NBA 2k8 blows...
At the 1st glance, NBA2k8 may look extremely realistic with its fancy graphics/animations and recognizable moves from most NBA stars. And even at the 1st few games, you may even feel you're playing an alive and real NBA game. However, once you get deeper into the gameplay, you'll notice flaws and glitches almost everywhere in the corners.
Let's start with the positives; the best feature in 2K8 is the ability to fully customize the game. Missing lay ups and close shots a little too often? Tilt up the percentages. Too hard to make a free throw to go in, tilt down the difficultly of free throw. You can customize just about everything to make the game feel just right. Another big plus is the animations; the game looks realistic period. (especially when you have a not so great TV to notice the cartoonly parts)
Now here go the negatives, a whole list of them.
2k8 introduces a new mechanic called.....whatever it's called! It's a cell phone signal bar like thing on a player. It basically let you know the hot and cold zones of each player. For example, 3 point specialists like Ray Allan or Peja Stojakovic would most likely have a full bar at the 3pt line.
The system uses real NBA stats so different positions would have different result. The signal bar also changes as the game goes on, make a few shot will make the bar full red causing the percentage to go up. Miss a few shot and the bar will turn blue causing the percentage to go down. While it's an interesting idea, IT'S TOO MUCH.
Imagine this in a real NBA game; Kobe misses his 1st two shot. You may think: big deal! And you are correct; it IS a big deal because Kobe won't make a single shot by then for the rest of the game. Why? You asked, because Kobe went COLD and the freaking signal bar is BLUE so he won't make a shot even when there's no one else but him in the whole freakin building. And this is the only freakin thing that you CAN'T turn off, so you have to live with it.
Why don't you tilt the shooting percentages up? You asked. Well, if I'd do that then everyone will be like a scoring machine since their single bar will turn red hot and nobody will miss a single shot. The system is totally unbalanced and have ruined the game. However, there's something even more annoying; yeah, more than this signal bar. The controls...
While the animations are great, the controls suck more than a robotic vacuum cleaner. OMG where do I start, there are so many things go wrong... I think I'll just list a few examples.
-2 seconds left on the shot clock, I(T-mac) drive and tries to put up a quick shot (holding sqaure for a sec); and T-mac pump-fakes.... I press sqaure for a whole freakin sec and he gives me a pump-fake. pump-fake is a tap like 0.2 sec, not a SEC!
-I hold the analog stick all way to the right with the turbo button pressed, so he should run to the right, right? NO, he hops slowly to the right like a crap; GOD, if I wanna hop to right, I would hold the stick half way to the right... Don't you think I wanna run when I'm pressing the 'turbo' button? Didn't think so.
-I'm Steve Nash and I'm driving the lane; while spinning my way into the paint I tries to throw the rock back out for a wide open 3. (Press X, x, and x again!) Not working, I need to finish the whole spin move to do anything else; and I need to press X again after the move, those three Xs I pressed before does NOT A THING
-No more fancy moves, you can only drive to left or right, and hop step.
-going up for lay-up, open man next to me, press x to pass, NOT working again!
-2 ft away the rim, tries to jump toward the rim but he jumps away from the rim...
-I just scored, now I want to go steal their in-ball-pass; not happening, the game forces my controling player to go hi-five another teammate. WHO THE HELL IS PLAYING THE GAME??!! I'm not quite sure now...
-My team is winning by 2 and there's 5 sec left; I make a perfect pass and should be able to run till the time runs out. But they need to foul! So from 5ft away they use magical power to stun me and throw me to the FT line. Magic should be add to NBA games, why not?
So yeah, 50% of the time you will feel like the game is playing, not you. You're just a puppet going to the general direction you're pressing. Don't tell me thats how the real NBA works. NBA players could make pass while making a move or a drive; they don't need a full second to shoot a buzzer beater; and they don't hop like a crap when they wanna run. Next on the list.
Playbook- You can use different plays to lead your team to victory, great... Let's use the SG pick & fade play. a blue spot shows up on screen, and when you move your player to the spot, some lines will tell you where to pass or go; simple and easy (NOT).
The spot needs you to be exactly there, not even a inch off; but the problem is, you're a freakin puppet! You wanna control your player precisely to that spot? If you're lucky, you may nail on the 1st try; if not, you'll c your player hops, drives, crossovers before triggering the play. And by that time, the shot clock is at 7; so you drive and try to pull up a quick shot but instead you pumpfaked and you need 2 more sec to jump and shoot; you couldn't make it; turnover.
One more example! Yeah~~
Nash tries the backdoor pass and instead of passing around his defender, he throw the ball INTO his defender; Yup, he tries to injure him alright. Throw it harder next time, Nash.
Thats it, so the game becomes more frustrating the more you play it; you pretty much wanna play it in coach mode after a week or so.
Trash controls (slow and unresponsive), trash AI (if you don't jump, no one will get the defensive rebound), trash gameplay (you're a freakin puppet).
So 9/10 on the 1st hr, 6/10 on the 1st week, and 2/10 after that.