How would you rate NBA 2K18?

[Andrew]

After a couple of months and all the patches so far, how would you rate NBA 2K18?

[Dee4Three]

Graphics: 3
Presentation: 5
Gameplay: 2
Depth: 7
Ethics: 1

Overall: 3.6

Generous of me, considering the user score is a 1.6 on Metacritic. That's right folks, a 1.6. While the reviewers scores are 8.0.... disconnect much?

[sticky-fingers]

What happened Andrew, all theses threads ?!

Graphics: 7
Presentation: 7
Gameplay: 8
Rosters: 3
UI : 7
Sounds : 5
Music : 0
Depth: 0
Ethics: 0


Graphics : not perfect, a little too dark but close ups are better than ever
Presentation : pretty good but too tv oriented, i prefear 2K10/11
Gameplay : best next gen gameplay
Rosters: incomplete classic/AT teams, all teams playbooks are fucked, lot of players tendencies are strange too
Menu/ui : better than 2K17
Sounds : not impressive, not immersive
Music : not my playlist
Depth : too depth, i just want a 5vs5 bball game
Ethics : pathetics

[Andrew]

I'd personally break it down like this:

Graphics: 7 (Still quite good in many respects, but there's also something off about the aesthetic, and it feels like a step back from last year.)
Offline: 6 (5v5 is a bit more enjoyable, MyCAREER not so much. Lots of AI issues, some broken mechanics with shooting and the new motion system, a surprising lack of balance and realism compared to last year.)
Online Gameplay: 1 (It's a cheesy, unbalanced mess. I can't believe they're launching an eLeague with this game.)
Physics: 2 (More clipping than ever, lots of skating. Player movement is responsive, but doesn't feel right at the same time.)
Animations: 8 (Still generally high quality, but there are some awkward ones this year, especially in the paint.)
Depth of Modes: 10 (Issues/bugs aside, they are still the deepest modes in basketball gaming. MyLEAGUE and MyGM are still deep and solid. MyCAREER is deep, though plagued by bad design choices.)
MyCAREER Story: 1 (Terrible. To say it's like bad fan fiction would be an insult to bad fan fiction.)
User Interface: 5 (Regular menus are fine and just as functional as last year, but The Neighborhood really messes things up and makes the experience cumbersome.)
Presentation: 8 (The TV-style presentation is well-produced, keeping the rotating commentators is a nice touch, and it's generally well done. Biggest knocks are a lack of branding, and unskippable moments that slow things down.)
Rosters: 4 (Love the extra content, but there's sloppiness with the placeholder players on the historical teams. Seems to be less care with ratings, tendencies, playbooks, etc.)
Fairness: 3 (Lots of cheap moments that feel canned. The Road to 99 is a huge grind that facilitates microtransactions. Speaking of which...)
Ethics: 1 (Only because I'm using a 1-10 scale, and I suppose they did make haircuts cheaper and t-shirts free...then just closed the kiosk. It's been bad. Really bad.)
Music: 7 (Generally neither here nor there for me. I like it well enough though, and there are some classic songs on there.)
Fun Factor: 3 (I have enjoyed the game at times, but there are way too many moments where I find myself thinking "this isn't fun". That wasn't the case with NBA 2K17.)

Overall: 4.7

That's an average of the above scores, but it's probably about what I'd give the game without breaking it down. Maybe I'd round it up to five, though. There are familiar aspects of the game that are still good, but it feels like some of the new tech wasn't ready, there are a lot of bad and puzzling design choices, and a complete lack of goodwill with the approach to VC this year. There are too many times when NBA 2K18 feels like a chore rather than being fun, and an unusual amount of sloppiness, especially compared to its immediate predecessor. I might amend my gameplay and fun factor grade after spending more time in 5v5 because I have focused a lot on MyCAREER/2K Pro-Am/The Playground so far (and there are a lot of issues there), but as it stands, I'm quite disappointed by NBA 2K18, and see it a significant step back from last year. That's the first time that's happened for 2K on this generation, and even going back to the previous generation, I've felt the game generally got better each year. Sadly, it's not the case this time.

What happened Andrew, all theses threads ?!

I've been wanting to get the ball rolling on some more general gameplay and game discussion, and had some free time yesterday to create a bunch of topics from my list of ideas.