An Ironically Boring and Not-So-Brief History of Entertainment (part 2)

The original point I wanted to make when I began this post was to bemoan the lack of quality storytelling in a lot of the recent games I have played; while the mechanics and graphics have increased exponentially, I feel like the truly great stories that used to be told in days when they couldn't just rely on graphics and gameplay to push the narrative, are lost.  Which is a shame, because as I said before, video games have the potential to be the absolute pinnacle of entertainment.

Look at it this way: every form of storytelling that has come before was superseded by an advancement in the teller's ability to create an environment in which the listeners could immerse themselves.  Do you want to see a quick time line?  I think you do!!!  Keep in mind that I am not a legitimate historian and this may all just be a massive pile of triceratops droppings, through which you may or may not be willing to sift to find the (poison) berries.  Not a great reward for putting up with all of the shit, right?  So it's the perfect metaphor for my blog!

We'll start with the genesis of story-telling, which was - oddly enough - telling stories.  Simple, right?  This oral tradition was eventually overtaken by the written word after the invention of the printing press by an enterprising - albeit ex-communicated - German Johannes Gutenberg and his movable type, which for the first time allowed the masses to own books of their own.  It wasn't simply mass appeal that won the day for the written medium, though; it was the fact that reading allowed the hearer of the story to become the teller of the story as well, in their own minds.  Whereas they were previously tied to the vocal stylings of whatever itinerant storyteller happened to wander in and ply their trade, with a book they were able to use their imaginations to create every aspect of the tale - other than the actual events it detailed.

Books and the written word were eventually replaced though, with the advent of the Radio - which, from an actual story-telling standpoint was sort of a step backwards from my perspective.  What real difference was there between a radio broadcast and a story-teller sitting on a stool and doing his damnedest to earn an evenings meal?  Outside of the obvious commercial interruptions and the ability to reach a far greater audience, the differences were seemingly negligible.  But that wider audience, plus the added bonus that you no longer actually had to read, except when the oppressive, torture-happy Junior High School teachers demanded it, was enough to catapult the Radio into the upper echelon of the entertainment media pantheon.  But unlike it's predecessor's, its time on the throne was destined to be short-lived; not unlike the Baratheon-Lannister Dynasty.



Because flying into the scene with beating, leathery wings and fire bursting from it's gaping, razor-toothed maw came an invincible dragon bearing a silvery-haired goddess upon it's back to ascend the entertainment throne: television.  No longer was imagination even necessary for telling a story: every aspect of it could be controlled by those doing the telling, which meant that every one saw it the way that it was meant to be seen; and while the listeners were left to sit and discuss about the meaning and the intent of the story, no longer could there be any debate about concrete building blocks of the tale itself: what the main characters looked like, what their voices sounded like, and how they felt about the events which they were forced to endure.

Television then gave birth to a monstrous wyvern even more fearsome than its own legendary self, Film; and while occasionally - see the last 5 years or so of the television-al renaissance - the old beast launches into the air to remind us of how terrifyingly adept it can still be at devouring the attention spans of its entertained victims, Film still reigns supreme because of it's shorter time frame - allowing the viewers to experience the beginning and ending of the story in usually no more than 2 hours, every Peter Jackson epic notwithstanding - and it's monstrous budgets.  I should mention that I am perfectly aware that Film was invented before television, but after TV broadcasts became regular it dethroned Film for a few decades as King of the Reeled Mountain; and in the interests of simplicity (read: the titular laziness and semi-competence) I chose to ignore the historical timeline, so that I didn't have to write a gigantic exposition about how and why it occurred...instead simply trading it for a barely shorter one.  Hurrah!
   
Quick aside: it's interesting to me that the American Television Renaissance - which began with the Sopranos and 24, and hopefully hasn't ended with Mad Men and Breaking Bad (and my personal favorite, Justified, which is on its final season) - occurred not by trying to mimic film's ability to tell an entire story within a single time-frame but by embracing the differences between the two mediums and building longer, more complex stories in which the audience could drift like a crocodile in a Serengeti oasis.  Yes, that is an odd, mostly inapplicable simile; but I stand by it.  Because I like crocodiles.  Think about it: most of the great, influential, or popular TV shows from the 50's to the late 90's all had one thing in common: episodic narrative structure.  You knew going in that in this episode the hero would be faced with a problem, and he or she would figure it out by the end; sometimes it might take a second or third episode to reach a final resolution, but those were promotional stunt-aberrations which varied outside the comforting, pillowy norm.

But within the last fifteen years, television studios in the U.S. finally realized what most of their British and Japanese-Cartoon counterparts already knew: that audiences preferred seeing a single, complete story-line with a definitive beginning and ending, over watching the same group of people endlessly repeat similar shenanigans over the course of a decade or so before finally petering out into a charade of its younger self.  I think the hesitation to adopt the currently successful narrative style of season long story-telling was due mostly to the fear that it would be impossible to catch the interest of new viewers, who might be stumbling into the events in the middle of the season -and thus the story (although it should be noted that, from a strictly story-telling standpoint, that is often the most interesting place to start, in media res, which is one of the thousands of reasons why the original Star Wars trilogy was more entertaining than its abominable prequel trilogy); but the advent of digital medium, Netflix, Hulu, DVD's and - if we're all being honest with ourselves - digital piracy at one time or another, allows us to catch up at any time.


And if I could be permitted an aside to my honestly slightly-too-long original aside, is there anything worse than the corporate machine latching onto a term we sort of used sarcastically amongst ourselves and acting like they were in on the joke?  Like they did with "binge-watch."  It makes you feel like one of the first fans of a band that started out in relative obscurity - like, say Kings of Leon during their first three albums - only to look at all of their new fans with a sort of prideful disdain, as if they could never truly appreciate them the way that you currently do and thus they are inferior to you.  I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it happens.  (That's a great documentary and a very useful study into the decision making processes of most of the music industry, aside from unintentionally being an interesting commentary on just the sort of arrogant group-think I just mentioned).  Basically what I'm saying is, I hate seeing every network advertise it's new season of a show by saying anything like, "Time to binge!"  Shut up, marketing majors; and stop stealing our inside jokes.

Which brings me to my main point: the next step in the evolution of the story-telling industry would be a medium which allows the viewer to experience the events in the same manner as in television or film - a masterful concoction of visual and auditory narrative - while actually being able to control and determine the direction of the narrative.  What is that, if not video games?

