Would you say NBA 2k25 is the best 2k ever?

[TheRocket]

Hi,
I have not bought the game, but I see people praising it and calling it amazing. I am still waiting for them to fix rotation but before I buy it, but would you say, for PC, that it is the best NBA 2k?

[Andrew]

I wouldn't, but that's not to say that it's terrible. It's too early to call it the best or the worst; we're still in the honeymoon phase where both positive and negative opinions are the strongest and most reactionary, and there are also some key bugs that need to be fixed (and it remains to be seen if they all will be). With that being said, my first impressions are generally positive, and I'm interested in continuing to play it, which is a huge step up from NBA 2K24 (both versions).

[Brisket]

They do this every year, the September and October versions of the game are ultimately the best versions of 2K before it gets the usual overcorrection patches around the time it goes on sale for discount in November and December.

[Lifecns]

Hi,
I have not bought the game, but I see people praising it and calling it amazing. I am still waiting for them to fix rotation but before I buy it, but would you say, for PC, that it is the best NBA 2k?

Nothing will ever beat 2K14. 2K16 was close, though. Regardless, this is the best 2K since 2K16, especially since the rotation bug was fixed this morning.

[sticky-fingers]

They do this every year, the September and October versions of the game are ultimately the best versions of 2K before it gets the usual overcorrection patches around the time it goes on sale for discount in November and December.

im not agree.
there's a 2K fatigue for a long time. Even since 2K15 or 16.

After few more times playing the game, i would say its solid release, specially on PC after few evolution since 2k18 and 24.

Playing mynba eras in the 90s, despite some inaccuracies, the gameplay is really good.
I play with the Rockets. playing with (H)Akeem on the post, the AI can double or not, depending the defender.
The rebounds, the new dribble system etc... its really a big step again on PC.

it's not a crush like 2K11 was for me, but its very enjoyable.

[Stildo33]

I keep trying to play this game. Its....bad. Player skate, don't move well, it feels cartoonish to me.

[Dee4Three]

I keep trying to play this game. Its....bad. Player skate, don't move well, it feels cartoonish to me.

While I think 2K25 is better than 2K24, I agree with these critiques.

I find that the skating/sliding, and the overall player movement, to be far behind many of the past 2Ks (2K19 and prior).

I am looking forward to a truly new motion system. When will that be? Who knows, maybe when we move onto a new gen of consoles.

Where would I rank this 2K all-time? I think its in contention for the best PS5 gen 2K (so between 2K21 and 2K25), but still, for me, behind 2K19, 2K17, 2K16, 2K14, 2K13, and some others.

The overall feel is so important. And the terrible foot planting, combined with all the suction, canned sequences, and janky/awkward player movement, make it often not feel good on the sticks for me.

[sevin0seven]

I also "keep" trying to play this game and "tried" to like it. Something feels off gameplay wise compared to other 2K games. To answer the OP question, the answer is no.

The only thing I would enjoy on this game is the modding part (and it's still early). We need another game developer to challenge 2K so they can step up their game in making this series.

[jlee33]

As someone who has been playing 2k since the first on dreamcast I would have to say this game has me pleasantly surprised, I would say it's the best it's ever been.

[snake212]

As someone who has been playing 2k since the first on dreamcast I would have to say this game has me pleasantly surprised, I would say it's the best it's ever been.

Agreed...this is the best 2k offline experience i have ever had with a 2k.....but like someone said, this game will be great for the first two months. Once the patch hits, everything changes, and we are all back to square one

[zz21]

I think I had such low expectations that I've just kind of enjoyed playing a basketball game for the first time in a couple years. Best 2k ever is still asking a lot out of this motion engine though. Still a lot of sliding and weird glitchy speed boosting.

Another thing that's taken away some enjoyment is the games heavy reliance on badges to trigger animations. Hall of Fame and legend badges take away a lot of the spontaneity of the game because you're pretty much guaranteed to get a favorable animation or result. Badges put you in almost too much control where as attributes past a certain point really can't compete and I don't really think that works in a 5 on 5 setting.

