A pet peeve in a video game is just a little thing that drives you crazy. It’s not really a “game killer” or anything like that to me, it’s just that one thing you wish was better. It can be something small like a player's signature shot being slightly off, or it can even be a bit bigger like an inability to import a draft class. 

 

The point is this pet peeve gnaws at you even though you actively try to ignore it. It’s that big brother who pokes you in that spot between your chest and shoulder (come on, you know the spot). He just keeps doing it over and over trying to get a rise out of you. You try to pretend it doesn’t bother you, but inside your own head you’re screaming. Finally, you snap and check him through the wall. From there, you have a moment of jubilation, only to then realize you’ve sealed your own fate and the pummeling of a lifetime. So you immediately sprint out of the house and plan to hide in the small wooded area until your mom gets home from work. Only you realize your mom is going to be pissed about the brother-sized hole in the living room wall, so you do the math on how long you need to stay out before she’s just happy you’re home and totally forgets about the wall. However, somewhere along the line you realize you’re a 10-year-old kid who's totally not cool with being in the woods when it gets dark. This realization ends with a sad slink home as you accept your doomed fate. 

 

...Oh, uh yeah sorry, got a bit off track there I guess.  

 

The point is we all have these pet peeves in our video games. I’m going to highlight just a couple of my own in NBA 2K16, and then maybe you all will have some to share as well. Let’s do it. 

 

The defensive stance in this game can be funny to watch at times. Perhaps how it works has everything to do with what you set your  “defensive assist strength” to in the options menu. Maybe how the slide looks comes down to the the lateral quickness attribute of each player. Maybe I’m really bad at deciding when to use the left trigger to initiate the slide. Maybe I’m not always switching between defensive slide and turbo the right way.

 

There’s a lot of questions there and I don’t have all the answers. Either way, the general point is going from a defensive stance, then trying to sprint when you feel out of position, and then going back to defensive stance again leads to lots of awkward steps taken all over the court. 

 

 

Looking at the above GIF, Rashad Vaughn is a rookie who has a penchant for mentally checking in and out of games at times. That being said, Vaughn still looks like he’s in the midst of trying to play defense after a long night out in Vegas. I mean even Doug McDermott can watch that GIF and be like, “yeah, even I don’t look that silly trying to play defense.” 

 

And look, I totally accept that maybe it’s all me. I accept that maybe I’m doing something wrong here. But if I’m not doing anything wrong, then what is with that footwork? And even if I am doing something wrong, the foot planting I see on defense at times boggles my mind.

 

Oh, and before I move on, Dougie McBuckets you totally look that silly trying to play defense sometimes.

 

Right off the bat, I readily admit I could choose a better GIF for this example. The GIF above just shows a jumbled mess of bodies -- even with me trying to pull Noel back to the corner and ignore the drive. Nevertheless, I like this GIF because it highlights the general point I want to make about both the personnel and the situation at hand.

 

In short, Nerlens Noel is a really good defensive player who wants to protect the basket. Be that as it may, he's leaving a three-point shooter wide open in the corner to slide over on a drive by a non-shooting big. On top of that, multiple people are already in the paint to ward off the drive. 

 

I mean it when I say I think it’s great that you can pause the game and tweak a wide variety of defensive settings and micro-manage the crap out of the game if you so choose. There’s a lot you can do now in terms of deciding how to defend the pick and roll, how to guard shooters off the ball and all that good stuff.

 

At the same time, I don’t want a person’s ability to “coach” his team on defense mean we ignore some fundamental principles at a basic level. You don't just vacate the open shooter in the corner on a drive when there's already help in the paint. In this particular case, I think the match-ups just get all wonky in general due to the mass of bodies in the paint, but the overall point stands.

 

What I’m talking about here goes beyond just the drive and kick game as well. I won’t highlight it in GIF form, but the idea of pre-rotating also matters in future versions of the game. If one defender has to recover and worry about two players, knowing who the threat is will be important. If a non-shooting big catches a swing pass behind the 3-point line on the wing and there’s also a wide open shooter in the corner, that single defender has to know he shouldn’t close out hard on the big. Instead, he should be ready to either head to the corner or sit way back in the paint so he only protects against the drive. 

 

What I’m describing there is some next-level stuff to a degree in terms of AI, but as these games continue to progress down the realism path, this is the sort of stuff we’ll have to start talking about in our NBA games. I'm excited about that proposition on some level, but it does mean knowing your personnel (KYP!) will matter more and more as well. 

 

 

But okay, those are just two of my NBA 2K16 pet peeves. I would love to hear about some of your own peeves of the pet variety, so let me know about them in the comments below!