Why then are they still the socially-awkward-cousin-who-keeps-audibly-slurping-the-excess-spit-from-the-back-of-his-retainer-back-down-his-throat-when-you're-trying-to-make-a-move-on-the-hot-girl-at-the-junior-high-rec-center-dance of the entertainment family (my god, am I abusing hyphens);  the Rodney Dangerfield of storytelling mediums (I don't really have to say it, do I?  If you don't know what I mean, just Google his name, I guarantee you'll figure it out in under ten seconds)?

I think the largest reason is that they are still relatively new, and the technology has only recently reached a state which allows them to be a visually immersive experience for the players.  I mean, the Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is one of the best games ever made, but no one was looking at those 16-bit sprites and saying: "Wow, Link looks just like a real person!"  Compare that to now, when the cut-scenes from most new-gen games look almost as real as an actual film of fully developed human beings.  But that is going to change within the next decade, as you'll see more and more games with high profile actors and story-tellers involved in the development process.  What might not ever change though, and is the biggest reason that video games are relegated to the kiddy-table, is that they just don't have the budget to compete with the major motion picture and television studios for the hiring of talent; and they might not ever have it.  Think about it: why would Steven Spielberg waste years helping to develop a video game that's going to pay him 1/10th what he could make shooting a movie in three months?  Sure, there have been a few exceptions; but they are just that: exceptions.  For the most part, the A-list names of Hollywood have been reluctant to tie themselves to a video game, and when they do you most certainly do not see them hitting the talk show circuit to promote their new game, like they would if it were a film or TV show.

Bow before...this thing.

That's the nature of the business, and I've resigned myself to it; but one thing which I refuse to accept, and which I'm sure is a determining factor in  causing the major entertainment outlets to withhold their support from the development of video games, is the fact that - for the most part - most of the stories they are telling these days just aren't that compelling.  My prime example of this is Dragon Age: Inquisition which received rave reviews from all of the critical outlets, for both its gameplay (deservedly) and storytelling (...less deservedly so). No, you know what?  I'm not even going to try to be polite about it: that story was disappointingly narrow in its scope and short-sighted in its execution.  If it hadn't been for the developers adding level requirements to complete the quests that made up the main story arc, it would have taken me about two hours to complete the entire thing.  There is little to no creativity in any of it; they even recycle the villain from the previous game.  "Oh, it turns out that Corypheus wasn't killed!"  Really?  Cause what it looks like is you decided to reuse a lame enemy who had little to no involvement in the previous game in an attempt to make it look like you had been trying to tell a single, connected narrative the entire time."

What's truly disappointing was that, for a while, the gameplay was great, and exploring the first unlockable area of the world into which you are dropped truly was entertaining, but at a certain point you remember that all quests in a Bioware game devolve into a very simple formula: go to a specific point on the map, maybe solve a tiny, piddling little puzzle, kill something, and watch a cut-scene (if its a Main quest) or just get an informational pop-up (for the side quests).  There were multiple, expansive areas of differing terrains, but ultimately what you were asked to do in each of them was exactly the same - only the backdrop had changed.  But to be honest, I would have been able to overlook all of that if the story had been as well-crafted as any of the Mass Effect games, or even Link to the Past - which may have been simple in it's overall narrative, but everything you did had a purpose and a direct impact on the rest of the story.  The only real impact that you can have in the course of Inquisition is to decide on the aesthetics of the Skyhold fortress into which you eventually move, and whether or not you want Templars or Mages walking around inside of it.  Within the context of the story, you really have almost no ability to determine the outcome.  You just go to an area, fight some sword-fodder, watch a cut-scene with Corypheus, fight a boss, and watch another cut-scene.  I was so disappointed in the story that I will probably never play the game again.

Contrast that to the story of a game like Final Fantasy VII, which is the sole reason I continue to play the game again and again.  Sure, the graphics are outdated, you have to read every bit of dialogue because they didn't have voice-actors (which, given the terrible history JRPG's have with them, might be notch under the 'W' column), and the grinding, repetitive nature of the combat itself - not to mention the perpetual annoyance that was the thankfully-long-dead random enemy encounter - I still happily suffer through all of it, because I enjoy engulfing myself in the narrative of Cloud Strife and his quest of revenge/biological determination/personal discovery.  Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross  are equally superlative in their ability to tell an engaging, thought provoking narrative which overwhelms their by-modern-standards-admittedly-deficient gameplay.

You won't be believe this, but I have an opinion/theory on what I consider to be the dearth of adequate storytelling in the current video game industry.  It's the open-world, sandbox structure.  So much time is spent developing an expansive, diverse, and interactive world that the story - the very reason for which you ventured into the sandbox in the first place - becomes secondary.  See, in allowing the player to roam wherever they would like within the world, most developers use the Quest structure to tell the stories, be they the Main story or side stories.  These quests must start in a specific spot and end in a specific spot, and they generally last no more than thirty minutes.  They also can't be allowed to impact the larger world structure very much, since it would require so many simultaneous changes to the coding of the game itself as to be basically unfeasible.  Thus it becomes very easy to lose sight of the narrative and drown the player in endless fetch quests, and purposeless battles.  A prime example of this is Saints Row IV: Re-elected, which fronts itself as a satire of the Action-RPG game and narrative structure - even directly commenting on the repetitive nature of most sandbox game side quests - and for the most part succeeds; but even the development team at Volition was caught in the very trap which they were trying to mock: every single "side-quest" devolves into a character telling you to go to some new race-point, or havoc-marker, or enter another rift.  After realizing that you aren't actually involved in a real story with the side quests, merely completing repetitive, seemingly-random chaotic events throughout the city with no real purpose or meaning, I lost most of my interest in completing them - until of course the game glitched and deleted all of the outfits and clothing that I had spent all of my cache purchasing, and I discovered that I would need more subsequent cache to replace them all.  Then it happened again, until now: I pretty much only buy certain items at once and then save them as a custom outfit; everything else gets randomly deleted for no goddamn reason.



Which is not to say that games which follow the Quest-based narrative structure can't be compelling: my favorite game ever is still the Witcher 2, which strictly adheres to it, and the Bioware game Jade Empire has one of the best stories I've encountered - including a masterfully crafted twist on par with the ending of the Usual Suspects.  Although neither game takes place in a true, completely open world: you start in one enclosed region and move on to the next.  Sometimes you are able to travel back to previous areas for more exploration - using the Dragonfly in Jade Empire - occasionally it turns out to never really be necessarry - but others, as in the case of the Witcher 2 you are confined to the current region until the story there has run its course.  But you know what?  I'll take a limited ability to roam between regions over a lazily constructed narrative.