That being said, still enjoy it more than 22 which was the last one I put actual time in on, but maybe not as much as like 11-17.

[timmyd]

I think as in most conversations similar to this, this all depends on the end-user.

There are users on twitter who simply call this the worst NBA2k ever based on the shooting.

Having played NBA Live from 98... switching between NBA Live 2001 and NBA2k/NBA2k1... buying 2k every year and playing it daily (almost) and mainly offline. I think this is the best NBA2k experience that I have had in the last 9 years. NBA 2k14 on xbox one was the last time I felt truly in awe.

Last few years I've been an avid online franchise (online sim league) user on PS5 since 2k21 and also having old-gen 2k on PC to get the mods and retro seasons. This NBA2k is up there for me man.

I've been playing with the Mavericks and I truly feel like Luka when I am dribbling.. changing speed.. drawing fouls.

Albiet, I am not great at the game right now competitively online. I am enjoying it thus far and I am ready to say that this is the GOAT 2k for ME... in the last 10 years.

[gyozalee]

I'll keep it simple: I love it.

[mp3]

It's definitely one of my favourites, I'd say they have really made some good improvements in the right direction and after a few weeks of playing it iam not seeing pet hates more and more like in recent years so they do seem to of addressed alot of gameplay legacy issues.

I am playing on the ps4 tho and the only knock on 2k here as I've said before is the old player likenesses haven't been updated in most cases in 2 years plus there are so many courts out of date that I can see 2k has zero plans of updating while charging almost the same price as the as the ps5 version, i know its old gen and I get not pushing through in season updates but I think it's not to unreasonable to of expected that the courts at the very least were updated on the release date.

[towdow3]

this isn't one of my favorties bc i cant even play the game. CTD every boot after this patch. SUPER short player of the game highlight reel. there's this hornets bug where in eras the cheerleaders STILL use hornets colors eventhough its the bobcats they took away being able to hire scouts, skills coaches etc. not enough animations ie no park animations available. yes im salty i cant even run this game after this patch lol

[Uncle Drew]

I wouldn't say it's the best ever, because your computer has to have the resources to run it well. Everyone can't afford to put $1,000 or more into their system, just to get the game to run smoothly. I don't have a supercomputer, but it's more than the minimum requirements and I still get pauses and glitches now and then.

[vetmin]

It's the worst 2K I've played (i.e., out of 14, 16, 20, 21–24 old-gen, 25 new-gen). Player movement feels awful, it's a drag to mod, and (despite being the most high-tech 2K) it's super ugly in certain respects.

[tobay2k]

2K25 became one of my favorites in the franchise but to give it the ultimate crown is difficult cause of all the flaws and issues which are still present and inexcusable despite a lot of awesome improvements (especially for us PC gamers coming from all these years of being neglected and provided with the terrible last gen version which had a massive effect on my feelings towards 2K in general).

My first 2K was 2K9, the very first 2K on PC and I played and own every single one since then. Except some rare play now online games here and there I'm only playing offline and will mainly express my feelings about gameplay and presentation. The gameplay in general is pretty good and might be the best out of all 2Ks all in all indeed. ProPlay definitely elevated the game's animations and authenticity to another level this year and the variety of animations in general is the widest it's ever been which is a good thing. A whole lot of animations, especially jumpshots are photo realistic but definitely not all of them. I'll also never understand why 2K is not implementing ProPlay for more players from prior Eras if it's such a groundbreaking tech. They bascially explained it like they are now able to transfer player's moves from videos/footage directly into the game. And while some look absolutely spot on, others do not despite the player having new animations as well (not renamed and recycled ones from older 2Ks but actual new animations), even some mo-cap animations from older 2Ks look far more accurate which kind of makes me question how they promoted that tech, especially cause in the courtside reports and interviews where they talked about it, it sounded like they are now able to and will implement new animations which happenend during the current season with patches, which til to this day, 8 months after release, did not happen at all. If the technology is that ground breaking and "easy" to apply, why the heck didn't more (star) players from prior Eras got the same treatment as current players? I was extremely hyped about myNBA Eras and gotta say until I spent lots and lots of hours in the roster editor to fix player's animations/likenesses myself, the lack of authenticity in this mode is extremely underwhelming and I couldn't enjoy it without my efforts and mods at all, as u immediately notice that 2K didn't put any serious effort in it.

