Game Check: NBA 2K10 Impressions
As long as VC, Bean and ‘Melo stay out of the lane, they’ll be good
After playing NBA 2K10 for about four hours straight, it’s clear that it’s two games wrapped in one. One is the best basketball game of all time and the other is a glitch-ridden pile of sh*t. The former is armed with outstanding graphics, intuitive and precise control over the action on the court and an overall feel that is hard to explain but easily identifiable by fans of the series.
However, the latter is flat-out broke. Framerate issues are causing extreme slowdown when playing offense anywhere near the basket and complete jumps from one frame to another are occurring on the regular. It’s bad. So bad, the game is almost unplayable when the framerate dips and it dips way too often. Aside from that, blank fonts wipe on and off the screen for no reason during games. Animations freeze on the screen. The screen goes black for 3-4 seconds coming out of timeouts frequently. All in all, the kinds of issues that can sabotage a great game and make it a mere curiosity for those wondering how a company that has raised the bar on basketball simulations could in essence ship a game that despite its positives, is clearly not finished.
The folks at 2K Sports are aware of the problem. From what other users are saying, it seems like it’s a problem experienced mostly by Xbox 360 owners and is more prevalent in some arenas (@Dallas, @Cleveland and @Philly) than others. This isn’t evening mentioning that the 2K Sports servers crashed earlier in the day as well. It’s apparently been resolved, but should be a thing of the past for 2K Sports, even on the release date.
Until the framerate issue is resolved, I’m reticent to play the game, and that’s a shame. When the game is running on all cylinders, it’s gold. A perfect blend of top-notch visuals, gameplay and presentation make this the kind of step forward 2K10 needed to fight off the resurgence of the NBA Live series.
IGN gave it an 8.5, Operation Sports an 8.5 and Game Informer an 8.25, which would sound about right if there were no issues with the framerate. As it is, until 2K Sports releases a patch that takes care of these issues, I purchased an incomplete game regardless of how much it approaches perfection.
2K Sports, get your sh*t together.
I know I’ve always been an EA fan boy but Live is on it! The only issue I saw is that several times u can pass to a man in the corner and he will be out of bounds. I think I like live better because it easier to play. I still can’t pull them damn isomotions moves off with any consistency and I think it’s still way too easy to scoe in the post. Plus I like how Live got all the fiba shyt and the real rosters for every team. I can’t believe them damn servers were down for 2k…I played til like 10pm and them joints still weren’t up…wtf?
@GOOCHAVELI
I agree that it’s still a little too tough to pull off most of the signature moves on 2K10, and judging from the demo, Live is much easier to play in that regard.
Aside from that, I think 2K10 is perfect in the gameplay department, and I’m still a little surprised at how good the game looks. But if they don’t fix that framerate issue ASAP, I might get involved with Live. Aside from a 7.5 it got on Gamespot, it’s getting 8′s and 9′s across the board and hasn’t had any issues similar to those that 2K10 is having.
And the server issue is a joke. 5 yeara ago, fine. Today, it’s unacceptable.