NBA 2K15 ($59.99) takes the court as the king of hoops games, but the online performance issues from last year are once again back to detract from the gameplay. Even so, tweaked graphics and smoother animations, plus a stellar MyCareer mode, make this year's version well worth playing. On the digital court, the core basketball gameplay remains mostly the same, which is a good thing, because NBA 2K15 is the best basketball title on the market. I reviewed the PlayStation 4 version, but it's also available on Xbox One, PC, mobile devices, and last-gen consoles.
It's All About The Game
NBA 2K15 runs at a staggeringly smooth and fluid 60 frames per second. The players are much easier to control than they were in NBA 2K14, gracefully flowing from one action to the next. Animations (there are now more than 6,000) are smoother, shorter, and less distracting. You can dribble, crossover, back down your man, and turn to shoot the fadeaway in one fluid sequence. Previously, this would have been several distinct actions, each with its own animations, and you had to wait for one animation to finish before you could trigger the next. NBA 2K15 looks and feels like an actual NBA broadcast.One of the beauties of NBA 2K15 is that it can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. If you simply want to jump into a game, you can go right ahead. If you'd rather set lineups and dictate offensive and defensive plays, you're free to do so. If you want to be a Mr. Fancy Pass, use the L2 modifier with the X, Triangle, or Circle buttons to unleash a bounce, lob, or flashy pass, respectively. The Basic and Advanced controls are responsive, and they give you a good feel for the game.
You'd think that 2KU, the tutorial suite, would be a good place to learn about advanced game controls, but it isn't; 2KU simply rolls a video featuring a player voice over and calls that a tutorial. The videos are frequently comprehensive enough that a dozen mechanics are described, but there's no opportunity to practice skills. I retained almost nothing at the end of the tutorial.
Attention to detail is a hallmark of NBA 2K15. There's even the option to have the refs call technical fouls in-game if your console's microphone hears you swearing in real life. In-game athletes look like their real-world selves, complete with super-detailed faces, bodies, hair, and tattoos. The highly developed AI causes CPU-controlled players to behave in the same manner as their flesh and blood counterparts. For example, digital Kobe Bryant exhibits a tendency to bellyache when he thinks he's been fouled, just like in real life. Not everything gets that same degree of detail, however. For a dose of make-believe, look no further than the cheerleaders who cycle through a few dance moves and look very much like rag dolls in costumes. Rather than being a pleasant distraction between quarters, their blank expressions and clumsy movements are the stuff of nightmares. The players are so real that the cheerleaders look shockingly unreal in contrast.
The most noteworthy "improvement" this year is the shot meter. I have improvement in quotes because I found the shot meter to be little more than a distraction. The player you're controlling has a bar that appears in the circle below his feet. As the player moves around the court, that bar grows or shrinks, showing how much of a chance that particular player has at scoring a shot from that point in the field. For example, if you don't have a three-point shot, then no bar will appear when you're in three-point territory. After the shot, the shot meter provides feedback—if it's to the left then you let the shot go early; if it's to the right then you let the shot go off late.