I gotta say the new dribble engine is a huge step up for sure and allows lots of awesome and realistic moves (combinations) and definitely makes the game a lot better but it still feels so weightless and the foot planting did not improve a whole lot at all unfortunately. I'm sure all OGs know that awesome lifelike feeling of weight from the basketball on 2K14, 15,16 and 17 and 2K never managed to bring that feel back since then, also not with 2K25. Them not implementing a proper vibration feature on PC despite it being there on the next gen consoles isn't contributing to it at all unfortunately. There's also definitely more clipping of the ball through players (hands) happening while doing moves than ever before which should absolutely be the other way around. My biggest complain about the gameplay though is breaking out of the triple threat I think. It has already been a huge bummer for me on the recent year's old gen versions as well and I was hoping a lot for improvements with 2K25 next gen but got disappointed once again. If you're not doing specific sizeup moves or jab steps to break out of it, the player mostly takes a weird dribble right in front of this feet which basically almost never happens in real NBA basketball although you want an explosive first step to the right or left which makes breaking out of the triple threat often look weird an feel unexplosive as a result.

Regarding the new rhythm shooting, although I was sceptical about it and started with normal button shooting at first, I gotta say it feels rly good after u got used to it but somehow is as inconsistent and almost RNG sometimes as the button shooting. A lot of times I'm 1000% sure I released the shot exactly at the same time as a green timed one the posation before but end up not greening it, feeling often like you're not getting rewarded for your practise and knowing the shot timings of players, almost as if the green window gets progressively smaller or slightly changes the more consecutive shots u green which then ends up in a lot of frustrating moments.

Not giving us an option to disable the huge annoying alley oop meter button is also a bummer, same as the lack of being able to decide if u wanna oop of the glass or not as alley oops of the glass are happening way too often in inappropriate moments compared to the rarity of them in real life Basketball.

Cutting out the broadcast camera from the practice/scrimmage and Blacktop mode makes no sense at all, it is a pain for broadcast cam lovers and is as inexcusable as having to live with the shitty ass rock songs/soundtrack in the background in these modes cause there's still no option to turn the music off. Would be such an easy fix but 2K just doesn't care about it.

Not being able to select a custom roster for the playoffs mode like all these recent years is annoying still as it is to still have the 3 point/dunk contest in the game at all in it's current state, both are simply that bad. 2K should rather cut them out completely instead of that inauthentic garbage cause it only emphasizes their not existend care for the all star weekend or finally put some kind of effort in to really improve it. I'll never understand why they' didn't improve it at all after all these years, it could be such a fun mode.

How the game plays and flows all in all and also the AI of the CPU in general is a HUGE step up from the last 2Ks though, that's for sure!