And that's why Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments was my favorite game so far on the Xbox One - again, so far; because, while the gameplay itself was restrictive and devoid of the freedom which a sandbox game generally affords, it allowed the narratives to be presented in an engagingly precise manner.  Which meant, incidentally, that while you might not always have a wide array of choices before you, every one of the choices which you made had a definite purpose and a direct impact on the narrative; and isn't that what we're all looking for in a good story-telling?

An Ironically Boring and Not-So-Brief History of Entertainment (part 1)

     I don't consider myself to be a "gamer."  This might seem ridiculous, based on the number of hours I've spent playing just the NBA 2K franchise games - as evidenced by the 6 posts I've done in as many weeks about their last 2 iterations - but it happens to to be true nonetheless.  I've spent a figurative ton of literal money on games and consoles, from Battletoads and the original Gameboy to the Xbox one and NBA 2K14-15, and I've sunk about as many hours into them as successful people generally do into their careers; so I can see why some people might consider me to be a "gamer."  I'm not though - and not just because I hate the word, and am embarrassed for humanity as a species that it exists (though not nearly as much as I am for "teenagers."  That right there is a pile of linguistic vomit).  What I actually am, is a storyteller, and someone who is fascinated with and fully appreciates a story that is masterfully crafted and expertly told; so I am understandably fascinated by video games' ability to insert the listener directly into, and in many cases even completely control, the action.  It would be disingenuous of me, however, to say that I don't also enjoy playing the games, for the sake of the games themselves; although even with something as seemingly inane and story-less as the original, Super Nintendo Super Mario-Kart, I found myself crafting a sort of tale around my favorite racer, and doing my own internal commentary on every turn of the race,  So before we continue, just for fun (mine, not yours), I'm going to list every single game console that I've ever owned, along with both the game that I spent the most time playing, and the game that I think I would consider my favorite of the era - and they won't always be the same game.  I'm just letting you know up front.  The point of this brief - but space consuming - exercise, is to illustrate...well, nothing, really; I just thought it would be fun to think about.  I think you'll agree with me, since you are most likely nothing more than a figment of my narcissistic imagination - seriously, who else would waste their time reading, let alone writing all of this?

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

This is basically the only system where my favorite game is also the game that I spent the most time playing, which is largely due to the fact that I never actually owned an NES.  My aunt and uncle had one, and whenever we went up to Detroit - which wasn't often, mind you - we'd play some of the games.  We'd watch him try to beat Contra, and then we'd play Excitebike.  I loved that game; I was terrible at it, but it was awesome.  I'd make the sound of your bike endlessly tumbling over your person my ringtone, if I didn't prefer the theme song to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  The only NES game that my family has ever owned was a copy of the impossibly difficult Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, renowned even today for its relative impossibility - much of it due not to intelligent game design, but rather to designs of an exactly opposite nature - but we never made it past the electrical gates underneath the dam.  That's the second level, for anyone that's interested.  Though to be fair, as I said before we didn't actually own an NES, so maybe that and the fact that I was only 6 at the time had something to do with those failures.  My mother owned a pizza restaurant/video rental store (brilliant idea by the way, right?  What do you want most when you're watching a movie?  If you said anything other than pizza, you're a liar), which had a couple of NES's available for rent; on the weekends when one of them went un-rented, sometimes she would bring it home for the night for us to use; and my grandfather then bought us a copy of the Ninja Turtles game, but only brought it over when he came down from Washington for a visit.  Not a whole lot of time spent with either game, but there was still some time spent with them, so I'm counting it on my list.  Why?  Because it's my list, and you can't stop me.

Nintendo Game Boy

 I believe this was the first game system that my family actually owned.  It may or may not have been my older brother's, I don't really remember who actually owned it.  I just remember spending a hell of a lot of time trying to get past the third level of the insanely difficult Battletoads, and succeeding only at watching my amphibious heroes repeatedly die gruesome, explosive deaths.  But that's not my favorite game; because if I had a Gameboy right now, there's only one game that I would want to play on that green and dark-brown screen:

Check out that tag-line; priceless!

Super Nintendo

This is the first system that I know for a fact that I owned...about half of.  My older brother and I saved up money for almost a year to buy the Super Nintendo in 1992...or 1993  Actually, I don't remember the exact year.  Give me break, I was in either third, fourth, or fifth grade.  I can pinpoint that much only because I know that we bought it while my family was living in Portland, which occurred during the three years I mentioned.  My favorite game at the time was almost certainly WWF Royal Rumble, which I played relentlessly.  However, over the number of years that we owned the Super Nintendo the game which I undoubtedly spent the most time with was the original Super Mario Kart; it remains the only iteration of the franchise that I have ever played.  But without a doubt, the best game on the entire console - and one of my absolute favorite games ever - was the legendary Chrono Trigger.  I never actually played the game until about a decade later, and never beat it until about five years after that, and even then on an SNES emulator which I had downloaded to my less-than-stellar computer.  But a victory is still a victory, and I'll take as many of them as I can get, even the meaningless ones.

Turbo Grafyx 16

Here was the first console which I owned completely by myself, also purchased and used almost exclusively while living in Portland, Oregon.  I don't remember what happened to it, it's possible that we sold it in order to help pay for the Super Nintendo, which makes sense because I really only remember playing it in the basement of the rented red house on SW Mollalla Court.  I don't recall personally playing any game longer than any of the others, although I remember denting the freezer on which the TV sat by bludgeoning it with my elementary-school-sized feet, while playing a Japanese baseball game - the name of which has been lost in the leaky banks of my memory.  I also remember playing a ridiculously pathetic fighting game called Pit Fighter a lot, and making very little progress even though there were really only three attack buttons: punch, kick, and throw.  But I mean, come on, the best game on the system is still one of the best platformers ever: Bonk's Adventure.  If you have never played this version of the game, and I'll give dollars to donuts that you haven't (actually, scratch that: I'm going to keep my dollars for myself and use them on donuts), then I slightly pity you.
 

Sony Playstation (PSX)

This is the console about which I tend to feel the most nostalgic; it was purchased with the lifeblood of our Super Nintendo console and games, and was totally worth it.  I know that most game critics feel that the graphics don't hold up very well, but screw that.  The games were fun, there were something like 50 different Street Fighter games from which to choose, and I distinctly remember spending a majority of my free hours after being released from the juvenile prisons in which I was forced to spend most of my day (also known as Apollo Junior High and L.V. Berkner High School) tearing through as many of the fantastic PSX games as possible.  The game I spent the most time with, by far, was the PSX exclusive Street Fighter EX: plus Alpha.

