‘NBA 2K20’ is a broken excuse of a basketball game
LA Lakers superstars LeBron James and cover athlete Anthony Davis in “NBA 2K20.” Photo by Esquire
By Jack Murphy
A&E Editor
The biggest scammers in the video game industry, “2K Sports,” have returned with “NBA 2K20,” the latest iteration in the “NBA 2K” series. Like “Madden,” “Fifa” and every other sports game, the “NBA 2K” games come out every year to celebrate the upcoming season. It has grown into one of the most popular video games in the world, being one of the most-watched games streamed on “Twitch.” The “NBA” itself has even created the “NBA 2K League,” with each real “NBA” team having their team in the league.
I have a mixed relationship with the series and “2K” itself. I have been playing the game every year since “NBA 2K12,” and I love many of the games in the series. However, there are also many that I despise with a burning passion. “2K” has the worst fan interaction out of any studio. The game fails to evolve much every year, only adding useless features that were so unnecessary that most fans question their purpose. They also have the worst servers of any online game. Players are unable to play the game offline, and that has stopped me from trying the game when it first came out.
No other major game developer has had these types of problems every year for seven years in a row, and “2K” consistently manages to have the worst servers in the entire video game industry. The fact that this is still a problem shows that “2K” really does not care about their customers’ experience. The company’s incompetence and greed are so glaring that it is comical.
MyTeam and MyCareer modes have both returned for this year’s game and are, once again, pay-to-win game modes. In “NBA 2K20,” players can buy VC, short for virtual currency, which players use to buy packs in MyTeam that contain better players to improve their team. Buying packs allows the player to keep up with the rest of the players who play MyTeam who also buy VC to open packs, and no player wants to be blown out when someone else has the new player. Trust me, opening packs in any video game is like gambling, and this is coming from someone who was addicted to buying packs in “NBA 2K19.” This is embarrassing, but I spent around $2,500 on packs alone, just so I could keep up with the rest of the competition.
The ‘loot box’ model is predatory and bad for game balance, which is why I am appalled that people are already acquiring some of the best players in the entire game mode only a couple of weeks after the game came out. How can this happen? The developers have changed nothing in the mode except for allowing more ways to pay for players earlier. Also, the auction house where you can buy or sell players to either buy more packs or more players is still down because the servers are broken.
The gameplay in “2K20” is completely broken. Many aspects of the shooting in the game, along with attacking the basket, have been needlessly destroyed as “2K” has dismantled the rating system and dumbed it down. This was done for no other reason except to make it look like they have done something new this year. I have played a couple of games where my players have had their hands go directly through the basketball.
MyCareer is the same as every year. players have to start with a terrible story mixed with hours of cutscenes that no one cares enough to sit through, just to have it not matter that much after your first 50 games or so. Also, to make your player better, you have to buy VC. What a surprise! After so many years of constantly playing what feels like the same filler material every year, I had no interest in continuing to play MyCareer. Why would I play this when “Madden” is the same thing but better?
“NBA 2K20” is in its current state an unplayable, unfinished and boring mess of a game that the developers knew was not ready for release. Despite this, they decided to make their release date and cash in on all of the player’s money and fix issues later instead of making the best product possible on day one. Imagine if “Marvel” dropped their newest movie, and halfway through the film they charged patrons $60 to finish the film. That is exactly what players got in “NBA 2K20.”This is an embarrassment of a game that I would not recommend anyone buy. As you might have guessed, I am giving “NBA 2K20” an F.