It’s the 25th Anniversary of the NBA 2K series and guess who’s footing the bill for the party!
NBA 2K24 marks the 25th anniversary of the NBA 2K franchise. A franchise that has spent several years now as the only real option for fans of the Association, since the exit of EA’s NBA Live from the scene after 2018 (and, let’s be honest, they left the scene several years before that from a quality perspective). 2K has spent that time doing a couple of things with the NBA 2K series. They’ve refined the gameplay, expanded just about all their modes, and developed a die-hard fanbase for their online streetball games. The other thing they’ve refined over the years is their ability to milk every last dime out of this loyal (and captive) fanbase through microtransactions and advertising. Unfortunately, after a very good game last year, 2K seems to have doubled down on their quest to separate players from as many dollars as possible while at the same time stripping away many of the things that people have grown to love about the franchise.
Since the game’s primary focus seems to be to sell you Virtual Currency (VC), we’ll also make that the primary focus of this review. MyCareer continues to be the most played mode by most fans of the series, especially when combined with using your MyPlayer to comb the all-new L.A.-inspired City for online pick-up games. The MyPlayer once again starts as a level 60 overall, which is just an absolute joke. In last year’s game, they got away with it a little bit because the story was about how the player was drafted higher than the fans of the team wanted them to be, and they had to prove they were worthy of the draft spot. In this year’s game, the “story” (at least what little exists) is that players are the top-rated prospect to come into the league since LeBron, and they got people on day one asking if they are going to be the greatest player of all time. It’s absurd that anyone would think that the player who is routinely the slowest, least athletic, worst shooting player on the team who frequently misses layups (unless they’re wide open) would ever be thought of as a top prospect, let alone being in GOAT conversations on day one.
MSRP: $69.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99 (For Mamba Edition) and $9.99 (for Regular Edition)
This dissonance is just the first of many issues I have with 2K24’s MyCareer, but it’s the most illustrative of the primary issue with this year’s game. If you don’t want to stay as a 60 overall for your entire young career, you’ll need to earn VC to level up your player’s attributes. There are several options here. Players can grind for it, which is obviously the longest option but requires no additional expenditure on their part. When I say it’s the longest, I mean it’s longer than someone would grind to max level in most Dragon Quest games. By my estimates, it would take about 350,000 VC to get to 99 overall. On average, my player was earning about 1100 VC per game playing full games on 12-minute quarters (and putting up ridiculous stat totals). That means at about 1100 VC per game, 48 minutes per game (you won’t play every minute but with the other presentation items at work it takes about that long) it would take someone somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 hours to get to 350,000 VC just grinding games. Allowing for the other methods you can earn VC, you’re still probably talking about 200 hours to grind the player to max overall.
The other option, of course, is to buy your way there. 450,000 VC will run people a cool $99.99 United States dollars in the store. That’s right, an additional $100 on top of the $70 you spent on the base game. If you want to shortcut that a bit, you can buy the Mamba edition of the game which will set you back $99.99 but nets you an additional 100,000 VC right out of the gate. Even still, that 100,000 will only get your player up to about a 75 overall, so even if you buy that edition you’re going to deal with some cognitive dissonance when the best NBA prospect in history can’t outrun, outshoot, or outpass the 8th best guy on the New Orleans Pelicans. Plus, you’ve still got another 250k to go.
If you bought the 450,000 and you’re worried about what to spend your excess capital on you’re in luck, because just like in past games there’s all sorts of branded merchandise available for you to outfit this digital human being. 2K has also brought back the necessity of running around the City to complete quests, and just like in last year’s game, your character runs as slow as molasses around the city. If you want to speed up your ability to get from quest to quest or court to court you can do so with transportation like a motorized skateboard, a go-kart, or a bike. How do you get these items you might ask? Well, you can unlock some of them by completing events in the battle pass like Seasons, but good luck on some of those unless your MyPlayer has a pretty good overall rating. The other way, you guessed it, pay for them. So, if you’re keeping score at home, it’s purposely slow moving around the City that they forcefully make you navigate so that they can get you to spend real money on fake money so you can buy a fake electric skateboard. Speaking of branding, this game is completely dripping in corporate sponsorships. Everywhere you turn it’s Gatorade this, Under Armor that. Jake from State Farm is now a recurring character in this series. It’s no shock that the video game industry isn’t full of non-profits, but most studios aren’t as blatant about it as this one.
So, once you’ve paid your toll, what is there to do in MyCareer? Well, if you’re expecting the kind of investment in story, dialogue, and cutscenes that the series has become known for you won’t find that here, at least not at the same level as what we’ve seen over the last several years. I’ve already mentioned that the story this year revolves around your player being a highly-rated prospect who is attempting to become the GOAT, but the other wrinkle is that both your father (named Prince) and your grandfather (named Truck) played in the league. You’ll get some story movement from interactions with your father, who has also kind of taken on the role of guiding you through your young career. You’ll also get to experience some key moments from their careers in the league through Family Flashbacks. These operate in a similar lane as the college flashbacks in last year’s game and tell about four important games that also have a secondary purpose of introducing players to the Eras system (more on that later) to make games against Magic and the Lakers in 1984 look and feel period-authentic.
These are fun distractions, but overall, the story on tap here is very weak compared to last year’s super-engaging story about trying to prove yourself to an initially hostile city. While some aspects of last year’s game were a little hokey (like showing off your battle rap skills) it made sense within the context of the story about a young player looking to show his new city that he was the right choice both on and off the court. By the time if finished the story of last year’s game, I had a connection with my player and was more invested in the rest of his career, which is more than I can say for this year’s game.