 Capcom included one of the most interesting game formats I've ever seen in a fighting game, and which I've never seen repeated.  It was your standard team battle, where you choose 5 characters to fight against your opponent's 5 characters...but it had a function that allowed you to keep the characters secret as you were selecting them.  Then, say hypothetically, you decided to choose the random character selector, while also keeping the choices secret, not even you would know what characters you had, or your opponent had, until each specific one took its turn.  It was a gigantic crap-shoot every time, and it was a pretty awesome versus mode.  Extremely underrated game, and my older brother and I spent a figurative eternity battling one another, but it wasn't my favorite.  An honorable mention has to go to the original Bushido Blade as well, one of the most inventive fighting games I've ever played, but my favorite game at the time was, without a doubt, Final Fantasy 7. 

Just look at the box art; it tells you everything that you really need to know about the game, without actually telling you anything at all.  It's got a dude that probably looks cool, but you can't really tell because of his gigantic f****ng sword, which he's about the pull off of his back, presumably to assault the shadowy tower/building/thing.  I'm hooked already, that's all I needed to see to want to play this game; and despite how it may appear based on the nature of this post, my single biggest defense against labeling myself as a gamer is the fact that, out of the 14 that exist, Final Fantasy 7 remains the only title in the series that I have ever played for longer than an hour, and I've completed it about 5 times.  I love this game.

...And yet, within the last 4 months, it has taken a back-seat in my pantheon of PSX games, I think, to one which I recently managed to finally complete after ten years, four copies of the game, and 6 PSX and PS2 consoles: Chrono Cross. If you don't remember the game, I don't blame you: it was the relatively unheralded sequel to Chrono Trigger, released far too long after the original to capitalize on any sort of momentum.  To make it (seemingly) worse, you don't even get to play as, or really even see, the titular Chrono. Instead, you play as Serge, swapping between alternate realities in a quest of vengeance, heroism, understanding, and all the sorts of things you really want out of an RPG.  Here's what makes it great: it has one of the most complex, interesting stories you'll ever find in a game, without being confusing; it seems at the beginning that they were building a game that was totally different from the original game, and they had the license so they decided to just slap on the Chrono name in an attempt to create a franchise, but by the end they tie everything up rather well. There are a few unanswered questions - which is great, because it means you spend a lot of time after playing the game thinking about it afterwards - and one or two minor inconsistencies with the original story, like a character's hair color.  But the single most phenomenal aspect of Chrono Cross which makes it possibly my favorite PSX game ever - and one of my top 5 RPGs of any era or generation, is the unmatched awesomeness of the soundtrack.  The composer of the also-wonderful Chrono Trigger's soundtrack, Yasunori Mistuda, returns for the sequel, but with a full orchestra, rather than on a midi device.  Truly just phenomenally great music: I still listen to one of the songs on repeat when I try - and for the most part fail - to fall asleep.

Atari Jaguar

This one I purchased new at an Electronics Boutique, I think it was, for something like $20.  It was old, almost no developers had ever bothered even trying to put up with the weak engine and terrible hardware, so there were few enough games available; and the ones which you could find were, for the most part, vastly inferior to its competitors.  None of this mattered, though, because there was only 1 game which I wanted, and it was legendarily good:

Alien Vs. Predator; my white whale.

I had an old copy of Gamepro magazine which claimed that this might be the best FPS they had ever played, and I spent years trying to find a copy.  Unfortunately, I never did, because Amazon.com either hadn't been invented yet or I just didn't know about it.  I have yet to play a single second of this game, but it somehow remains my favorite game on this obscure console and I have no doubt that at some point in the near future I'm going to pick it up somewhere and realize just how stupid I've been for treating it like a digitized version of a gigantic, albino sperm whale with a taste for Nantucket limbs.

The only game I've ever played on the gigantic mess of a controller that comes with the Atari Jaguar, is the game that was in the box when I bought it: Cybermorph.  I have no idea what the game is about, or even what the point is; all I know is that I spent many hours flying around in a ship shooting at - and generally failing to hit - other flying objects, and occasionally a big green face would pop up in the middle of the screen and jabber incoherently at me.  So, basically, the best game ever made.  If you can explain what the hell was going on, or even what the title means in relation to the game itself, then sir or madam, you are a better man or woman than am I...though it shouldn't take much to be a better woman than me.  A proper set of female genitalia should have me beat.

Sony Playstation 2

If you were to look purely at the number of consoles which I've owned, you would probably assume that this was my favorite: I have owned 4 Playstation 2's: 1) The Original shipment, the day that it came out.  I was super excited about the DVD playing ability, even though I didn't own a single DVD, because not even my parents had a DVD player yet; aside from that, I didn't even have a single PS2 game to play on it.  The backwards compatibility more than made up for it, though.  2) My original version of the console was stolen, along with my older brother's Dreamcast and our copy of MTV Music Generator 2 (don't let the name fool you: that game was incredible), so I had to save up another summer's worth of money to replace it.  One year later, that one got stolen, but this time along with all of my family's DVD's and electronics and stuff.  3) About a decade later, I finally purchased another PS2 for one, singular purpose: to finally beat Chrono Cross.  Guess what didn't happen?  I never beat it on that console.  You know what did?  It got stolen again!  Seriously, I'm not making this up.  I moved away, left it at my parent's house for "safe" keeping, and it was never to be seen again.  4) Just about 6 months ago, I bought my current copy of the PS2; and it was on this one which I finally defeated what I have already suggested may be my favorite PSX RPG ever.

The game which I played most often on the PS2 was probably still Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha; but I'm not counting that one here.  The PS2 game with which I spent the most time was also, coincidentally, the first PS2 game I ever owned.  Well, technically it was a gift to the entire family from my Aunt in Portland (Beaverton, actually, but only people from the area know where that is, so I'm sticking with Portland), and it remains one of 3 games I've ever seen my father walk into the room and demand to play: SSX.  (The other two games were Sim City, which by the way he absolutely crushed.  I could never manage to build a city that worked properly; he sat down and in two hours had a metropolis that ran better and more smoothly than any city had any right to do.  City Planning lost a valuable devotee when he decided to be a lawyer, I tell you what.  The only other game was Ken Griffey Jr. Major League Baseball - another great game in its own right).



My favorite of the SSX games, though I acknowledge the gameplay-superiority of SSX-3, was actually the 4th installment which apparently lost a large portion of the fan base because they dumped the musical stylings of Razzell for a slew of MTV picked indie-rockers: SSX On Tour.  But you know what?  I discovered 3 of my ten favorite bands off of this game's soundtrack, and with Chrono Cross remains the only Soundtrack to which I listen on an almost daily basis.  So I call that a win.

