The State of the Association - SBartlett's Blog

SBartlett's Blog

The State of the Association

Posted on September 22, 2010 at 07:53 PM.

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The State of the Association

My commentary on the two basketball simulation franchises.

We have two developer heavy weights in sports gaming that battle to see who will be crowned king of basketball simulation every season: 2K basketball against EA Sports basketball. Our Chris Sanner from Operation Sports believes that intra sport competition doesn�t always result in a higher quality games on each end and he may be right. All I know is that in the case of basketball gaming, these two companies really go at it.

2K and EA Sports appear to be competing at all costs, recruiting the most talented developers like your NCAA dynasties out there. Mike Wang, originally a 2K basketball developer, left the new NBA Elite franchise and headed back to 2K sports after delivering one of the biggest jumps the NBA Live series has seen this entire decade.

Essentially this move guaranteed 2K basketball the crown this year; NBA Elite won�t be nearly as deep. It will be lacking years of refinement and polish with a rookie game play engine under the hood.

EA Sports Basketball

NBA Live had so many positive steps forward last year. I even went as far as saying it was back after the thrown. To even be considered for basketball game of the year is an accomplishment for the NBA Live series which has been at a low quality basketball simulation for quite some time.

The court spacing was there. The perimeter play had some nice functionality to it. The passing and cutting was crisp, and the offensive attack to the rim took a page out of 2K�s blueprints. Throwing one down with Superman actually felt more rewarding in Live 10 than in 2K10; you could feel Dwight�s power pull on the rim and rattle the hoop with the sound design and controller rumble.

I can�t help but wonder what would have been NBA Live 11 with Mike Wang rebuilding with another year at EA�

As a gamer, it�s a disappointment to me that even in a complete overhaul and rebranding of the series EA Sports refuses to take a year off. The development cycle of less than 12 months is not enough time to create a revolutionary basketball game. That�s just a fact.

From a business standpoint, EA has to keep their studio operation generating revenue so we cannot blame them. Leave the genre too long, and you risk alienating a fan base and worse � you force them right into the hands of your rival.

This is a transitional year � a rebuilding year for EA�s team. Sadly, the development team at EA really had no chance this season. EA�s big decision makers led them blindly into a basketball simulation war with no escape; even the distant future looks weak. All EA Sports has in their back pocket now when the chips are down is NBA JAM�s packaged with each copy of NBA Elite.

I want to know the thought process behind this. Scrapping a classic NBA Live franchise for a new rebranded look and feel in a span of an estimated 11 months while your competition signs Air Jordan - 2K is about to lay the hammer on them and end it for good and deservingly so.

I played through the NBA Elite demo today. The game is bare. It feels unfinished and even looks unfinished when you take the court with a five-on-five match. I�m not going to say much more on this since it�s only the demo and I am not a developer. These guys do amazing things with these games but somebody has to be accountable.

The controls remind me of a repackaged freestyle control scheme they marketed to us back in 2005; repackaged with the EA Sports patented �X� factor, renamed, and resold.

Kevin Durant may be able to sell NBA Elite. ESPN hawking NBA Elite on TV to us during every ball game broadcast might be able to sell games � genius of EA Sports right there with their partnership. J. Cole and 9th Wonder may be able to sell games with the nice introduction track on the demo here. The real basketball gamers won�t be fooled; just disappointed we are running out of options for basketball sim and being told that NBA Elite is something it�s not.

In theory, the new control scheme for the human body in a video game sounds great, I just don�t know if it makes a whole lot of sense for a basketball title. I�m a big advocate of pushing new limits and boundaries of controls � that�s the reason why I rated Skate 3 so high. The controls are so deep and intuitive.

Maybe the Skate 3 controls were something the NBA Elite team looked at. Left bumper is left arm, right bumper right arm. Left analog stick is your board and direction, the right analog is your torso. These are amazing controls. But in a game of skateboarding, you skate at your own pace. In basketball, the pace is dictated by ten players moving in concert.

You cannot build a revolutionary control scheme in 11 months. Sorry Peter Moore. This is the reason Mike Wang left.

2K Basketball

It would be a nice surprise to see a basketball title that just flows for a basketball purist like myself. NBA 2K10, while brilliant in its own right, is a basketball simulation to the core. And while it has amazing features and endless animations, there is a degree of choppiness and clunky-ness when passing the rock around and make some quick cuts and changes of direction.

Steve Nash hits guys in stride on their cuts to the hoop like a slant over the middle, or a lead pass in Fifa hitting the through pass on the Y button. I think these are controls we need to look at to get the game flowing like it does in the Fifa or NHL series.

New controls and ideas can come from all sorts of games and genres. NBA Street Homecourt has some great dunking controls based on holding and timing the release of the face button. Anything to add depth to the franchise would be welcome.

In my original draft of this piece, and in my NBA2K11 demo impressions I spoke about the unresponsive feel to change directions on defense. Well, the main source of my issues was trying to play fundamentally sound defense without abusing the turbo. Little did I know that the turbo breaks you out of stance to collapse on attackers. This game is deep; you learn something new all the time.

I�m still in awe at some of the moves Momentous pulled off with Kobe � signature Kobe Bryant moves on the fly? Are you kidding me with the footwork in the Kobe doing work video? That was amazing and I�m still trying to pull of the patented Kobe ball fake, foot plant and spin.

With all that said, the play design in NBA 2K11 is as simulation as it gets. Check out the Czars videos and enjoy the blueprints to the triangle offense. You really don�t need ESPN anymore when you have the Czar breaking things down here.

Tighter Control

To me, the dilemma with most sports titles in the era of gaming we live in lives in foot planting, and momentum. It�s no exception to the game of hoops. Smooth transitions and body movements in a video game mapped to a set of joysticks is extremely hard to emulate.

You can have endless amounts of beautiful animations such as 2K Sports does, but to get the correct animations to trigger at the appropriate times seems to be a programming challenge for any sports genre.

As a basketball gamer, the game tempo is as important to me as any aspect on the court. Pro ballers explode out of breaks, picks, and screens while running plays in the NBA � in our games, the momentum to stop and go is still a very much work in progress.

So there is a sense of balance here that is truly a challenge for these basketball developers. Grant players the ability to run free at will and they all become Supermans destroying the player ratings system; the next thing you know is you are playing NBA JAM 2K style abusing the turbo button.

Attempt to make the game play like a real game of ball, and you walk the line of a slow simulation game play style that lacks fun. When it comes down to it, most of the sports games are too influenced by player speed, and not enough by agility and other skill sets.

Tomba 2K addresses these issues every season with his Tomba2K Sliders. Our community at OS looks at how much freedom is granted for each player on the court, regardless of their player ratings.

We look at how much influence player ratings affect the player skill sets and animations opposed to how much each player naturally moves with the same even balanced ratings with universal sliders for each position on the court: pg, sg, sf, pf, and c.

In my opinion, 2K does an incredible job of sports designing a game the naturally places gamers into playing a simulation style of basketball. It�s not forced. It�s not boring � it�s pure hoops.

I think this is the same reason why a lot of why the 2K football advocates still praise its game play; 2K knows how capture the essence of the game and how it should be played and gamers go with it.

In the case of NBA 2K franchise, 2K and Visual Concepts walk carefully on the grains of the hardwood with the best of sports sim developers. That�s why in my opinion 2K takes the basketball crown, and will continue to wear it and own it.