NBA 2K12 ft. Jordan, Bird, Magic. Really?

by J.N.
Jul 23rd, 2011

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2K Sports has introduced NBA 2K12 to the world. People were questioning if Michael Jordan was going to be back. Have no fear. He’s back bringing along Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Each one has their own respective covers. It’s great to have the greats of the golden era represent the game, but it’s pathetic to know that the stars of today cannot sell the game. Terrible. Yet, 2K should not use these three figure heads to cover up weaknesses of past incarnations. That would be pathetic, too.
This is odd. The reveal of NBA 2K12 was not even the big news in videogames. One would think that Air Jordan, Magic, and Larry Legend would stop people dead in their tracks. That is just too much star power in one game; seriously. Wow. NBA 2K11 had them, too. They just were not fully featured, except for Mike, until now.
 
The biggest news currently in the videogame side is that Megaman is dead. Yep, you read that right. The news hit hard overshadowing 2K12’s reveal. The Blue Bomber’s games that were planned to be developed were canceled and he did not make Marvel vs. Capcom 3’s roster twice. Shoutouts to Megaman fans – Give it up. Stop begging in the message boards. Capcom hears ya - Capcom don't care. 
 
(credits to Gaf)
 
Take it on the chin and keep it moving. Personally, he has been dead for the past decade. Here’s a thought; try to create Megaman in NBA 2K12. PC hackers will make it happen.
 
Back to NBA 2K12 – this is the thing that can help ease the lockout wait. I’m not even sure if Electronic Arts is going to release NBA Elite 12. Rebooting a series should take longer than a year. EA needs more than a year.  With that said, Jordan helped NBA 2K11 sell 5 million copies. In the videogame business, that is huge success. The reveal of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson gained more questions than answers that will be revealed when we get closer to release date.
 
Personally, there should be unique challenges for Bird and Magic. That’s a no-brainer.
 
2K already had assets for Magic and Bird last year, but they were bad. Larry didn’t look like him and Magic needed more work. The developers better not take the easy route, which is minor upgrades to what they worked on last year. The development team did not get the rosters correct either. They made up some of those names. Figure that out, 2K.
 
The team is constantly monitoring their forums on suggestions from fans on how to improve the game. I don’t need to provide much, but I’m going to pinpoint the big things that constantly come up.
  • Passing. Keep it simple. Hold the button to perform a lob. Quick tap to make a fast dish. Regular press is a regular pass. Most of the time, I didn’t give a damn about alley oops. I forget the buttons.
  • No training mode (button for button). Take a cue from Street Fighter IV. There are a bunch of crossovers, post moves, and layups to know. Design a button guide as we perform the moves, step by step, and then notify if what we did was correct. Also, provide some video showing us how it should look like. Street Fighter IV has the best training mode, but it is not perfect because they didn’t provide videos on how the combos should look like when done correctly. 2K12 has to follow their path.
  • The Air Jordans need more work. Isolate a fully featured customization for the kicks. 2K11 was terrible. The shoes did not even look correct on the court. The PC patchers took care of that, but I don’t play the game on PC.
  • Where is Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon?
  • More Jordan challenges. There were more that were missing such as 41 points per game average and 50% shooting in the 1993 NBA Finals.
  • Accessories need more work. They were not accurate. What happened to white socks?
  • Plays took too long to start up. Is the artificial intelligence brain dead?
  • My Player still has a lot of issues that were brought up in their forums such as low default skill ratings. It's too low. 
  • Any player who brings their franchise back from the dead, win major awards, and create a dynasty should have some kind of trophy of themselves outside their virtual arena - some kind of cool incentive for putting endless hours like that
  • Bring back the NFL 2K5 The Crib and just make NBA 2K12 The Crib where you earn virtual money to decorate and upgrade the place with basketball jerseys, shoes, trophies, etc. 
Hey, 2K. Don’t get content just because you have the greats and no competition in the basketball realm. Leave that for the Madden team. We’ll be watching.
 
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