NBA 2K11 - Review - XBox 360 (also a rant about sliders)

[JonLP24]

I'll start by talking about the last basketball game I played. NBA Live '08. I loved that game, always played on the highest level which I believe is Superstar or something like that. The problem was, stealing the ball is too easy. I could easily have the top 3 in steals starting with PG-SG-SF. 7 minute quarters worked great even though scoring was a little low. Cracked 100 sometimes and when I did, the PC never did. Also the computer played like an idiot sometimes, with some games where stars took very few shots. The reason why I lost to the Suns in 6 games is because all of their starting lineup is talented on that version. (Never did finish a second season).

Anyways enough of that. I got NBA 2K11 and there are so many things I like about this. They have old teams such as Celtics and Laker teams from the 80's. Bulls teams from 80's and 90's. Malone Jazz and Payton Sonics. You could even use these teams in "Association"(like Franchise in Madden) mode. Though you have to replace a team so if you want to use the 96-97 Bulls and want to replace the current Bulls. You will lose Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, etc. Though players such as Ron Harper will be available to trade to other teams or release. Online, which I don't have, you can upload real life draft classes but you have to wait for them to become available so if you're playing the current season, wait til the NBA draft this year before continuing so you can upload real players to draft.

This is either a good or bad thing depending on your point of view. With NBA 2K11 there are so many nuanced controls. The things you see players do in real life, there are specific controls that relate. You can do hop-stop layup, euro-step layup, reverse layup, spin layup, etc. It isn't simply hitting a shoot button close to the basket anymore. You can also do a hop-step dunk or euro-step dunk by holding the dunk button(which also doubles as the turbo) and holding the shot stick a certain direction. There are also different type of shots you can take too. Signature dunk is shot stick toward the basket while holding the turbo/dunk button. I could never figure out dribbling, you hold the dribble button which is the back left button while moving the player movement joystick. This gets confusing because they want you to make half circles but that is hard for me to do because I'm trying to move the player a certain direction at the same time. Post-moves is hard for me, I could only figure out a grand total of 2 and shooting from the post is a very important part of the game.

It is important to practice these as much as possible because during the game it is hard to remember certain controls in a split second. I think that is where the negative side of this comes in, if you love to have so many controls than this is for you. You go with different sets of controls but I never went into that.

There are two different ways to influence shooting. Shot-stick timing, it is where you try to get great releases and every player is different so if you want to get used to it, try sticking with the same team. There are some players, I can't figure out at all. When I started an Association with the Suns, I traded Josh Childress because you have to be absolutely perfect with him. Also when I started over with the Pacers, I needed a SG and traded for Rip Hamilton. He is the same way where shot stick has to be absolutely perfect so one game I went 0-7 with him. With players like these, they are as valuable to me as the worst player on my roster regardless of rating.

The other is Real FG%, I'm not sure how the shot stick influences this but I actually like it less. With Nash I could crossover about 18-20 feet and pull up with a perfect release and nail it. Shot stick timing, I miss these kind of shots much more often. But it also helps shooting with a Rip Hamilton because I just can't get his timing down.

Now here comes the part where I gave up on the game. I tried to find a realistic setting for Association mode. I started with default Superstar and it was too tough to keep up with the other team. I went to Casual Superstar and while it makes things easier for you, it also makes things easier for the computer. I swear I had shooting percentages of 76% with the computer at 71%. Also the only way I could really win is if I shot the vast majority of my shots with Nash(whose timing is very easy to get down) and when I tried to get my teammates involved the computer would go on a run.

So I went online for slider sets. You could also download them if you have online access. There are two different kinds, one that goes for strict realistic stats where one set made it impossible to pass to a guy that was moving. There are also that try to go for a good gameplay feel with realistic stats. The problem with these is they recommend 10-12 minute quarters while I'm used to 7 on NBA live(I tried playing 7 minutes on default Superstar and the scores were way too low). The problem for me is I couldn't find a good slider set for me. They lower the ability on all of them so I miss shots even if I have good timing, layups I miss a lot(because I'm not used to so many nuanced controls in a game), that kind of thing. I liked it better than the settings I was trying with because the computer actually missed contested shots. I started Associations over-and-over again so I think at that point a lack of motivation to actually compete in these games affected my ability to determine which slider set was right for me.

With the games I played from Gamefly the past year. The only sports games I enjoyed were EA games, FIFA 11 and Tiger Woods '11. They had realistic and challenging difficulty settings without sliders!! I played MLB 2K10 and I had issues with sliders but not to the extent of NBA 2K11. I had problems hitting anything other than a grounder so I lifted them up but I also lifted the computer's so I wasn't winning easily. I had fun with it but by the time I got to the All-Star break, players 1-8 were hitting over .300 and everyone of them had 10 home runs or more (but I didn't have any home run leaders in the top 5 but I had 4 in the top 5 in batting average). Also throwing strikeouts was extremely rare for me. I'm thinking of getting MLB 2k11 but I'm afraid of being stuck in slider hell again.

So what do you think of sliders in sports games and if you like them, how do you come up with a slider set that works for you?

(On edit: Final thoughts, NBA 2K11 has the best graphics in a basketball I've seen. I think the nuanced controls have positives and negatives, stealing the ball is 10x harder than NBA Live '08(major plus here), hard to find a setting that gives realistic scores without playing 12 minute quarters, and I think I pretty much covered everything else.

[Ohio Joe]

1. Good review

I can't help with sliders though, I'm not real big into sports games, so I've not seen them.

[JonLP24]

2. Thanks for taking the time to respond

It was for Gamefly so I sent the game back before I wrote the review which sucks because I wanted so bad to love this game.

Sorry if it is long. I really had much more to add. Didn't even get into the Michael Jordan 10 challenges which you complete you could use him as a My Player(like Campus Legend in NCAA football). I think that is flawed as well as you have to get specific stats like 63 points, 55%, and the win and if you come up short you have to replay it. (For those who want to buy the game) If you want to use MJ in My Player ASAP, I would suggest setting the settings as easy as possible.

I've only seen sliders in current Sports 2K games.