NBA 2K10 Review [360] page 2

19 Oct 2009 at 12:34:11 by John Robertson
Systems used to review this title: (360)

This year's marquee feature is the new ‘My Player' mode, allowing you to create a player from scratch and take him on a journey to become an NBA star. After selecting a name, position and visual appearance for your future hall of fame star, you need to prove yourself worthy of NBA consideration by playing for any team that'll have in the D-League (the NBA's developmental league for young players, or those deemed not quite ready for the big team yet).

By playing with your own player, you need to put in as good a performance as possible every time you step onto court if you want to increase your abilities enough to make a difference. Unfortunately, the way the game calculates how well you've played is horribly inconsistent. For example, grab an offensive rebound and your grade flashes green to indicate an increase in perceived performance, however give up an offensive rebound of your own immediately afterwards and your rating drops much more steeply than it could ever possibly rise; needing another 3 or 4 rebounds to get it back to level again. For a game that prioritises speed and fun other everything else, the insanely harsh grading system seems a little out of place.

Predictably, securing a low rank provides you with scant rewards in terms of stats upgrades. As a result, it takes a very long time to build your pro up to a point where he's anywhere near as good as your average NBA player which, I suspect, will lead to an awful lot of created characters that never make it out of the small leagues, their creator given up on their career after only a few appearances off the bench.

And speaking of appearances, visually 2K10 is impressive, for the most part. In particular the animations stand out as being particular well crafted. Every dunk, spin and rebound characterised by the series' trademark fluidity. The crowd are also impressively modelled and, while not quite meeting the standards set by Live 10, make you feel as though you're competing in a game that actually matters to them. Unfortunately, there are some frame-rate issues that stand out like a sore thumb when they decide to grace us with their presence and the bland, grey menu screens leave a lot to be desired. But hey, Kobe looks good when performing a 360-degree miracle dunk, so you can't complain too much.

2K10 is somewhat like the Pro Evo to Live 10's FIFA, offering an altogether more accessible experience that'll appeal to those looking for something they can just pick up and play. NBA game veterans will certainly draw a lot of enjoyment from this latest instalment in the franchise, but the likelihood is that, before long, the craving for something more exhaustive will lead them to hunt down a copy of Live. 2K10 would probably score higher if Live hadn't pulled out all the stops this year and, in doing so, sent a stark warning to 2K that it has to do something big next year if it doesn't want to find itself down by 15 in the fourth quarter.

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