NBA 2K12 has been on my radar for some time. With expanded My Player mode, My Legend (essentially My Player with any NBA player), and the new Legends mode with a slew of classic teams this sounds even better then last years game, which I loved. The demo arrived today on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, so I was able to give the new, improved controls a shot. Do they make the game better or worse?
Surprisingly the first thing I noticed was that I didn’t like the graphics as much. Player faces seemed worse then last year and the game just looked dark and dingy. Hopefully that won’t hurt the game overall, and it may be a demo artifact so let’s get back to the game play. I got to try out the new “blowout dribble, where you push the ball ahead of you on a fast break and run to catch up with it. It doesn’t feel overpowered but you get a sense of urgency that didn’t exist last year. Shooting feels a little more hit-and-miss but that’s likely just due to me not having allot of hands-on time with these players. Defense felt more physical with obstruction being a big part of the game. Passing felt sluggish at best because players would seem to hesitate a second or so to pass after pressing the button until they had an open lane. I appreciate that they don’t want to commit turnovers but it slows the game down and makes it feel unresponsive.
In just a short time with the demo it’s hard to put together a solid opinion on the game as a whole but so far like the direction they’re going. Hopefully the rest of the game comes off as well.
Alphasim out.