But even that probably isn't my favorite game from the PS2 era.  To be honest, it's barely even a contest.  My favorite PS2 game also doubles as my pick for the best basketball game ever made: NBA Street Vol. 2.  You might think that, given the modern basketnall games and my obvious addiction to them despite how much they aggravate me, I would have selected a 2KSports NBA 2k simulation.  To be sure, from about 2010 to 2012 I probably would have picked 2K11 as the best basketball simulation, but I have since learned a valuable truth: there are far too many variables to ever make an accurate basketball simulation, so why bother trying?  The one basketball game which I never fail to love is EA Big's physically impossible, ridiculously entertaining, and wonderfully eccentric street-ball farce.








Interlude

It is here that a little bit more chronology is probably helpful in properly expressing my history with video games.  I stopped playing games of any kind from 2003 - 2007.  I remember being in a grocery store up in Vancouver, called, hilariously, The Real Canadian Superstore - like there's a fake one out there somewhere, masquerading as the genuine superstore; and the owners of the real article wanted to make sure that it's customers knew from which of the twain they were purchasing their foodstuffs - and while developing some photos at the stand in the electronics sections, I saw a twenty-something dude in the video game section pointing out a game to his wife, I don't know which one, and speaking animatedly about how much he wanted it; I assume for a Christmas present, since it was near that time of year.  Whatever the case, it reminded me of a 5-year old trying to convince his mother to buy one of the fancy, name-brand cereals with the sugar-coated, chocolate frosting and the fancy toy inside, rather than the general Malt-O-Meal schlock to which he was generally subjected (and if you think that example isn't autobiographical, you are very much mistaken), and it left a sour taste in my mouth.  I decided then that, while it had been nearly a year since I had played a game anyway, I was done with video games for good.  (It wasn't actually until after this sabbatical that I played SSX On Tour).  But then, one day, one of my roommates bought a used copy of a certain Action RPG, and then...

Microsoft Xbox

I had played Halo with some friends when it was new, but it never really grabbed my attention; and soon thereafter I gave up video games anyway.  I recall staying up all night playing the 8-way Slayer mode at a friend's the night before he moved away, only to drive home, sleep exactly 20 minutes, and then drive to the Oil Depot in Allen (Texas) and working the longest 10-hour shift of my life.  But that was simply a one-night detour from my plan to quit games cold-turkey.

It was the very first Fable that dragged me back in.  It was absolutely the best game that I had ever played at the time, and I mortgaged almost an entire month of my life pouring over it obsessively.  And while its sequels may have had better gameplay (Fable II), or a more interesting story (Fable III), neither one of them were as fully-realized in all aspects of gameplay as the original.  This would probably be my favorite game on the Xbox, if not for...



...Travis Pastrana's MTX Mototrax, which, despite the advanced graphics engines and development capabilities offered by the newer generations of gaming consoles, remains the best and most realistic motocross simulation ever made.  I've played MX vs. ATV, Dirt, Mud, and just about every other attempt, and none of them felt as much like riding an actual dirt bike does as Mototrax.  Sure, the graphics are a huge step down, but if you want to rail a berm and slide the back end out through the turn - kicking up a gigantic pillar of roost as you go - then you can't do any better.  I'm not sure if I like it better than Fable, but it's close enough to where I would never want to have to pick between the two...but given that both Fable II and III are both nearly as good as the original, whereas no other motocross game has ever even come close to being as consistently entertaining as Mototrax, I might end up taking MTX.  I'm just saying.

Microsoft Xbox 360

I didn't buy one of these until 2010, well into the console's life cycle, but it was definitely a worthwhile purchase, if for no other reason than the many hours on it which I've spent watching my numerous DVD's.  I bought it mostly to play to NBA 2K10, Fable II and Batman: Arkham City, but none of those games makes the list as either my favorite of the generation, or the one on which I wasted the most of my time.  The latter of those esteemed superlatives goes to either my favorite game of the entire NBA 2K series, 2K11 - due solely to the fact that it allowed you to play a career mode as Michael Jordan, and as a person who spent his entire youth wearing one of 3 consecutively-owned Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls jersey's (seriously, between the ages of 9 and 13 you won't find a single photo of me without one of them rotting away on my person), I was sold the minute I saw the cover - or possibly Soul Calibur 5.  I had to open 3 seperate accounts on my 360 just to accomodate the character creation models I was churning out; I wouldn't have even bothered with the gameplay anymore if it wasn't for the fact that you have to play through it in order to unlock more items for customizing your characters.  I never quite understood that: why put a limit on the number of files you can use on one account, when there was so much open space on my hard drive?  Why not allow you to create as many as your hard drive allows, rather than tie the characters to the game-data?

But without a doubt my favorite game I ever played on the Xbox 360 - and, to be honest, my favorite game I've ever played on any console - is the Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.  I knew nothing about the game when I bought it, only that it had won Game Informer's pick for the best game of the previous year, and there was a used copy of the enhanced edition available for $20.  I now own every copy of the novels from which the games were drawn that have been translated into English, and am eagerly awaiting more.  But not quite as much as I'm anticipating The Witcher 3: the Wild Hunt.  If CD Project Red can deliver on even half of what I've heard and seen of the game thus far, it will easily replace it's predecessor as my favorite game ever; but I'll explain why in part 2 of this post - which is actually the whole purpose of writing all of this in the first place.

Microsoft Xbox One

This was purchased with my 2013 tax returns, specifically for NBA 2K14; again, if you have read any of its interminable review, you have some idea of how that turned out.  Ironically enough, though, it remains the game into which I have poured more of my time than any of the others, and despite it's improvements I highly doubt 2K15 will surpass it in that regard.  It is most certainly not my favorite current-gen game, though.  That distinguished achievement goes not to the slew of other great games I've already played on the console - Saints Row 4, UFC, Dead or Alive 5: Last Round, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition, or even Dragon Age Inquisition.  Instead the honor goes to a game which is admittedly more limited in it's game-play and even worse in it's replay-ability (especially if, like me, you get everything right the first time); yet the narrative(s) in which I was able to immerse myself make it the most enjoyable experience I've yet had on Microsoft's current-gen console.

