negatively impacted the gameplay experience, while others have just featured really bad writing and acting. Sometimes, the mode has been afflicted by both.

It’s a shame, as even when MyCAREER stories have fallen flat, it’s clear that a lot of effort has gone into them. Some prominent names have been involved with them, from filmmakers like Spike Lee to actors like Michael B Jordan. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that no one has any fond memories of MyCAREER stories, but they do tend to draw a considerable amount of scorn, especially in recent years. It’s not surprising of course, as many aspects of MyCAREER stories have become played-out over time, whether its tropes they employ, or their effects on gameplay. Either way, these five played-out aspects of MyCAREER stories have worn out their welcome.

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the MyCAREER story in NBA 2K19, which was titled “The Way Back”.

Since NBA 2K19 is now going on four years old and its servers have been shut down, I believe that it now fits the bill for wayback content. Hey, that’s the rule I set when I looked back at the story of DJ in NBA 2K18 in 2020, and as I said at the time, it’s my feature, so I’ll make and break the rules as I see fit! Besides, we’ve had a couple of fairly well-written and acted MyCAREER stories since then. In particular, The Long Shadow in NBA 2K21 was a strong candidate for the best tale the mode has ever had. With that in mind, it’s worth looking back at NBA 2K19’s story to see how it holds up.

After all, when NBA 2K19 came out, The Way Back was likewise one of the best stories we’d played through in MyCAREER. The journey of AI didn’t just take us from college to the NBA, but around the world. I’ll throw out an obligatory spoiler warning as we take a look back…way back…at The Way Back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at the very first MyCAREER story, featured in NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Although I’ve written many articles about MyCAREER stories, and spoken at length about the topic on the NLSC Podcast, I’ve yet to cover the very first MyCAREER story that appeared in the PlayStation 4/Xbox One version of NBA 2K14. There’s a reason for that: I didn’t play much of NBA 2K14 when it was new. As I explained when I revisited the game for a retrospective, there were a few factors that put me off NBA 2K14 before I even played it, and when I did get my hands on it, I wasn’t as impressed as other basketball gamers were.

That was then and this is now. While I do stand by many of my criticisms of NBA 2K14, I have come to appreciate it more during some retro gaming sessions. Indeed, if I’d given it more of a chance, there’s a strong possibility that I would’ve spent more time with it and played through a season in MyCAREER, which had become my mode of choice. At the same time, I have been critical of the story-driven approach, and NBA 2K14 is where it all began. How does that tale hold up after revisiting it all these years later? Let’s take a look back…way back…

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a list of five artistic choices in basketball video games that proved to be divisive.

It’s likely that at some point, you’ve heard the fable of “The miller, his son, and the donkey.” It’s the go-to fable whenever you want to illustrate that you can’t please everyone; or, to use the wording of the moral that’s appended to certain versions of the fable, “if you try to please all, you please none.” The fable is talking about actions, but the message holds true for art and entertainment as well. Whether it’s a video game, tabletop game, film, TV series (or an individual episode thereof), album, song, poem, drawing, painting, or whatever…nothing receives universal acclaim.

After all, it’s impossible for a single work to cater to everyone’s individual taste with its artistic choices. Of course, some artistic choices tend to evoke more extreme responses and opinions than others. They’re the proverbial “love it or hate it” artistic choices, with very little in between. It’s also interesting that some of the most divisive aspects of basketball games are generally inconsequential artistic choices that don’t inhibit the core gameplay experience. Atmosphere is still important though, and a gaudy art style can be off-putting. With that in mind, here are five of the most divisive artistic choices that we’ve seen in various aspects of basketball video games.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five suggests five side characters in MyCAREER stories that arguably should’ve been the player character instead.

So, I’ve looked at the best antagonists and protagonists in MyCAREER stories, but those tales have also featured a number of interesting side characters (and B-Fresh). It may be an overused idea at times, but whenever you have a cast of good supporting characters that have interesting stories of their own, you can’t help but wonder about spinoff ideas. Alternatively, you may feel that they should’ve been the main character all along. There are certainly some examples in the various MyCAREER stories, and so I’ll be exploring those possibilities today.

Of course, it should be noted that oftentimes side characters are in those roles for a reason, and promoting them to the lead or one of the main characters exposes why they weren’t in the spotlight in the first place. The same traits that made them such enjoyable side characters can make them unsuitable protagonists. It may be that they work better in small doses, or aspects that made them funny as a side character are grating when they’re the lead. Conversely, a lack of flaws may make them too boring in the role of protagonist. With that being said, I do believe there’s merit in these side characters being cast in the role of MyPLAYER avatar, albeit with a few changes.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a countdown of the Top 5 Protagonists we’ve played as in MyCAREER stories (obligatory spoiler warning).

Although it’s often said that stories are only as good as their villains, it’s still vital that their protagonists are likewise well-written. There’s arguably more wiggle room here as some stories have successfully utilised protagonists that are audience surrogates; blank slates that we can project ourselves onto. MyPLAYERs certainly can qualify in that regard. Since the adoption of the story-driven approach in MyCAREER, the player character does have established personality traits, yet there are also moments where we can role-play and choose how they react to a situation.

A problem that many of us have had with the protagonists of various MyCAREER stories is that the aspects of the character and story we can’t change have a negative impact on the experience. For example, the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER isn’t a very sympathetic character. In NBA 2K16’s “Livin’ Da Dream“, Frequency Vibrations (aka Freq) has a very specific background that doesn’t gel with the RPG mechanics of the mode, and makes decisions many of us wouldn’t. A good MyCAREER protagonist is one whose shoes we do want to jump into, whichever brand they may be. To that end, these are my picks for the Top 5 Protagonists that have become our avatars.

