2K Games and Visual Concepts return to the fray with a new installment of the king of basketball, a simulator that is still very complete and that allows us to approach this sport in many different ways, with an increasingly polished realism on the court. Of course, the NBA 2K formula seems to have reached its peak in the current generation and its increasingly conservative proposal is no longer so surprising. Is it worth the jump to NBA 2K21 now or wait for the next generation?
- NBA 2K21: With an eye on the next game
- Small improvements to polish a formula that works
- From high school to professional leap
- Micropayments too intrusive in the experience
- Is NBA 2K21 worth it in the current generation? Better to wait for PS5 and Xbox Series X?
NBA 2K21: With an eye on the next game
Visual Concepts and 2K Games already have in stores the new installment of NBA 2K for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, a version between two waters, now that the new generation is about to arrive and that, in addition, it arrives when the current NBA season has not yet concluded. While the playoffs are played in the Orlando bubble, players can already jump into the new season with NBA 2K21 , with Damian Lillard on the cover, although this year less generous in news than ever.
The development team has had to bend to face the development that we have to talk about and that of the new generation version , which according to its managers is being created from scratch for PS5 and Xbox Series S. In fact, if we want to “update ourselves “To the next gen having access to the definitive version (of which nothing is known), we can only do it by buying the Mamba Forever edition, starring Kobe Bryant. As for the progression, it will be maintained, as expected, between the console versions of this generation and the next. That is, everything that advances on PS4 will remain with the new version of PS5 and the same with Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
NBA 2K21
Small improvements to polish a formula that works
Having to carry out two different games could be one of the reasons why NBA 2K21 for the current generation is one of the installments that has made the least noise in recent years, with news yes, but quite scarce. That does not mean that the game is short of content, on the contrary it is still one of the most complete sports games of the moment ; whether we are talking about game modes, available teams or hours of play ahead, alone or online. If you are looking for quantity and depth, you will be delighted to know that in addition to the 30 NBA franchises, it includes two national teams from the United States, All-Star teams, the 12 WNBA franchises and dozens of classic teams.
As you will know if you are familiar with the NBA 2K license, the experience is divided into several pillars, its game modes, which focus on basketball from different points of view: MyCarrera (live a player’s career), MyTeam (build our team of dream based on player cards), MiGM (manage an entire NBA franchise) and MiLiga (play with your favorite franchise to win championships). This has not changed, but the approach continues to work for us.
NBA 2K21
From high school to professional leap
As for the news that we are going to find, the additions of the My Team mode stand out, which includes for the first time seasons with up to 40 levels of progression that unlock rewards, a very popular concept in recent years, which hooks us and encourages us to continue playing for objectives every so often. Of course, access to these seasons is completely free, no extra payments. In My Team we can now exchange the remaining cards to obtain cards from higher level players, which is always useful.
For its part, the new My Career mode, as with each edition, presents a new story mode (The Long Shadow) that tells the story of Junior, the teenage son of a former university legend who is not very clear with him. basketball. We will live from his beginnings in the high school team, beginning to attract the attention of scouts, until his passage through the university and the jump to the NBA via draft.
The content at the plot level is not bad, narrated with many cinematics that include real actors, but it is short, since when arriving at the NBA it is in the background. In the move to the NBA is when history is diluted and we go on to live the day to day of our professional career , where we continue to have to spend hundreds of hours to reach the Hall of Fame. It should be mentioned that this year real college teams have been added, which helps a lot to immerse yourself in this stage of basketball so popular and so followed in the United States.
NBA 2K21
When we get to the NBA, El Barrio is unlocked , which you will already know from other installments. It is a kind of open space where we have access to all kinds of content; Here, as you already know, we can train, buy accessories, play pachangas online and much more. However, the concept has become quite out of date and not very innovative compared to other deliveries ; Visual Concepts has to put the batteries with it in the future.
The novelties in the purely playable , when entering the field, go through a quite remarkable change and a battery of small improvements that add up to improve the set and polish it a little more. The behavior of the ball is now more realistic, leading to more realistic steals, tackles or blocks and it is no longer so close to the hand, to which we must add many new animations, which especially improve how the game feels low the post.
The biggest novelty of this installment resides in the new system of shooting with the right stick , which has caused quite a bit of controversy due to its difficulty in hitting very easy a priori shots in real life. An attempt has been made to simulate the difficulties that a real player has when shooting for a basket, but it seems that the idea has not worked. After collecting feedback from the community, Visual Concepts has ended up releasing an update that changes this system at lower difficulty levels (it will remain the same at Hall of Fame level).
NBA 2K21
Micropayments too intrusive in the experience
We come to the time to talk about micropayments ; What level of presence do they have in NBA 2K21? Well, the truth is that they continue to be just as intrusive as in recent years; we understand their presence to some extent, but they continue to condition the experience . The exchange of real money for in-game currency can give us a definite push to improve our character’s statistics, statistics that without investing go up very little by little, which can be frustrating.
We finish without forgetting to comment that the visual section remains practically unchanged with respect to previous deliveries. The NBA 2K engine has given many joys in this generation and although it no longer impresses so much, it continues to measure up. As for the sound section, the new installment includes 53 quite varied songs , among which hip hop and electronics abound. On the side of the comments, these are again run by Sixto Miguel Serrano, Antoni Daimiel and Jorge Quiroga, with the same quality as always, however we miss narrations in our language in the first section of MiCarrera mode.
Is NBA 2K21 worth it in the current generation? Better to wait for PS5 and Xbox Series X?
NBA 2K21, for the current generation platforms, is a really conservative delivery, probably because of the double work that Visual Concepts is doing for PS5 and Xbox Series X and that we will see in a few months. The basketball simulator continues to build on the same (solid) foundations of past installments , however this year’s installment adds few new features to capture our attention beyond the usual content update each season. Is it still the best basketball game on the market? Of course, but the truth is that the formula has been accommodated: with NBA 2K21 we have missed the real jump and the saga is crying out for it.