What game is this of which I speak/write?  Why, none other than Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments.  I have read every single one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about the fictional-yet-still-legendary consulting detective, and from my understanding of the character I can say with no small certainty that Maximum Games/Frogwares absolutely nailed the tone, writing style, and even the nature of the crimes themselves.  True, 2 of the 5 crimes which you are asked to solve are ripped directly from the books - although there are ancillary pieces added to the cases to add some measure of uncertainty - but if you approach the other 3 with the same mindset with which Holmes himself claims to approach every case ("when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" and "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts"), you will be able to solve them in a very satisfying manner.  The only possible variation in a replay, then, would be the decision of what to do with the guilty party once they have been discovered, but even then I feel like I made the decisions best suited to each individual case - which do not, and in staying true to Doyle's literary style should not always end happily - so even though I tried replaying through it recently, I found it difficult to maintain interest for long.

Why then should such a game make the top of the Xbox One list (although I'm pretty sure it won't occupy that spot for any longer than it takes for me to pick up a copy of the Witcher 3)?  That's going to be the main topic of the second half of this post, so stay tuned.  (Yeah right.)

Cursory NBA 2K15 Review

I just completed my first season in the 2K15 My Career mode, and after keeping copious notes while playing the games, here is my (probably not final) grade.

6.5/10

Improvement!  Not a massive one, but it's still something.  I actually feel like I wanted to give it a better grade, because I enjoyed it a lot, but after sitting down and comparing my 2K15 notes to the notes I kept over the year and a half of playing through 2K14, I realized that there were not nearly as many improvements made as perhaps initially appeared.

 I looked at it like this: I gave 2K14 a 5/10, for which there were a million reasons (seriously, have you read my 5 posts about them?), but if I were to pinpoint the two things that irritated me the most it would have to have been the ridiculously impotent passing engine and your inept teammate A.I matrices.  Again, I assume that they use matrices; but it could just be an abacus - and based purely on performance, it probably is.  For 2K15, they tweaked those mathematical formulas on the offensive and defensive ends, leading to massive improvements in the overall game-play.  

So why not give it a higher score? 

Because those improvements, significant as they are, don't solve enough of the problems that still perennially plague the programming.  [Beat] That was probably too much superfluous alliteration.  Anyway, my point is that while much of the offense has been fixed, insofar as your teammates abilities to play like actual professional basketball players is concerned - rather than the 3rd grade city-league All-Star backups like which they played in 2K14 - the passing engine is still the sort of nonsense up with which we should not be forced to put!  (Big shout out to the long-dead Sir Winston Churchill on that odd but ultimately grammatically superior phrasing).  Seriously, the passing is just about the worst I've ever encountered in a basketball game.  I've already enumerated the myriad ways in which it infuriates me, so I'll simply say this: I should never have to scream at my television that if I, as a low-level pickup-ball player, could easily have made a certain pass which ended up as a turnover in the game, then certainly an NBA player could be expected to be able to make the same pass.  2KSports, as it turns out, does not agree with me on that score.

Let's hit the rest of it as quickly as possible.

Movement and Animations

• The overall movement has improved slightly, but not significantly.  It's still nearly impossible to change directions, and given the number of times you'll be put out of position defensively simply by trying to actually maintain  correct positioning, that remains a huge issue.  
• There is still a hilariously persistent input lag on when trying for a steal, on block attempts, and jumping for rebounds.
• You still lunge in the wrong direction more often than not when attempting a steal.
• They finally added actual foul animations, which is great; because now you no longer have to make the Tim Duncan foul face every time you're whistled for a foul: you can actually see it occur, and there really is no ground for reasonable argument upon the matter.  Then again, there rarely is in an actual NBA game either, but that doesn't stop them from trying.
• My athleticism stats are nearly maxed, and I still can't outrun slow-moving centers like Marc Gasol in transition.  

Offensive A.I problems

• The alley-oops still suck, and the angles are almost always wrong.  For some reason, and I'm thinking that the reason is because the developers at 2KSports have never actually watched an NBA game, it is basically impossible to throw an oop pass to any player unless you're both running in transition.  Never mind that certain players have made their careers off of catching - and subsequently finishing - such plays in the set, half-court offense.  Sometimes the pass will get stolen, sometimes it will go sailing through your teammate's hands as he tries to finish the wide-open dunk, and most often the big man will simply stop cutting to the basket altogether, as he instead watches the orange-leather ball sail through the air while contemplating the mysteries of theoretical astro-physics.  Again, that's just a theory, but at least I've got one.  
• But the best part about the anemic alley-oop?  Every single one of these problems has existed for multiple generations of the NBA 2K series.  I actually have a real theory for why they never bother to fix the issues - aside from the obvious, but ultimately non-constructive reason of your regular, every-day money-grubbery.  I think they realize that if they made the alley-oop passes and catches realistically accurate, it would expose how weak the defensive coding actually is, allowing players to basically just run from one alley-oop to another.  (Which, by the way, would be just about the best thing ever.  Did you ever play NBA Street Volumes 1 or 2?  Still the most consistently fun basketball games ever made.  Volumes 3 and 4?  Sucked as much as the New York Knicks' 2014-2015 season.  So I guess the choice of cover athlete was eerily prescient.

That's not a jab at Melo, exactly, but I mean...he took the money that "allowed" that team to be what it currently is, so...

• When double teamed, your teammate who's man is double teaming you will still run completely away from you and the open position in which he had been standing, motionless, just a moment before when you decided to throw caution to the wind, pray to the 2KSports basketball gods, and attempt a pass.  He won't stop at just running from the open shot, though: he'll run to the completely opposite end of the court and behind three defenders - like the game thinks you want an isolation.  But you didn't: you wanted him to at the very least stay put, or even better, start running towards either your or the basket to enhance the passing angles.  But he doesn't, because video game gods don't exist, so you just turn the ball over instead.
• The difficulty in successfully recording a steal compared with the ease with which you commit turnovers is still rather staggering.  
• Once more, to reiterate a point made in my 2K14 review: I shouldn't have to call for the ball when I'm wide open on the fast break, or when we have a 3 on 2 advantage in transition, especially when the damn point guard has the ball (I mean, it's not as if the 3 man weave drill was ever actually utilized in a real, in-game situation anyway, right?); but it sure as hell shouldn't slow me down when I do.
• You still don't spot up around the 3 point line correctly.  You know what the worst shot in basketball is?  If you've ever played, then you already do; if you haven't, you'll understand why it is with very little thought.  It's the foot-on-the-3-point-line Long 2-pointer; or as I like to call it, the Jason Kidd special, which could easily be a 3 but for 1 inch of incorrect foot placement.  (I couldn't find a video on youtube to demonstrate why I chose Jason Kidd as the official representative of this shot, but trust me: it happened a lot).  But in the NBA 2K universe, it still appears with startling regularity, like Crazy Kanye West putting in an appearance when everyone thought that Regular Kanye had been scheduled.  

