NBA 2K12 comes out in less than one week. It has already garnered a ton of press due to having three different covers featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson. There’s also been a lot of attention given to the game since it is going to feature nearly 30 classic teams and 15 legendary players. I’m not sure exactly how that works since if there’s almost 30 different teams there must be more than 15 legends. Since the NBA lockout has made it impossible for 2k to update rosters, the main focus of the game has been placed on the legends. This is most likely going to be a great thing and I am very excited. With what we know (or at least I know) as of right now, six days before the release, I want to give some scattered thoughts on what I think will be awesome and what is messed up.
First, the player ratings have leaked and they are fucked up. LeBron James is the highest rated player in the game at 98, including an A- in outside shooting. I don’t know why this guy keeps choking in the playoffs every year and is rewarded with great video game ratings. And to put his mid-range and three point game so high is insane. I mean, that’s saying LeBron is nearly as good of a shooter as Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk got jobbed on the ratings, falling to 85 which is behind titans of the game like Rudy Gay (86). He’s also behind Melo, Amar’e, and tied with Blake Griffin. This is Dirk here. Top 25 ever probably and he was just one of the top three players in the league this past year. Kobe somehow got rated 94 even though he didn’t play well and should only be in the high 80s. I’m also a little sad Luol Deng is only a 77 since he’s a true warrior.
Deron Williams is a 90 and Russell Westbrook is an 88. I don’t know what world these 2k developers live in where Williams and Westbrook are better than Dirk, but it must be nice there. As long as LeBron’s clutch rating is about a 49 then I won’t be that upset with all these initial ratings. Assuming there’s a season and the rosters update things will change. That’s really all I can bitch about in terms of current players, but I will praise the Mavericks for acquiring Rudy Fernandez before the lockout so he’s on their roster in the game. That is so important to me as Rudy is one of the most important men to ever live. Aside from that, I don’t care about the modern stuff as my focus is all on the legends.
The legend stuff looks awesome. If you’re the 60s Celtics with Bill Russell then the game presentation is just like it would be in the 60s, including the black and white screen. I hope this means for the older teams there won’t be a scoreboard on the bottom of the screen during the game and it will just show up sporadically throughout the quarter like it did for years. While I am excited about the at least four different classic Bulls teams the roster reveal showed, I feel that’s kind of weak to do. Out of the almost 30 legendary teams, how many are going to be the same team with slightly different players? Will there be four different Bird-era Celtics or something? If that happens and there’s no 1993 Phoenix Suns I’m going to be pissed. I’m really looking forward to there being a lot of different classic teams so you can use a lot of different legends like NBA Live 2000. That brings me to my next hope.
I really hope that with The Association—the game’s season mode for those who aren’t familiar—when you do a fantasy draft you can pick legendary players. In Live 2000, which is the second greatest NBA game behind 2k11, they had legendary all star teams broken down by era. There was the 50s/60s team, the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s all stars. You could complete ridiculous tasks and unlock the players from those teams to be placed on any team in the active roster. You could then do a season with legends on any team. I had a Bulls team with MJ, Pippen, Wilt, Bird, Dr. J, and McHale among others I can’t remember since it has been so many years. But the point is that it was awesome to take legends and have them face off against the stars of 2000.
One of 2k’s big marketing points with 2k12 is to give everybody a chance to see how all the legends would fare against the stars of today. What better way than to be able to incorporate them into the regular gameplay? Most of the time when I do an Association or Playoffs I just draft a team to make it more interesting. Well with all of these legends I want to be able to be the Bulls, give myself the number one pick, take Jordan, and then maybe take Derrick Rose in the second round and so on and so forth. They could even make the game super smart so if you do this legend incorporation it will take a player like Mike Bibby who is on the Heat now and sucks, and simply throw him out of the roster in exchange for the better Bibby that is on the 02 Kings. I want to be able to put together my dream team of classic and current stars then go bust some skulls.
We don’t know what all the classic teams are yet but from that roster reveal we see a lot of Bulls teams and the 93 Hornets. Also I pre-ordered the game from Game Stop and it says on their website I’ll get to unlock the 91 Warriors and the 02 Kings for that. The thing with these classic teams is that they’re not unlocked to start the game, you have to complete parts of a special game mode to unlock them. That is most likely going to be a lot of fun and cause me to waste a lot of time I could be using to write papers or do reading for school. Part of what makes it exciting is the fact 2k won’t reveal every team and won’t tell us every change they’ve made to the game. If they do that change with The Association I’ll shit my pants.
Apparently My Player mode has changed up so you don’t start off rated like a 37 and playing shit games that mean nothing. You start out going right into the league, or at least that’s what I think I read about it. That’s pretty cool since I always hated My Player because it took so long to get into the NBA and then you sucked when you made it. They’ve also redone the teammate grading system in the mode so you don’t drop four letter grades if you accidentally hit X to call for a pass at a bad time. From what I’ve read there’s just a ton more stuff, like being able to make commercials and what not. I still probably won’t play it but for people who like that mode hopefully this is good news. Also the Creating a Legend mode, which in 2k11 involved taking a rookie Michael Jordan and putting him on a current team and playing through his career, has returned only now you can be a player on a current team and go through the rest of their career. That’s pretty nifty.
The bottom line is this: 2k12 is going to fucking rule. This legendary team mode is going to turn everybody’s brains into shit. I am so excited for it I briefly considered taking all of next week off so I can play it, even Monday despite the game not coming out until Tuesday. I’m trying to slam through the last few games of my season in Madden so I can be ready. Once that game drops everything we know is going to change. If they don’t put a classic Seattle Supersonics team there so I can demolish people with the Reignman I’m going to be furious and may consider getting rid of the game though.
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