NBA 2K21 is a rich and profound ballet dancer's dream come true. : 0xbt

NBA 2K21 is a rich and profound ballet dancer's dream come true.


I easily recreated the look of my NBA 2K20 players in NBA 2K21, making this year's story mode look like a direct sequel. The same player, the same game, the same story. For some reason, this still works for me, and this mode makes the long shadow (partial narrative, partly onboarding) aroused by new players. Maybe until I switched to MyTeam, Buy 2K MT or fantasy sports mode has been tied to the currency system, and the currency system has also established MyCareer operation.

The production value of Visual Concepts and the obvious commitment to each annual game as an art proposition can make sports video games endless purgatory-indeed as good as last year! Feel fresh and worth exploring. The gift of the studio's talent was well displayed in The Long Shadow. The actor Jesse Williams of the father of the deceased performed the shadow earnestly. The clean, non-story-telling writing and dialogue elevate a basic bread story to a good popcorn movie.

NBA 2K21 with The Long Shadow gets an experiment that other sports games basically don't have in narrative mode: I not only need a backstory that I can trust, but I am also proud of my progress. This means some kind of personal journey or transformation to the stars, and requires a certain depth and attractiveness of the role. With a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the newcomer Vince Washington turned the character Hendrixx Cobb into a convincing friend. Michael K. Williams, as a street mentor, was enough to make a choice in the final game, which even forced me to reconsider! Both reasonable and regrettable.

Shot Stick Aiming is a new control scheme. In addition to the stick ball aiming at the correct time to release the stick, the player also needs to use the correct fingertips to center the wedge on the meter. When introducing "shooting stick aiming", Visual Concepts re-adjusted the position of other right thumb input to control the ball. This is much better for me, and as a regulator of player movement, Pro Stick is more sensitive to instincts instead of requiring discrete and deliberate choices. In this way, I can free up more space from the defender and beat my own dribbler. I was never good at dribbling before. Even so, this is great, but on its own, it does not make me want to reassign MyCareer player to take advantage of these new features.

MyTeam in NBA 2K21 is still an arms race to polish and buy real money, but its tone has changed drastically, contrary to last year's almost weird casino theme. An exchange platform has been added to the game, and players can redeem for the larger NBA 2K21 MT. And there is a season/battle pass component whose reward level is only obtained through the game. Money, whether virtual or in other ways, has no effect. This is a step in the right direction.