NBA2K7 (360): Beautiful and Bastardly
Well, I've been waiting to post comments about this game until I could get at least five hours of playing time. And I've done that now, but I'm just as conflicted about the game as I was during hour one.I'm very hard on sports games in general. It's my specialty genre, I've played hundreds of them, they put the damn things out every year, and they're almost never finished.
There have been two great sports games this year: Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (or the Winning Eleven equivalent) and MLB '06: The Show (PSP version, not the PS2). And MLB '06 o the PSP is the sports game of the year, at least at this point. A.I., Graphics, animation, presentation, commentary, gameplay--10,10,10,10,10,10. Pro Evo/Winning Eleven has sensational gameplay, but the commentary engine is really starting to show its age, and once you've listened to the commentary in The Show, there's no going back.
Nothing else has even been close this year. There have been a bunch of somewhat promising, unfinished games that aren't worth what we paid for them.
And that's why I'm so conflicted about NBA2K7.
Here's the thing: the on-court action, both in terms of animation and A.I., is outstanding. It represents the high-water mark for any basketball game ever made. Period. So in terms of A.I., graphics, and animation, it gets straight 10's across the board. You do need to be playing on Superstar difficulty to get the best A.I., but that's not unusual.
The animation and gameplay are so good that it's hard to describe in words. There are so many moments where the game syncs up so closely with reality that it's just stunning. There are several hundred player-specific shooting motions, and I'm not exaggerating.
And it's not just the shooting motions. Here's an example of the level of attention to detail provided for the on-court experience. My player shot a jumper from the right side of the court, and it bounced off the inside of the right rim, ticked off the left rim, and then the angle it struck the left rim sent it toward the backboard. As the ball was in the air, I noticed that it was carrying just a little spin (not unusual when a shot ticks two rims like that). Then it hit the backboard, and the ball arc coming off the backboard was ever-so-slightly affected by the spin it was carrying when it hit the backboard.
Absolutely freaking phenomenal. It was perfect. I practically stood up and cheered.
That's how detailed and beautiful the on-court action generally is--it's so thorough and correct (and dynamic) that your jaw is open half the time you're playing.
The only issue I have with NBA2K7 on the court is that it can be difficult to maintain proper defensive position with a point guard. When I move to stay in front of an opposing guard, my player's shoulders don't always stay square with the opponent he's guarding, and that makes it difficult to defend.
That's not much of a complaint, though. On-court, the game's wonderful.
The off-court gameplay, though, features possibly the worst menu system I've ever seen in a sports game. It's all but unusable, and I'm absolutely baffled as to how a team can be genius with the difficult parts of the game and dunces with the easy parts.
Here's what's baffling: designing the menu system just isn't that hard. Well, it shouldn't be hard, anyway.
Here's a brief look at how the menu system works--or doesn't work, really, because it's complete crap. When you start up the game, you see an animation where you're rushing through city streets, complete with a kind of whooshing flame or energy beam or some kind of WTF animation in front of you. Finally, you see two skyscrapers, and there's an image of a team on each skyscraper.
That's the pre-game matchup screen.
Now in a tiny, tiny spot on the bottom of the screen, you'll see a little notice that says you can move the right analog stick and get to the game menu. I played the game several times before I even noticed that message. I'm sure people some people never figure it out, or think that they have to watch all of that opening animation before they can go to the regular menu. It's totally superfluous, and it's bad, bad design.
It gets worse, though. Want to back out of a menu? Well, sometimes you'll use the "B" key. Sometimes you'll use the right analog stick. And don't think any of that is labeled, because it's not. It seems completely random, and it will drive you insane.
Think that's only a small problem? It is if you're just playing exhibition games. Start an association, though, and you're going to be spending lots and lots of time in those menus.
Oh, and don't forgot the WHOOSH. Every time you back out of a menu, you get some kind of flame burst and a sound effect. About the fiftieth time you hear that you'll want to throw your controller out the window.
Mine, fortunately, are covered with black soundproofing foam, so it just bounces off.
Then there's the THUMP. If you ever want to do anything with a file, there's another sound effect that sounds like a cross between a thump and some kind of brass instrument. Want to load an association? You'll hear that thump sound six or seven times in about three seconds. It is absolutely, incredibly annoying, and again, it's totally unnecessary.
Oh, and another piece of bad design--there's no "menu sound effect" setting. If you turn the volume down on those two magnificent sound effects, you'll have to turn that setting back up before every game you play, because that setting is tied to in-game sound effects (like the sound of the bouncing ball) as well.
Argghhh!
It's also not just consistency in terms of advancing and escaping from menus. There are basic functionality issues as well, and here's an example. If you want to trade a player, you'll go to a trade screen that has slots for all the players you want to involve in the trade (up to six players total--max of three per team). Now, to actually see the players on another team, you'll need to select a trade slot, which will then take you to a team's personnel screen (the Bobcats).
If you thought you could sort all the players in the league based on an attribute you want to trade for (position, speed, shooting ability)--well, forget it. That's a totally logical feature, and it's not there.
So when you select a slot and move to a team screen, you can move between different teams, but there's no salary cap information on this screen. None. To see salary cap information, you need to select a player from that team, which will fill that trade slot and take you back to the trade screen.
What?
Can't I just easily see where each team stands in relation to the salary cap before I start looking at their personnel?
No.
And when you go back to the trade screen (after selecting a player from the Pistons, for example, to trade for) and find out that the deal won't work because of cap issues, then go back to a team screen, you go back not to the Pistons, but the Bobcats. In other words, if you're working through the teams one-by-one, looking for a particular kind of player (and you have to do it this way because you can't sort at the league level), you're going to have to scroll back through all the teams you've already looked at every single time you return from the trade screen. Which you'll have to do A LOT because--it's the only way you can see salary cap information.
It's the Hindenburg of trading functionality. It's just terrible design. And if you think it was hard to follow that description--just try using the damn thing.
I wanted to quickly run through ten seasons of an Association, to see how well player progression worked, but the combination of sound effects and flames and analog sticks and B buttons and nightmarish trading functionality totally killed my willingness to even go through two seasons, let alone ten.
Ugh!
Here's how it should work: the "Start" button brings up game menus. "A" advances through them. "B" escapes to the previous menu. There's no reason to re-invent the wheel, particularly if the new one you design doesn't even roll.
So the on-court action in this game is a 10. Off-court, though, it's an absolute disaster. Maybe off-court it's a 5, maybe it's a 2--hell, I can't even decide on a number. Whatever it is, though, it's low.
This game is light-years, and I do mean light-years, ahead of NBA Live. If you're a big franchise mode player, though, be warned that your experience will alternate between beautiful (on-court) and bastardly (off-court).
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