NBA 2k20 is the best basketball simulator ever released and a new iteration of the series is out with great gameplay power and improved technical ability. We will present on short what is interesting about this video game, what is new, the options, the gameplay and everything else that worth mention. This is the NBA 2K20 game review of the King of the basketball courts!
NBA 2K20 is developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows. It is a single player or multiplayer sport game, probably the best basketball video game out there. NBA 2K20 was released at September 6, 2019 and have received generally positive reviews. At the time of writing, the NBA 2K20 is the top selling game title in the US for 2019 (according to reporting by VGC).
One of the most recognizable game franchise is NBA 2K, a game title that is expected every year from Visual Concepts and 2K Sports, come to reflect the current status of the NBA league — a licensed video game of the NBA brand — mostly the team roosters and atmosphere, the NBA pop culture (shirts, arenas, music and sounds) and aesthetics and little less in game innovation. NBA 2K20 it’s in the same trend, it is a fun video game to play, and it come with some new features that are notable.
We guess that it is very difficult for game developers to come with an innovation to NBA 2K every year, so don’t expect too much in a game that is very good for some years already. he usual polishing, bug fixing, and the NBA updates, mentioned already. Still… NBA 2K20 Xbox One or PS4 manage to be refreshing and entertaining.
The new NBA 2K20 pay a lot of attention to the reproduction of crowd leading teams — what was known as cheerleaders. The females come to occupy a more central role in the game, from some small to notice changes, as the presence of female referees, to the inclusion of the WNBA league playable in the season mode.
Let’s not underestimate the great work of the game developers. Only WNBA has twelve teams and around 140 players that had to be scanned individually. To their merit, the developers did not simply translated the male movements to female counterparts, but studied and created more than 3,000 new animations to capture the WNBA atmosphere and the style and rhytm of female basketball athletes. There are the same controls, but a new and different way the actions are executed in the game.
The “My career” mode, produced by Springhill Entertainment, a company founded by Labron James with one of his friends, become a much more interesting features. When the Lights are Brightest, this is the name of the story, takes to the core of NBA/sports values. We notice a focus on the personality of the athletes. What it is needed to become a star player? You need to build your character, to sacrifice most of the things for the game. Players need sport values, they should not be afraid, respect the other players and teammates, in general build their character alongside athletic abilities — a message push forward by the NBA, the game reflecting, as mentioned, the current status of the league.
It is quite ironic that such an ethical message come in conflict with the 2K Sports practices that apply a questionable (to say the least) business model, full of loot boxes and random addictive rewards, hooked in the micro-transactions world where people’s money — their clients — are spent in unreasonable ways. We noticed a cut down in gray practices, but they are still present in the game.
One of the most entertaining feature of the game is the Neighborhood, now available from My Career screen. There are no new things to be noticed in this iteration of the game title. Here we notice the micro-transactions at their worst, as you have to spend real money to purchase virtual items to upgrade your player skills. Coming back to the gameplay, it is excellent! Players can perform any action and play any way they want, a huge liberty of movement is put in our hands. Blocks, fake shoots, pick’n’roll, run’n gun, redouble balls, zonear in defense, bet on the game on the pole, practice the small ball and more…
NBA 2K20 contains other great features known from previous games of the series, like ProAM, MyGM and MyLeague. In MyGM we face the managing side of the NBA story, we are managing one of the NBA clubs to its success. It is not easy to take into account the wishes of so many parties involved: the owner, the players, your staff,…etc. You are in charge of transfers, draft, training, improving club’s facilities but also in the business side — marketing, products, even moving the team to another city! As you move up in your GM career, you will unlock new options, like the ability to sign or resign easier the players. The skill tree involved here it is a novelty in NBA 2K20.
My Team is another mode that it is fun. It is based on opening envelopes, competing in matches or winning auctions, with the goal to collect different cards from players, pavilions, coaches, blackboards, uniforms or contract extensions, in a way to customize our own team the way we want it.
NBA 2K20 excels at many things. The video game is great on visuals. From the highly realistic recreation of the players, including their particular facial gestures or their tattoos, to other amazing details, such the movement of the hair of the WNBA players. Add the video scenes of My Career, that instill the feeling of reality as they are shot as if it were a real movie.
The animations is another great area of the game. Many players move on game screen exactly as they move in reality. Take Dwayne Wade for example, that is stretches his legs in the air just as he did in real world.
The lighting is another incredible aspect, created to favor the skin of the players, not to mention the reflections on the parquet.
Dead times are much more varied than in the previous games. We have not only cheerleaders, but also children, pets, guys with bicycles, the t-shirt gun gay, acrobats,…etc.
We were able to see and play the NBA 2K20 PS4 and Xbox One version of the video game and they are impressive!
The atmosphere of the pavilions is much more improved as well. Now people get energized or not, depending of the moment of the game and score. It is fun to see how the pavilion become to empty up before the game ends if the home team is beaten! Fans have the usual plastic sticks and try to break the concentration of players when they are shooting, and the video camera shakes depending of the skill and temperament of each player! It is truly amazing the attention to details the developers pay and the realism resulted.
In the end, the NBA 2K20 does not revolutionize anything radically, but improved on what it works in the previous games. The attention to details and the realism of the game is pushed to the limits. The gameplay is awesome, the game is highly addictive and most fun when playing with friends. The improvements are not only technical, but also at the level of aspiration, storytelling, values and representation — it is an ideological improvement if you want. The bar was raised once more higher than we thought possible. NBA 2K20 is the king of basketball simulation, a must have video game.
We played NBA 2K20 on PlayStation 4. Thanks to BuyGames — the online retailer where you can buy cheap ps4 games and xbox one games, including this one — for providing us a copy of the video game.