Despite watching all these graphics comparisons between the new and old gen versions of 2K21 and being "prepared" for a not even comparable jump regarding graphics like 2K14 current-next gen I gotta say I'm still disappointed about the graphics of 2K25 next gen in general. On top of that the performance of the PC port is a bad joke in relation to how it looks. How tf is turing down ONLY the shader setting from high to medium justified giving more than double the performance in cutscenes/replays while basically looking exactly the same? The only difference I notice is very slightly worse hair graphics but other than that turning down this setting also disables/completely locks the bloom and depth of fied options, which seperately disabled apart from the shaders does barely eat any fps. It doesn't make any sense to not giving us an option to have at least depth of field enabled with medium shaders as the game loses it's cinematic look in the cutscenes and replays with it disabled. My framerate literally jumps from drops into the 40s in cutscenes/replays with shaders on high to 100+ with min in the 90s with medium shaders but then we have to live with not having the depth of field effect that basically doesn't affect performance at all? Makes absolutely no sense, as does the bad performance during cutscenes/replays with shaders on high in general in relation to how the game looks. The game should be running a whole lot better during cinematics/replays fps-wise with max settings, the optimization of the game on PC is just not good at all. I was hoping for improvements here as well coming from all these years of the last gen version's 30fps hard capped half time show on PC which they never fixed over the years but sadly it's still the same inexcusable shit which just shows that 2K put no real effort in porting/optimizing the PC version. It's almost hurting the eyes if u play on 100+fps the whole time but then have to live with 30fps hard capped sequences and makes the half time show absolutely not enjoyable at all still, unfortunately. The option "Arena strobe flashes" (flashes from the cameras during replays) is bugged as well and causes a huge stutter on every rig which to this day after all patches that dropped still hasn't been fixed won't ever be.

Ridiculously the (playoffs) intros are just as bad as ever since they implemented them, cause on one hand not only are some players still shooting with the WRONG hand and having completely different jumpshots than usual, during these they also still have absolutely inappropriate players like Klay doing windmill/between the legs dunks which is completely unrealistic and immersion breaking and to put the cherry on top the net is now also glitched during the Intros. Just a bad joke after all these years, especially regarding to how BEAUTIFUL some moves and sequences can look in the replay editor if u set everything up yourself.

Another isssue/glitch with postgame player highlights that was already present in the old gen versions is still in the game sadly. A lot of times most highlights are cut out/not showing at all if u scored a whole lot of points with a player and want to watch them from the stats chart after the game. Like if u score 50+ with a player for example and u want to enjoy rewatching the player's plays and moves after the game through the player highlights it just shows far less plays than u actually scored/created. And as dope as the new highlight builder is, it's even worse over there cause it often shows highlights from a different player or none at all if u scored "too much".

While some assets like the net or stantions in general are graphically much improved and look a lot better, the game's default lighting is ridiculously lifeless and plain (especially compared to some older 2Ks) which can only be elevated to another level if you buy specific lighting mods.

This video from SoftdrinkTV perfectly details the graphical regression with 2K25 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OiG2eFuoIs&t=392s

I gotta say I've never ever spent that much cash on any game ever as for mods on 2K25 cause we don't have an alternative (to the game) anymore and there are some absolutely stellar paid mods out there which can overhaul the complete game in an amazing way and make it MUCH MUCH more enjoyable for me, uplifting it to a state which I hoped would at least be kind of similar to the vanilla version of 2K25 but it's not even close. To have a very similar lighting to 2K14 next gen back in the days with the work from Deibys2K in combination with the highest quality court bundles from SRT-Lebron + cyberfaces from the goats of the modding scene and even having adjusted way more realistic animation mods definitely is a game changer but comes at a ridiculous cost which is why I wanna say a few things regarding the modding scene development in the recent years but especially with 2K25 as well.

It's just sad to witness what has happened to the modding community recently man... Although there always have been a few paid mods here and there in the past and them becoming way more frequent with 2K23 and 24, since 2K25 dropped basically every highly talented modder (PPP, Monja, Doc, Psam, Lagoa, Shuajota, SRT-Lebron, Deibys2K etc) jumped on the bandwagon of not only being compensated for their work but charging mostly absolutely ridiculous prices for their mods which had been free in the past. I also personally talked to a few of them regarding the pricing and other stuff which is where I don't wanna get too much into detail but the justification I got from them of mods in general being "better than ever" makes the situation even worse compared to their mods for older 2Ks cause as someone who followed the whole modding scene development of 2K all the way through, I gotta say despite premium mods surely uplifting the default game by a whole lot, it's more like the other way around and cyberface mods especially regressed with 2K25 next gen (which is also due to some limitations of the game itself compared to older 2Ks). There's way more clipping happening in general, shoe positions can't be adjusted and due to body proportion adjustments often are in the wrong position, accessoires don't fit as (tightly as) they're suppposed to, LOD issues, face texture work was mostly better on 23/24 as well and different graphical glitches due to the new sceleton models used in 2K25 which the modders don't showcase or mention in the preview pics ofc and often don't even fix/update at all after mentioning it to them. There are still a few decent quality free mods out there but the difference of those compared to the premium ones behind a paywall is huge and obvious.

