So as part of my gaming goal to expand my horizons, I jumped into NBA2K20 yesterday. Having it free on PS Plus made this a low risk proposition. And I could summarize my opinion so far by just saying that I’m glad I didn’t actually spend money on this game.
To be fair, I’ve only spent a few hours with it and most games are frustrating and overwhelming in the opening hours. But my criticisms of the game so far aren’t just limited to the difficulty of the game or the steep learning curve. Sure, I’m pretty bad at the game and I am more of a brick-layer than a shot-maker; and more of a hacker than a defender; but I expect that it won’t take long until I get the timing down to make shots and play reasonable defense.
My biggest disappointment is in the graphical quality of the players and animations. This being the premiere basketball game out there, I was expecting more photo-realistic quality of my favorite players and also more options for the character creation so I could make a character that looked more like me. After playing games over the last few years like Dragon Age Inquisition and SoulCalibur 6 that have rather robust character creators, I was expecting more from a late generation huge money making franchise like NBA2K. I mean, at least let me change my hairstyle, 2K. But then again — the hair in the game looks so bad to begin with, I suppose it hardly matters. In the games defense, they do include some kind of option to upload a photo of your face, but I’m not fussed enough to go through that much effort.
Other disappointments so far include the apparent lack of updating. When I browsed around looking for anything relating to the Orlando “bubble tournament” that has just started up this week as a return from the unscheduled COVID hiatus, I could find nothing of the sort. In the one area that supposedly has the “play the games currently on schedule” it has a list of games from March 10th, which I think must have been around when the league went on hold. It’s such a missed opportunity to have a really fun update to include the play-in games and subsequent playoffs that are going to be going on over the next month. I mean, as much money as this game has made 2K Sports you’d think they could keep the game up-to-date for the playoffs. It comes off as just lazy. I hate to be judgmental as I know they may have lost programming staff over the pandemic, but they have sure had plenty of time and staff to update the splash screens hounding me to pre-order NBA2K21. I mean, good grief 2K, the 2020 playoffs haven’t even started yet — can we please not start selling next years game until we at least have the playoff tournament underway for the current year?! It’s probably the most disappointing aspect of this game to me so far. And perhaps they will issue an update with some “bubble play” in Orlando, and if so I’ll retract my criticism, but for now it is definitely a major let down.
For some positives — the game does appear to have a lot of game modes, with a variety of content . It seems to include legends and current day players, which is nice.
All in all, Unfortunately my experience so far is only reenforcing the prejudice I have harbored against these annualized games. Here’s hoping that my first impressions are unfounded. I plan to give it a fair shake and play through more of the different modes over the next month. Although, if there isn’t any updates to the rosters and schedule based on the real world happenings, then I guess it’s no rush.
Ghost Of Tsushima, I've posted about it in the official thread, but I'll say a word or two more here. I like Jin's character and adherence to the samurai code - although apparently he becomes less strict about that later on. The prologue was a great introduction to the game and I've just begun The Warrior Code quest so far. the combat in the game is great, and much easier than Sekiro, which is good for me.
"Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation." - Alasdair Gray
The hard thing for me with these games is thinking ahead about incorporating stuff you’re going to unlock. For instance, planning districts around where your future metro line will be once you unlock it.
Then you're not thinking like a town planner at all, @Thrillho because if you were, you'd just ruthlessly bulldoze everything in the path of your fancy new boondoggle!
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@Th3solution Huge respect for gaming outside of your comfort zone, good sir. It sounds like you haven't missed much whilst not playing them; like you, I'd have expected bleeding-edge character customisation for one of the biggest, most financially successful franchises out there, but it would appear quite the opposite, as though there's an inherent laziness in knowing people will buy whatever you slap your logo on. That's a real surprise to hear. It's great that there are a lot of modes in there but, from my (admittedly limited) research into annualised sports games, you just know they've been copying and pasting them for years, adding one or two whenever sales dip and there's a need for some marketing bullet-points.
Not only that, but when one of your major selling points is to provide an interactive version of the current sporting season (regardless of circumstance), a five-month lack of updates is woeful, to say the least.
Is it riddled with microtransactions, dare I ask?
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@Th3solution The Show 20’s done great providing content so it’s a shame to see NBA hasn’t bothered. They’ve only just managed to implement the roster updates and attribute changes but I’ve still sunk over 6 days of playtime with all the content they’ve given us in the meantime. And I haven’t spent a penny on MTX, at the end of the day it’s just spending money to skip the grind when the grind is where the fun is!
@RogerRoger Yes, I think I see the place where the microtransactions fit in. I’ve not spent enough time to completely understand the mechanics, but one of the modes lets you choose a ‘“legendary” type of player and you get a card packet (not sure if they call them “cards”, I can’t remember) and in that pack you have a bunch of random low tier players, like people coming off the bench of mediocre teams, guys I’d never heard of. And your supposed to put together a team with these guys and gradually accumulate reward packs where they trickle in good players over time into your team. Well... I think can buy packets with real money and expedite getting better players. Basically I think it looks like loot boxes. Now don’t quote me on that, but I think that’s the way that one mode works. Sort of a level up RPG for a team, making it better over time but the ability to buy your way to the top.
I read up on the platinum trophy and apparently without spending real world money the platinum takes forever. PlayStationtrophies.org rated the plat difficulty at 10/10.... which is way harder than say for comparison - Dark Souls, which is 7.5/10 difficulty. However, if you buy card pack upgrades then you can make the grinding for the platinum much faster.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Currently playing Remothered: Tormented Fathers. It's ok. If you like the Clock Tower series, then you'll
probably enjoy this. I'll finish it tomorrow and move onto Spyro 3: Year of the Dragon .