Random Gameplay Issues

• I really like the player upgrade system in this installment; it's not as precise, but that's fine.  Improving in one area on the basketball court actually has an impact in other areas, so I like the block of skills rather than upgrading a specific ability.  If you spend an hour a day shooting free throws, not only are you going to turn into a pretty damn good free throw shooter, but you'll find that your jumpshot - as long as your forms on either are in any reminiscent of the other, which by the way, they should be for this exact reason - will go in more often.
• I do, however, have one complaint: why is your ability to finish "Running Layups" stuck with the post-up skills?  Every point guard in the league can complete some pretty crazy lay-ups without knowing how to do even a simple post up move.  I get that they didn't want to lump it with the athleticism skills and shooting skills, otherwise upgrading either one of them might be too advantageous for a balanced upgrading system, but it doesn't work in it's current location.
• Also, for some odd reason my right-handed player can only finish layups with his left hand.  It actually adds a frightening level of realism, because ever since I got fat I can't finish a layup on the right side of the basket to save my life, but my lefties go in like...things that are successful more often than they aren't.
• They fixed the technical foul-is-always-a-turnover issue, but with an unforeseen aftershock: now you can pick up an unlimited number of technical fouls.  Seriously: just say one of two specific cursed phrases loud enough for your kinect to pick it up as the other team is passing the ball in from the previous technical foul, and you can rack them up all night.  I made it up to 16 once before I got sick of it.  Either way, 'Sheed, watch your back: I'm gunning for that record like Wilt Chamberlain circa any moment in his entire playing career.
• The box that pops up letting you know that the game "needs" an update...why exactly does it "need" to stay on the screen in the middle of the game?  You let me know that you have a new little 2K Video blurb to add to the menu and I appreciate it; can I get back the game now free of the visual obstruction your little memo-box represents?
• The responses to interviews are worse than ever.  Not only are there fewer options from which to choose than ever - ask anyone who's ever played all 3 of the main Fable games how not-great that feels - but the selections are more innocuous than determining the gender of an overweight hipster with a transgender hair-cut.  
• For some reason, you can no longer simulate playoff games.  I'm not sure what that reason would be, but I suppose that, given the shitty inconsistency of the simulation matrices, that's probably an improvement.  
• The Coach's directives often seem impossible to complete.  My (least) favorite is the "dump the ball in to the big men and let them go to work" directive, because no matter how many times I pass the ball into a posted-up big man, I still get an "F" for the directive grade.  
• Another weird one: "Cut the lead down to 5.  You have 4 minute to complete this directive."  I don't know, I just feel like...if I cut the lead down to 5 in 4 minutes and 2 seconds, wouldn't my coach actually be just as pleased as he would have been 2 seconds before, so long as we still have time to turn that deficit into at least a tie-game before it ends?  Absolutely he would; that's why putting an unnatural time limit on it feels forced, and - dare I say - ...unnatural.

So that's what I think of the game for now.  It definitely feels like a much more fully realized game than did its predecessor - which was rushed out to make the Xbox One release date - but the improvements aren't enough to make me forget how much I hate passing the ball in these damn games.

Comprehensive NBA 2K14 Review Part: the Last

Finally, we are about to reach the finish line.  After reading all of my complaints and negativity, criticisms and critiques - and yes, I'm fully aware that there is far less flattering word available to describe all of what I just did for 4 consecutive posts; but I'm choosing not to recognize it - finally we get to the constructive part.  Since any idiot can tell you that something sucks, but only the enlightened few can tell you how to to fix it, in an attempt to plant myself among the latter group, I submit for you my suggestions for how 2KSports can solve as many of these problems as possible.

I will state first, and probably most obviously, that the lazy graphics need to be fixed, the incorrect interpretations of rules must be corrected, and the quickness of every players movements needs to be enhanced.  Aside from those improvements, which I assume should be self-evident and easily managed, here are some deeper steps which would go a long way to making the games entertaining again.

Increase Gameplay Options

     First up: more game modes.  There's really only a couple of ways in which one can play the game: MyCareer, MyGm, and MyTeam.  That's it; I mean, sure you can try your luck online with the Park, but that's just some pick up games with dudes you don't really know.  Do you want to know which, of all of the NBA 2K games I have played, was my favorite?  I assume you do, or else you wouldn't have bothered reading this far, person that almost certainly does not exist.  NBA 2K11.  Go ahead, now ask me why.

Oh, you want to know why?  Well then, I'll tell you why!

      2K11 had the Michael Jordan mode, in which you got to recreate 10 legendary moments from his past.  But it got even better from there; because after successfully completing the challenges, you were rewarded with the Creating a Legend game mode, in which you got to take Michael Jordan as a rookie, and stick him into the starting lineup of any team in the entire league...and then play his whole career within the MyCareer structure.  It was incredibly awesome!  I had high hopes for similar awesomeness in 2K12 when they hyped up the inclusion of a lot more playable legends, but the Challenge mode was underwhelming - there were only, like 2 challenges for each player - although they did include another Creating a Legend mode; but if I remember correctly, you couldn't use any of the legendary players!  You could take any current player and play a MyCareer style of game with him, through the course of an entire career, but that is less exciting than playing out Magic Johnson's career with the Bulls, or seeing what might have happened to the Celtics if they had Michael Jordan instead of Larry Bird.  They need to bring back the Creating a Legend mode, and in complete, unrestricted glory: any player, from any era can be played, and you can choose to start him out on any team...from any era.  Yeah; why not throw Magic on the Celtics, or Bill Russel on Stockton and Malone's Utah Jazz?  I'll tell you why not: there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON why not!  Just do it, already.
     Here's another idea: fantasy basketball leagues are incredibly popular, all so a group of people can put together fake teams and play fake games against other people, by adding up statistics.  Why not take all of the math out of it?  Why not allow a Fantasy Basketball League within the game itself?  Why not allow billions of them?  The players would set up the number of teams, the length of the season, all of it could be customized.  Then they would have a fantasy draft to fill out the rosters, and then they would go head to head against the other teams in the league, not by counting numbers or watching simulated wins or losses stack up, but by actually playing against one another.  It would require some extra hard drive space I'm thinking, just to make sure that all of the rosters and team names are shared among every member of the league; but wouldn't this be the most awesome fantasy basketball league in the world?  The games could be scheduled, the league standings could be updated on the servers so that everyone would have access to them; and, in the main selling point: You wouldn’t have to be a slave to the current NBA scheduling system; there would never need to be an off season!  Trade deadlines and salary caps would be customizable, and best of all: you could draft any player in the game onto your team, if you choose to start a league that allows the legends players in!  Imagine Lebron James and David Robinson on the same team; Charles Barkley and Kobe Bryant; Del Curry and Steph Curry!  Ron Seikaly and Frank Brickowski!!!!!  You tell me why this is too difficult to set up, and I’ll point out to you that I don’t care, and you should really just make it happen.
     And it should go without saying, that you should be able to do all of that on your own system as well, without being a slave to the infamously shoddy 2K Servers.

