NBA 2K16: The Best Game in the Series' History?

[GisherJohn24]

NBA 2K16 was also was the year where I thought they had the player models and faces pretty spot on (with the exception of Jordan and some legends), and then we know what 17 did to their Bodies turning them into Gumby.

It's just another reason, but I agree with never everyone ,the gameplay really is quite possibly the best playing, most realistic, and MOST fun 2K ever. And like the guy said above, it may never be topped.

You know what would be awesome?
If we had the ability to use every song ever made for ever 2k basketball game and bring them over to the new 2k basketball game. We'd have like a 500 track list. 16's soundtrack for me was just okay. The ultimate 16 for me would be music from NBA 2k11, 12, 13 and 14.

[GisherJohn24]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ruben2424

My favorite version of 2K will always be 2K11...but since it's outdated, I have to say that 2K16 is the best version yet in terms of gameplay, graphics, sound, etc. In my opinion, there's only 2 things I didn't like about 2K16... 1. MyCareer mode turning into "MyStory" mode. I want the career mode to go back to what it used to be in 2K11. Post game press conferences, shoe deals, endorsements, etc. I wanna define MY OWN career not play out someone else's life! I'm from Miami, FL not some kid from Harlem that goes by "Freq". Let's NEVER EVER do the whole Spike Lee thing again please!!!...We don't even get to play out our entire rookie season for crying out loud! Story elements should not be added to a career mode. Period. Career modes should be open-ended and WE should get to decide how OUR careers play out! I would like to see some situational cut-scenes where we actually get to make important decisions as in endorsement deals, hiring/firing agents, free agency, etc. 2. Although I love the idea of MyGM, I don't like that you don't start as a level 1 GM if you decide to start over. I don't like that autosave can't be turned off like you could in MyLeague. And I can't stand the training intensity issue that was also in 2K15...I honestly think this and the autosave pretty much ruin the entire mode. I only play MyLeague because of this. If these things can be resolved, it'd be the best franchise mode ever developed in a sports game! I honestly don't feel that 2K has to continue to raise the bar in terms of gameplay. At least not for a while. I think they should do what MLB The Show is doing...take an already excellent product and just polish it a bit further. If it ain't broken, don't fix it! They can add Charles Barkley to the rest of the pregame crew, they can continue adding small details like arena sounds and lighting, uniform and player details, live shots of city skylines and arenas to the presentation, even more TV style presentation, etc. I just don't feel that anything drastic should be done to the gameplay. It's already almost perfect. Add more realism to the career/franchise modes and cut out all the Spike Lee drama!

2k18 had some serious things I liked about it. And some of the best animations I've seen, but as you 2k boys know, the AI took a step back and that should not happen when we're compared it to games like 2k11 back from 2010 that arguably might have had a smarter AI. It all depends on what 2K focuses on and I think they focused on modes more than gameplay for 2k18. They seem to lose footing tryign to do too much and that's when the AI suffers. The more complicated the online gets and the more modes we see, in general, I'd say the gameplay on the court suffers the most. 2k14 at next gen launch lacked nearly eveyr single mode, but the game ont he court looked and played pretty good for a launch title... 2K needs to focus on gameplay and AI again.

[Korrupted]

Thread is old but I will say from a Park/Pro-AM perspective this game trumps all pre-patch 6. Stage was open 24/7 and Rival Weekend was really popping back then. 2k18 doesn't come close SMH.

[cthurt]

I guess I have to ask this question is 2k switching to much gameplay wise from year to year in a bad way? Because if you go back and play 2k16 the feel of the game is completely different then it is in 2k18 and even 2k17. The animations in 2k16 are smoother the players feel like they have more weight to them its kind of hard to explain, but I play 2k18 and its almost as if a different development team made 2k18 compared to 2k16. Hell 2k17 changed in damn near everyway from 2k16 graphically and the feel of the game was just overall worse.


The last two installments have left such a bad taste in my mouth I literally thought about going to PC to get my 2k fix and just play 2k16 with mods.