@Th3solution Hmm, interesting. Sounds like a carbon copy of the "Wilson Loot Box" model, which is what EA deploy in all of their sports games (and frequently try to shove elsewhere, too). I was curious as to whether such practices were commonplace outside of EA Sports, so thanks for the confirmation. I guess if it becomes expected across the board, people will complain less, but those platinum statistics speak for themselves. "Grind forever to earn 100% trophies, or pay money and be finished tomorrow." If that isn't the dictionary definition of pay-to-win, I don't know what is!
Sorry, I don't mean to be calling attention to flaws in a game you're struggling to enjoy! Hope you're able to find the fun in spite of all this, and that your time with it improves soon.
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
@RogerRoger No worries. I’m a little frustrated at the whole experience and it’s good to have validation. But like that recent article on the site reported, there is so much money involved with MTX for both publishers and for Sony by virtue of them getting their PSN share of the exchange that it’s just going to continue to be present, despite the hardcore gamers like ourselves being opposed to them. And to be fair, NBA2K has plenty to offer as far as potential enjoyment without engaging in MTX. But it’s clear that a lot of players do utilize the loot boxey card packets that these games employ.
Fortunately there are plenty of games that don’t use them or at least only use them for cosmetic purposes and so we, the players, have lots of options. It’s just frustrating to see games that utilize these methods continue to populate the best sellers lists month after month when some really creative and well crafted games go unnoticed and sell poorly.
As you say though, I’ll be happy to continue to try to get some enjoyment out of NBA2K20. Its a nice “drop-in, drop-out” kind of game to dabble in. I’ll post more thoughts once I get better acquainted.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I am also playing Conan Exiles, loving the building aspect of the game which i have only just started to indulge myself in, also the combat (on Admin Modde) is easy and fun. I have access to God Mode which, I know, many would argue takes the fun out of the game, but I rarely use cheats and the devs included this particular option in the design of the game, so it makes it more fun to exploit the game this way and just have unlimited resources and health, I am not hardcore enough, despite my Dark Souls background, to begin from the ground up, foraging in the wastelands etc., and getting killed over...and over again.
"Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation." - Alasdair Gray
I've been playing about five games of Fall Guys today after work. Really fun game, though I do hope they keep including more and more game modes and minigames. It's, like Rocket League in it's early stages, still a bit bare.
It's though bad this game hardly has any options. The topic about disabilities made me realize how frustrating it must be to not even be able to change camera controls, etc.
I actually won the last one, which was a great feeling. As I never reached #1 in Fortnite for instance. That being said, it requires way less skill to win a game of Fall Guys.
I played the first couple of hours of Strider 2014, which probably means I’m more than halfway through it. I’m actually really enjoying it, maybe a little safe but it’s just proper good, clean, retro fun. It feels quite a bit like Mega Man 11 in that sense and like most of the Capcom reboots, it does enough new to feel fresh but you can fall right back into the gameplay and instantly know what you’re doing, like muscle memory.
I'm really, really glad that I want to experience this legendary game so badly because, if I didn't, I think I'd be regretting my purchase by now
... Oh dear... Not off to the best of starts Rog is it?
Have you got any further into this since your initial post?
Most of the finer details are admittedly lost on me since my first go of it six/seven or so years ago but I do seem to recall most of what you've said so far and a number of your complaints are similar to ones I have.
The dodgy character models in the overworld (I dunno why but they really get under my skin with how bad they look and I'm really not a graphics snob), the characters themselves being fairly uninteresting, the translation being... not all that good either (Least it was for me with the PS1 original on PS3)
I thought the music was only ok as well baring a few standout tracks.
& I never found the materia system to be all that exciting as it basically makes all the characters a jack of all trades from what I remember (Yet I really quite like Trails Of Cold Steel's quartz system which is quite familar... Maybe I've got a bit of a bias towards FFVII 😅)
... Let's hope it picks up for you though, you do come back and eat those words & end up loving it like everyone else 😁
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@Draco_V_Ecliptic I’ll be honest, I played it on Game Pass for 30 minutes and got bored. It’s pinball alright, but with just the one table and not enough new to make it interesting. I prefer the Zen games and all their licensed tables.
Unfortunately, every time I went to play more, I got ten minutes in before my phone rang. I've therefore played a few short bursts, but none of any major consequence.
Hopefully I'll get further with it this weekend. Playing it on PS4 (which is a port of its PC version) means the translation work is apparently smoother in parts; at least I haven't come across any laughable "all your base are belong to us" moments thusfar. I can't really claim to like any of its RPG systems, as I don't like RPG systems in general, although I'm all for generalised and simplistic one-size-fits-all upgrades because it means I don't have to think much beyond "Cloud can heal people now!"
Glad to see you've been enjoying Trials of Cold Steel and will keep you posted, thanks!
"We want different things, Crosshair. That doesn't mean that we have to be enemies."
In the exciting world of Cities Skylines, I finally have a city I’m reasonably happy with thanks to roundabouts.
I’ve also found that the game LOVES putting traffic lights on any sort of junction which massively affects traffic, and I’ve found the convoluted way that allows you to change this. Moving all of my industry to one area has also made a huge difference but I can’t build residential blocks quick enough at the moment.
I am sure you are all thrilled to hear about my ongoing battle with simulation traffic management.
I've been off work this week, so I've now moved onto Lost Sphear. I really like these old school style of JRPG's. Makes we wish that Octopath Traveller would come to PS4.
Started The Outer Worlds the other night. Seems to be very much my thing so far, early days though.
The dialogue options are a particular highlight. Some of the replies you can give to people are hilarious. Also, Parvarti is my favourite sidekick since Charon.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
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