We all know how 2K in general regressed and went downhill over all these years after the introduction of VC and their greedy micro transactions cause they simply didn't focus on improving their core game anymore like they used to back in the old golden days of basketball gaming. It also affected/kind of split the communty in a way over time between offline and online users who fell victim to 2Ks strat spending lots of their money on VC and time in the goofy ass fortnite myplayer mode, which then over the years ultimately caused the downfall, regression and non-caring attitude of 2K about their core game cause they make their money via monetization either way. Now with 2K25 and 99% of premium mods being sold, it truly hurts to witness a sort of similar thing happening with the modding community. Is 8€+ a fair price for a cyberface that gets released with lots of issues and has to be updated 1-2 times to have the issues sorted or not even fixed at all? 60€+/more than the game itself cost for cfs of just ONE team, really? I myself, although I'm not a fan of paid mods don't mind paying a fair amount like 2 or 3€s here and there regularly for some mods of amazing quality but the prices which are charged since 2K25, especially for cfs, became absolutely atroicious and I almost feel ashamed about how much I've spent already. Apart from that, on older 2Ks if a modder updates a mod, the updated version was usually free if u bought the initial version already. Now they most of the time charge again for a slightly adjusted version of the same mod although you paid for it already before which is simple and plain greedy behavior and things like added custom accessoires aren't a valid excuse if the base mod is basically the same. Still though, people are buying the mods which means the modders will not adjust anything, why would they as long as their bags are filled?

For me personall it feels like the (premium) modding scene slowly but surely is becoming 2K themselves and I wouldn't be surprised if they sooner or later will implement a different currency (like VC) on Kofi to psychologically trick and manipulate the customers even more, not being able to see the prices in the real currency anymore at first hand. It already goes in a similar direction with them releasing 1 cf/mod for free (sometimes also here on the NLSC) which is of MUCH lower quality than the paid ones just to promote buying their higher quality paid work. I honestly also wouldn't be surprised if by the time 2K26 drops, we won't have any decent free mods anymore at all. Man, I gotta say my expectations for mods in general with 2K25 next gen on PC after all these years were different for sure...

I myself have a youtube channel dedicated to 2K and been fixing player's jumpshots/animations/likenesses since 2K9. You wouldn't believe how many hours of my lifetime I spent in only the roster editor, searching for animations (combinations) or even modding the games' animation file myself to elevate the games to another level on every single 2K to get the best out of the game. Within the first 4 months of 2K25 I already had more than 500 hours playtime on the game with most of them spent working on my personal rosters (for Eras especially) fixing player's animations and likenesses and as in the past always gladly shared my rosters for free publicly to make the game more enjoyable for all of us. A thought of selling my rosters/animation mods/work never even crossed my mind.

What bothers me even more regarding the paid mods development is, although I would rather not support these modders at all until they at least greatly adjust their prices, I still did like I already said but only because we have no alternative game or option than to play with either the default game or lower quality mods which mostly make the game rather worse than better in my personal opinion. In the end, for a change we just need a different game out there for 2K to step it up again and return to their roots but that, if so, would only happen if a competitor/alternative basketball simulation game except the childish Playgrounds or upcoming cheesy ass comic one gets developed which sadly doesn't seem to be happening anywhere in the near future at all.

The NLSC used to be the main forum for sharing knowledge and the fun of modding the game for all of us as a community, now the activity here as far as I am observing it is as low as ever cause most people went over to the discord where the paid mods are shared. I sincerely hope it will be like the old days sometime again in the future but maybe we just have to accept the sad truth that these days are over for good and capitalism is taking over our once beloved modding scene...