[CaseIH]

IMO NBA2k18 is not only the best NBA2k of all time, but also the best sports video game of all time, and there isnt any other even close to matching it. MLBTS probably emmulates baseball as far as gameplay goes, really good, but its franchise mode isnt anywhere near what Association is in NBA2k with MyLeague.

The few issues I have with NBA2k18 are:

A fee sim stats, namely PIP, and 2nd chance points, are to low, but sim stats wise 18 is the best its ever been.
CPU poor foul trouble mamagement, and lack of using timeouts, unless you use advance rotations, but advanced rotations the CPU doesnt managed foul trouble at all, and is a major issue.
The lack of shooting fouls on 3pt attempts is a problem, but lately I dont know if it was a tuner update, or if its my sliders, but this has been improved actually.
The only other gripe I have is when driving to the basket defenders tend to bounce off the driver, and rather than seeing physical contact which would lead to a blocking foul or charging right around the restricted area, the defender just rolls off the offensive player. There needs to be more physical contact right around that restricted area, which should lead a blocking foul or if just outside the restricted area a charge. I dont mind the hip riding animation on the perimeter, when the ball handler gets by the defender, because the majority of all backcourt players can get past ther defender, its the help defense which keeps them from getting all the way to the rim IRL. This needs to be improved upon in 19.

Unfortunately there are always going to be some, who are going to complain no matter what, as some people are just whiners and will look for things to complain about, rather than give the devs credit for what they did do right, and they do a heck of a lot more right than than they do wrong.

I do worry this whole esports gaming, will hurt us offline players, as I fear Association mode and offline play will get less and less effort. But its also possible it will actually improve gameplay. However I think the reason we dont see quite enough non shooting fouls, and non steal turnovers is due to online players, crying about throwing the ball away, and too many fouls. As for Association, you have basically everything in it as they do IRL, its about as deep as it can possibly get, and by far beats any other sports console franchise mode. Really the only sports game that outdoes NBA2k's MyLeague is OOTP baseball on PC, as far as franchise modes go.

Overall the devs deserve a lot of credit for how much the game continues to improve yr after yr. I enjoyed 16, 17 and 18, but overall 18 is the best to date. I hope 19 continues the trend of improvment.

[Johnnythelegend]

I remember 2k16 as the last 2k that I had most fun purely from the gameplay standpoint as I don't remember that there was something as expoitable as there is in 2k17 and 2k18. I feel like that was the last game I found really solid and balanced, talking as an offline gamer.

2K17 felt great at first and I was really impressed by it but I think all those patches ruined it, I remember Mike posting here really often trying to fix things and that lead to all sorts of problems. 2k17 had probably the worst body types ever, no muscle tone, no real difference between body types. Pick and roll defense was awful. On the other hand, 1 on 1 defense had too much bumping even though I'd take it over this years matador defense.

2k18 is in my opinion most advanced game and it feels great in terms of resposiveness and how smooth controlling, I think it's the most deep game, with the amount of options and how deep the modes are but I think it's also the most unfinished game that 2k has ever released and that could be reason for that. 2k keeps adding things every year to satify it's customers and to attract new people, neighbourhood is the example of that. Now I feel like this game has so many things but some basic, fundamental things are problematic and needs a lot of work. Again, the pick and roll defense, I recently played 2k16 and pick and roll defense works just fine, but in both 2k17 and 2k18 the game has problems with the most common play in basketball that is the foundation of every offense today. I have already written a couple of posts on that topic here so I won't go deeper again.

But I feel like if 2k18 was a product of 2 year work that it would be the best basketball game ever no question, I really like many things about it but these basic problems are really influencing how much I enjoy and love the game and how much I play it at the end. Because of that, I hope 2k is really going to work on these more basic things and the gameplay and try to work on all these issues so that 2k19 would be really great. But that remains to be see, I mean I hated how CPU couldn't defend pick and roll in 2k17 and I really tried not to exploit and I was thinking yeah that is going to be fixed for sure in 2k18 and it is actually not.

[Hustle Westbrook]

Still had the best on-ball D out of any 2K game. The lead passing and paint defense made me want to punch a wall though.

I would have appreciated the game way more at the time if I had known how awful 17 was going to be.

[ponyblind]

2k11 is classic.