I’ve been excited for NBA 2K12, just as I am every year. Everyone is here at Dime, and the time we’ve spent with the game has done nothing but fuel the smack talk going on at the office. But 2K released a Developer Insight today that blew my mind. My excitement went from “Okay, I’m going to love this game” to “Holy %^&* get me this game now!”
The reason for this? Defense. Everyone loves themselves a video game where you can drop threes, dunk on someone and run up 130-120 score games. But at some point, it gets frustrating if you really can’t play defense without mashing on the steal button. 2K might’ve done it this year.
My main gripes with basketball video games have always been pretty similar. With 2K the last few years, they’ve looked something like this:
1) pump fakes were virtually non-effective unless you were right at the rim…defenders were too quick to recover
2) it never felt like you could control the contest of jump shots and the “hands up” motion was way too slow
3) it was too hard to play on-ball defense (especially last year)…one single little misstep and it was an automatic bucket
4) pick-n-rolls were money all day against any defense (last year was the first time their effectiveness wavered even just a tad)
But 2K12 might put most of these problems to rest. There are wrap-up fouls in the game (how pissed did Dwight Howard just get?). There are three different foot speeds for on-ball defense. One is the default. Another is the “intense” defense, basically the Ron Artest special or also the “football player who shouldn’t be playing basketball” special, where you can play tighter to the ball but lose some quickness. Then finally, there’s the “fast shuffle” which is akin to slapping the floor, pulling up the shorts and really getting after it. That all sounds promising.
Contesting shots is now better incorporated into the game, and when you do it yourself, rather than the computer, it affects the opposing shooting percentages more (rather than the other way around). This should help get more people to play on-ball defense.
But probably the coolest thing of all is now we can control our pick-and-roll defense. A part of me loves it. The other part of me is a little pissed. Let me tell you why:
After years of playing, I’ve pretty much mastered the gimmicky art of running pick-n-rolls and leading my players to the rim for dunks/layups. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it, and it guaranteed that I was going to shoot a ridiculous percentage pretty much every game. I could literally do it all game and it couldn’t be stopped (as I’m sure a lot of you have discovered this).
Now, it’ll be much harder. In the end, I think I’ll learn to love it, even if it takes away my bread and butter to an extent. You can control virtually everything, from hedging to doubling the ball to going under or over the screens. You can sag off the ball with your other defenders and you can switch on the screens. It all sounds incredible, and out of everything they’ve announced so far, this single characteristic has to be the most exciting.
There is all this and more here if you want to read in depth what improvements 2K has made on defense. A ton of awesome stuff in there. So I’m hearing the demo is dropping soon. We should get a 2K tournament going, with everyone on DimeMag.com. Who’s the best 2K baller on Dime? That’s what I want to know. Losers get put on Big Island’s Airbus A380 of doom.
What’s the best part about all of this?
Follow Sean on Twitter at @SEANesweeney.
Follow Dime on Twitter at @DimeMag.
Become a fan of Dime Magazine on Facebook HERE.
