Didn’t do that much gaming this weekend, I got caught up watching House on TV and subsequently went out and picked up the TV show on DVDs. It’s easily my favorite show on TV and maybe ever.
I did however finish the NBA Draft Combine. Incredibly disappointed overall with it after I “beat” it. You are limited to 6 drills and 6 games, but after which you can continue playing with scrimmages, and shoot-arounds. However neither of these help to build up your create-a-player’s stats any further. You got the 6 games and 6 drills and that’s it. With only 6 drills you can’t even do all the drills! Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s asking a lot to be able to play the draft combine over and over to build up my player to max his stats decently enough. At best you max out at maybe 60-70 overall, providing you completely ace all the games and drills. It’s not enough though frankly given I PAID for the draft combine. If it was going to be this severely limited this thing should’ve been free. Also it’s basically a demo for the game and should’ve been approached as such. They should’ve expanded further for this draft combine. As the player lock becomes incredibly frustrating in respect to controlling the tempo of the game or in general playing hard offense and hard defense.
The problem with simulating sports in any video games is the fact that video games are still based on rules. It’s like that speech Morpheus gives when he’s talking to Neo in the Matrix. Just because my guy’s rating is low from 3 point range doesn’t mean he still can’t hit like 3 in a row from there. Shooting is still skill based on me releasing the button when my on-screen player is at his highest point. Yeah it simulates the animation, yeah there are sequences when the player is “on fire” and yes it can effect some gameplay. It still doesn’t stop using Lebron or Kobe and hitting an impossible fade away 3pt shots over and over again. Because I can do that based on the player’s rating and my actual skillset of releasing the ball at the right moment. It’s the whole aspect of being “good” at the video game.
The problem with the draft combine is the player lock puts such a strictness to the movements. As a result I have to play straight up super traditional basketball and I couldn’t speed things up. I could deal with limiting my energy use, it was playing smart, but when my A.I. partners aren’t making the best decisions and I call for a pass when I’m right open and they don’t pass me the ball it is unbelievably bad. Coupled with your teammate rating penalizes you for EVERY bad move you make. Excessive pass calling, or when your player is locked or jammed by surrounding players, and they call you for bad positioning. The thing is playing player lock and the draft combine actually requires real basketball IQ, so, you need to know the fundamentals of the game.You need to know player spacing, where you need to be, where to swing to, and when it’s appropriate to switch up defense match ups. But when you switch defensive match-ups, or go on the help side to help your teammate, your own teammate may not reciprocate the favor and you get a knock for not covering your man! It’s impossible to enjoy. It’s like I did what I was supposed to do… but what’s the point of helping other defensive assignments from scoring! Literally you could just cover your man for the whole possession, not play help side and just do the required “achievements” to ensure you get the full skill points for each game. It’s achievement whoring at that point! It’s not what I play these basketball games for. It’s cool to be able to reproduce say Kobe’s 81pt game and getting a trophy for it, yeah some aspects become a challenge. But this draft combine was not fully thought out. It was a cool idea to start off your create-a-player early, but if its strictly RPG building up based and I’m paying for the damn thing, at least let me actually continue to develop my character in the off season!
Anyway that was my 3 paragraph rant/review about the draft combine. It was such a bad experience though with the bad player movements that it’s turned me off from 2K10. Fact is NOTHING is changing on the dramatic level for these sports games. It’s the same game with slight upgrades. They need to revamp these as platforms. The 2K series has been tradition for me since 2K6, but I think I may… I may actually skip this game this go around. Worst DLC I’ve bought just because of how unrewarding it is. The limited create-a-player options does not bode well either. Either or it’s like “Do I replay the 6-8 hrs to try to ace everything and max out my guy to the best possible achievement?”. It’s just exceedingly frustrating gameplay though.
I was under the immediate assumption by buying the draft combine that I could “max out” my guy. It’s what I always do with my create-a-player. It’s a video game. My created look-a-like persona is playing amongst the NBA players today and nothing is more satisfying then beating them mercilessly. From either stealing a pass, putting up more points, blocking the crap out of someone and so forth. The difference was that this go around I expected to have to work for those “maxed out” stats. Really if your player’s overall rating is 50-60, there is no way you can compete from a skills level or even hope to start let alone be a 3rd of 4th stringer off the bench. I said earlier that 70 might be the max cap and I think I was way off, it’s probably closer to 60. I just figured the draft combine was my way of building up my “super rookie” to go into the league. Think about it, Lebron James was NBA ready upon entering the league, Derrick Rose was pretty decent too. My guy is the equivalent of like… Kwame Brown + Greg Oden + Darko Milicic + some guy who rides the pine for years. Entering into the draft I’m never going to have a chance!
2K10 is definitely not day one for me. I don’t even know if I want to bother with it. I want more out of these games and this isn’t enough anymore, maybe it’s time to speak up with my wallet as well for these games. I wish I could get my $4.99 back, I could’ve at least got some McDonald’s.