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Welcome to this week’s edition of The Friday Five! The Friday Five is a feature that I post every Friday in which I give my thoughts on a topic that’s related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games, as well as the real NBA, and other areas of interest to our community. The feature is presented as either a list of five items, or in the form of a Top 5 countdown. This week’s Five is a countdown of the Top 5 Antagonists encountered in MyCAREER stories (obligatory spoiler warning).

It’s often said that a story is only as good as its villain. We love our heroes and all, but we need them to overcome obstacles, and ultimately, a worthy antagonist. After all, what would Batman be without The Joker? The most popular professional wrestlers have always had great heels to make them look heroic, even if they’re a bit of an anti-hero themselves. Name a popular franchise, and it’ll be sure to have a memorable antagonist that made the protagonist’s journey exciting and meaningful. Conversely, the absence of a strong villain tends to water down a tale.

Of course, that isn’t always the case. Indeed, it’s possible to tell a good, coherent story without an antagonist. The complication the protagonist faces instead comes from the challenge of accomplishing a task, or resolving conflict that wasn’t caused by any act of maliciousness or villainy. This is often the case with MyCAREER stories, in which the protagonist is a young basketball player with aspirations of making the NBA, and must face all of the hurdles that go hand-in-hand with achieving that dream. However, we’ve also encountered a few antagonists, and they’ve undoubtedly made the road to the NBA bumpier. Without further ado, here are the Top 5 MyCAREER antagonists!

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We’re at midcourt, and the ball is about to go up…it’s Monday Tip-Off! Start your week here at the NLSC with a feature that’s dedicated to opinions, commentary, and other fun stuff related to NBA Live, NBA 2K, and other basketball video games. This week, I’m tipping things off with a recap of my experiences vying for The Long Game Trophy by playing all four years of a college career in The Long Shadow, NBA 2K21 Next Gen’s MyCAREER story.

I have to say that as far as Trophies and Achievements are concerned, The Long Game is aptly named. Spending four years in college at the start of a MyCAREER game is definitely a lengthy slog! There’s no simulating – not that you’d really want to, when you’re grinding for VC and Badges – and with only nine other teams, it can be repetitive. At the same time, the idea appealed to me. Less than 1% of PlayStation 5 gamers have attained the Trophy for completing The Long Game, so it’s obviously a rare feat. I figured it would be interesting to take the road less travelled.

It’s also the first time we’ve had this opportunity in MyCAREER. Every other game that’s included a college career has seen our MyPLAYER declare for the Draft after their freshman year. Now we actually have a choice, and it’s a decision that we have to weigh up as a real player might. Is it worth taking the extra time to develop before entering the league – especially as it’s grinding against easier competition – or do you go after the big bucks (or in this case, VC) as soon as you can? To me, the choice was easy. I’ve been a one-and-done player before; now that I have the opportunity, I’m playing The Long Game! Please be advised that there are some story spoilers ahead.

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Episode #338 of the NLSC Podcast is out now! Derek (aka Dee4Three) and I are your hosts for this week’s show.

The NBA 2K21 Demo is out, and suffice to say, it’s drawn some polarising reactions. We’ve got our own detailed impressions to share, from the scope of the demo to the new dribbling and shooting mechanics. We also discuss oversights when introducing new features, and the responsibility of both the community and developers when it comes to demo feedback. A new trailer has also given us a look at this year’s Neighborhood and MyCAREER story, and one of us has a bold declaration about the tale. There’s also a new arcade hoops game on Steam, Dunk Lords, that’s worth a look.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:53:41 — 78.1MB)

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What’s your take on this week’s conversation? Sound off in the comments section below, or join in the discussion here in the Forum! Additionally, feel free to hit us up with any feedback on the episode, as well as suggestions for topics that you’d like to hear us discuss in future episodes. For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. The show also comes out on our YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe for future episodes and other video content.

Following on from the teaser in the Demo, 2K has posted the trailer for MyCAREER and The Neighborhood in NBA 2K21 Current Gen. This year’s tale is titled “The Long Shadow”, and involves our MyPLAYER (nicknamed “Junior”) following in the footsteps of his father, a local basketball legend.

As Brian Mazique writes on Forbes, the story takes us through high school and college, with ten schools to choose from: Michigan State, Connecticut, Florida, Gonzaga, Syracuse, Texas Tech, Oklahoma, UCLA, Villanova University, and West Virginia. Not surprisingly, cover players Damian Lillard and Zion Williamson will make cameos at certain points in the story, while actors Jesse Williams, Michael K. Williams, Djimon Hounsou, and Mireille Enos, are also featured. As reported by Owen Good on Polygon, the decisions we make during the story will have long-term effects. For example, one of the agents we can choose to sign with will allow us to earn fans in Park games. The article also confirms female MyPLAYERs will be available in Next Gen, but not Current Gen.

The trailer also spotlights 2K Beach, the new version of The Neighborhood. As the name would imply, the redesigned Neighborhood is now located by the seaside. At a glance, it seems like a lot of the familiar shops and other Neighborhood staples will be returning, albeit with a new look.

Check out the NBA 2K21 MyCAREER & Neighborhood trailer below. Got any thoughts on “The Long Shadow” and 2K Beach? Feel free to share them in the comments, as well as join in the discussion here in the Forum!

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