As mentioned, the purpose of this year’s career mode is to prove that your player is the GOAT and you’ll do that by accomplishing goals and earning GOAT points through playing Key Games in your career. These Key Games can be anything from a battle against a rival team or player, a milestone for your player (a franchise record for example), or other important moments. You can either choose to play through all or some of the games during the season or easily sim straight to these Key Games where the payoff in GOAT points is substantial. I found the game much more reliable this year at reproducing your player’s average stats when you sim games, which makes it much easier to play through full seasons faster and get to the later stages of your career.
As you play through Key Games you’ll move up a GOAT Tier list that includes 6 tiers full of modern superstars and legendary players (for the record, NBA 2K throws its hat in the ring that Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time, with LeBron and Kobe behind him at 2 and 3). It’s a neat carrot that keeps you grinding but sometimes progression feels a bit slow at the lower tiers.
The GOAT motif makes its way to the on-court action as well. The Leadership Skills from last year’s game get replaced this time around with GOAT skills that function very similarly. They provide temporary one-time boosts in the game for accomplishing a set of requirements. These skills have very specific attribute bonuses, which is nice compared to last year’s vaguer descriptions. In practice, these can be a big shot in the arm for lower-rated characters, but you’ll need to be careful because many of the initial unlocks are so easy to activate that you may burn through them in the first quarter. They need to incorporate a way to bank these skills so they can be activated at will when the requirements have been completed.
Speaking of the on-court gameplay, what you’ll find in store here is very solid as is to be expected from the series. The old animation system has been scrapped and replaced with the ProPLAY, a system that is trained on real NBA footage to seem more authentic. I found that this works pretty well in practice and makes for a smoother, more realistic experience. Some legacy problems still exist with the animations though, so expect to still see some clipping and expect to still get unnaturally hung up on your fellow players.
The other major overhaul in this year’s game involves major changes to players’ dribbling, shooting, and defense ability. There are new moves available for defending in the paint as well as dribbling, and generating space between yourself and a defender is extra important this year if players want to be able to make their shots. It’s still basically required to hit the green portion of the shot meter if they want to make a shot, which is still maddeningly difficult (even on layups) with low attribute characters (more incentive to spend on VC I guess) but they’ve switched things up by making the green portion of the shot meter more dynamic. The more wide open the character is when he takes a shot the more green in the meter (including filling the entire meter for some lay-ups). While this is a great idea in theory, in practice I found it messed with my timing significantly as I’m used to looking at the meter while I shoot. Many times I would let go of the shot when the meter appeared to be in the green only for it to quickly shrink because of an approaching defender. In general, though I did have a less frustrating time with shots and layups than last year’s game at lower attribute levels.
Badges play a huge role in this year’s game, with tiers of badges replacing last year’s shooting/defense/playmaking/finishing badge types. Badges still provide game-altering bonuses like increased chances to make layups against larger players or bonuses to shooting when stationary. The big change this year is that rather than investing points into higher-level badges, with a maximum number to equip based on your attributes, players will level up badges by using them. The more one uses a specific badge they will level it up through Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Unfortunately, these badges can also decrease in level if they aren’t used, which can be incredibly frustrating and can encourage bad behavior on the court just to keep badges from decreasing. Of course, if the player has an overall rating higher than 90 they unlock Rebirth, which makes it much easier to level badges. Another aspect of the game that seems to have been tweaked specifically to encourage spending on VC.
All the other modes you would expect from the series are on display here. MyNBA Eras make their return with the addition of the new LeBron Era (the 2010s). For the uninitiated, this is the franchise mode for NBA 2K24 and it allows you to take control of your favorite franchise during the Magic vs. Bird Era (the 80s), the Jordan Era (the 90s), and the Kobe Era (the 2000’s). Players can also choose to control their franchise during the modern era and play against live NBA rosters. There is a ton of depth in this mode, and people who like the management side of sports games will find plenty to do here.
The WNBA is also well represented in the game, with a full franchise mode available as well as The W, which is a WNBA-focused career mode. In this mode, players control one WNBA player as she makes her way through her career, just like in MyCareer but in a much simpler and stripped-down mode. It’s a shame that The W doesn’t have the same level of depth as MyCareer and hopefully, it’s an area that 2K will invest more significant work in next year.
New this year are Mamba Moments, your opportunity to play through several important games from the career of the late Kobe Bryant. Similar to last year’s Jordan Challenge, players will be tasked with replicating certain aspects of Kobe’s stat lines during these games to earn up to three stars, and they will be rewarded with various prizes depending on your star rating. This mode reminds me a lot of the excellent Superstar Showcase modes from the last several WWE 2K games and, if you’re a fan of Kobe, they’re must-play.
Fans of the card-collecting modes that are all the rage in sports games these days will also find plenty to do in the MyTeam mode, which functions the same way all the rest of these modes do. Collect cards of varying rarity and use them to field teams in 3v3, 5v5, and 13v13 matchups against computer and human players. Of course, VC is the lifeblood here as well so if you plan to get invested in this mode be prepared to spend.
It’s a real shame that the reputation of this franchise has evolved over the last 5 years from the standard of the best of what sports games can offer to a shining example of its worst excesses. Comparing this game to MLB The Show, another game that offers microtransactions, only increases how egregiously 2K exploits players through rigging everything from the on-court gameplay to traversal from quest to quest to encourage additional spending despite already having collected the cost of a full priced game up front (plus that sweet State Farm money). While several of the changes present in this years game are disappointing (including the inexplicable decision to dumb down MyCareer) there are some good things here. Unfortunately (to paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, a first I believe for this site) the ever-present feeling that I’m being milked for every dime I can spare speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what any of the improvements say.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
