NBA 2K17 starts pretending to be television before tip-off

GameSpot identified presentation as one of the game's defining strengths, while Forbes argued that its visual presentation was essentially unmatched among sports games at the time. Camera angles are only the beginning.

Arenas react. Crowds rise at appropriate moments. Mascots, halftime entertainment and timeout sequences occupy the dead space around basketball rather than cutting immediately back to a menu.

Visual Concepts also worked on venue-specific lighting and sound characteristics. These are details many players would struggle to name individually, yet together they prevent every arena from feeling like the same building with a different logo on the floor.

The commentary booth finally has enough people in it

NBA 2K17 expanded its commentary pool with voices including Chris Webber, Steve Smith, Brent Barry and Doris Burke alongside Kevin Harlan, Greg Anthony and the existing broadcast team.

Different combinations rotate through games. Game Informer and Forbes both highlighted the idea because it attacks one of sports gaming's oldest presentation problems: repeated commentary becoming predictable halfway through a season.

The studio presentation is less convincing visually. GameSpot praised the audio but described the virtual versions of Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kenny Smith as stiff compared with the rest of the package.

MyCareer is happier when it stops trying to be a movie

NBA 2K16's Spike Lee story often struggled to reconcile a fixed protagonist with a character supposedly created by the player. NBA 2K17 uses a lighter script from Aaron Covington and builds around the player's prospect, Pres.

Michael B. Jordan plays fellow rookie Justice Young. Their friendship eventually becomes the Orange Juice partnership, turning a narrative relationship into an actual on-court system.

It is a simpler story and a better fit. Family calls, messages and conversations add texture without constantly demanding that a sports game behave like a feature film.

Unfortunately, daily life can become scheduling software

Practices, meetings, endorsements and optional events fill the calendar between games. Some of the text conversations have genuine personality; GameSpot specifically praised them for making the spaces between matches feel more alive.

Other events amount to selecting an activity and waiting for the character to complete it. TheSixthAxis criticized how much these layers can lengthen the journey toward the next actual game.

MyCareer wants to simulate the work surrounding professional basketball. Sometimes it simulates waiting.

Virtual Currency sits awkwardly inside the fantasy

VC affects player development and a large range of MyPlayer purchases. It can be earned through games, training and endorsements, or purchased directly.

That creates a tension the narrative never really resolves. The story celebrates effort and practice while the economy sells a shortcut to substantially faster progression.

Multiple 2016 reviews already called the grind one of the clearest weaknesses in an otherwise extraordinarily complete sports game.

It understands that the NBA is larger than basketball

NBA 2K17's cultural achievement is not a single story beat. It is the accumulation of shoes, commentary, music, crowds, broadcasts, arena identities, player personalities and rituals around the sport.

Paul George fronts the standard edition, while the Legend Edition turns Kobe Bryant's retirement into part of the game's wider presentation of the league at a specific moment in its history.

Visual Concepts was recreating a basketball season, but it was also preserving the atmosphere around one.