Currency

In the past few iterations, you earned a small amount of VC from every game played in every game mode, which was used to upgrade stats, unlock players, and progress your MyTeam and MyGM abilities.  None of which I have an issue with; my main problem is that VC (aside  from the server-related issues I've already mentioned) is also used as the salary obtained after signing a contract; not that it matters.  Even the largest contracts available in the game pay out such minuscule amounts that the size of the contract is basically irrelevant; especially when you've played long enough to actually earn a Max deal.  By then, you don’t really even need the VC for your MyPlayer anyway.
So here’s my revolutionary idea.  Just use money for the contracts.  But how then will the contract effect your MyPlayer's ability?  It wouldn't, just like signing a contract in no way boosts the ability of actual athletes; unless you wanted to use some of the money to hire a personal trainer, who could help you boost your stat-cap.  That wasn't a facetious joke, that was an actual solution.  Look at it this way: did Carmelo Anthony’s max contract with the Knicks make him a better player in any way than he already was?  No; it was just sort of a recognition of how well he was playing.  So why should the contracts in MyCareer come with upgrade points?  They should come with money; and in realistic amounts, so you can sit back and look at all of the zeros in a teams offer, and smile that little contented smirk that Bruce Willis has made so many zeros off of.
“But there’s nothing to do with all of that money“, I hear you objecting.  Not yet, but if 2KSports would put some actual work into their games, they’ll know that what players are really looking for in a basketball simulator that is crossed with an RPG-style character building platform, is customization.  Not just of the character’s appearance, but of his lifestyle.  I want to be able to buy a mansion and furnish it with fountains that shoot kool-aid, I want to blow an entire paycheck on a Maserati and a pool, and then a shark for that pool!  I want to be stupid with my money, so that I can learn to be smart - if that’s how I choose to roll with it.  If not, then I can always retire bankrupt and go to work for TNT.  I want to be able to throw parties at my house, and attend parties at someone else’s house.  I want to play Texas Hold ’Em with my teammates, and have one of them squelch on the money they owe me - throw in some real-life, off the court issues that the players have to deal with.  It doesn't have to be a full-on Sims style interaction; it might not be anything more than some snapshots and text (except for the Hold ’Em.  I was dead serious about adding that as a mini-game.  Who doesn't love well-executed mini-games?  There were three straight months where I only played Red Dead Redemption so I could cheat at poker, get caught, and kill everyone in town before reloading and trying again).
     The day-to-day, grown-up budgetary tasks shouldn't be neglected, either.  You can hire business managers, marketing experts, whatever you want.  Maybe you hire them out of your circle of childhood friends: they will be loyal, and won’t steal from you but they also might not be as good at the job as someone else.  Maybe sometimes you get lucky, and they will be, eventually, but it will take some time to build up to it.  You’ll have to hire someone to take care of the house, maybe buy your parents a new house; maybe you get married, and now you have extra living expenses because of kids.  You keep finding out that you had relatives that you never knew existed, and wouldn't you know it, they not only look on with familial pride at all of your accomplishments, but could you maybe also spot them a couple of grand so they can get out from underneath a gaggle of rather persistent creditors?   Just always make sure to couple choice with consequence; which is not to say that, for example, every time you go out to party the night before a game that your performance or teammate grade should suffer…but at least once in a while there should be a major blow-back from it, just to keep you focused on what should actually matter: your career, and your job.

All-Star Game

Why is it always played in the same gym, every single year no matter how many seasons you play?  I’ll tell you why: because all they did for the All-Star game was animate a separate gym with some All-Star logos, and stuck that into the rotation, so to speak.  When what they should have done is developed a few Logos and paint designs which could be placed over any of the courts, so that the All-Star game could float from city to city, like it actually does.  It would just be randomly selected after every season.  It’s a small thing, but it makes a difference.
More importantly, why is it that my Player can never participate in the All-Star events other than the game itself, and the rookie game?  If my player is chosen to participate in the Slam Dunk contest, shouldn't I be allowed to participate - instead of just simulating a winner and throwing up the list?

Player Development

I said I don’t have a problem with the current VC accrual system, but that wasn't completely honest.  I don’t really have a serious problem with it, but I do happen to think that it could be infinitely more effective.  First off, if it were up to me, I wouldn't tie the earning of VC to your in-game performance.  I might even do away with it all together.  Here’s what I’m thinking: most players don’t improve by playing in the games, so much as they do by working on new skills in the gym, until they are able to successfully recreate those skills in the context of an actual game.  So something like this, then:
The VC that you earn in games takes a gigantic hit; cut it waaay down, down to the point where if all you ever did was play in the games, you would never be better than a role player.  You might be good enough to start on most teams, but you would never be great.  But that’s the player’s decision to make, to see how dedicated to the game they are - which is also a decision which every professional athlete has to make.  In addition to the small amount of in-game VC, you are allotted a certain amount of personal time per day, to hit the gym, and work out on your own, or play cards or do whatever.  If you do opt to add additional training to your daily schedule, you could even choose what you want to drill: new dribble moves, a new type of shot, post moves, defense, jumping, sprints for athleticism and quickness, whatever.  Successfully completing drills within the allotted time will increase your stats in that area for the next game, as well as allow you to perform the new moves you just learned - but it is limited to that next game.  In order to have the upgrades become permanent, you must complete them successfully a certain number of times within actual games.  Failure to do so means that after the game, your stats and abilities in that field return to their default at the start of the previous training session.  You would also have a larger chunk of time available to work out in the off-season, since you no longer have games…but spending too much time can cause you to actually over-work your body, which might lead to injuries in the future.  Remember also that every person in the world has an ideal weight for their size and body type; exceeding that size, even in muscular development, may add strength but it will rob you of quickness, speed, and stamina.
Also, there should absolutely be the option to simulate the workout sessions.  You can just set up a schedule for a week, a month, or the entire season, alterable still at any time,  but it would come at the cost of effectiveness.  You will not be able to work out as many skills, and thus your stat boosts will be less - but the qualifications to make those increases permanent would be the same.  So yeah, this might allow the player to simply ignore the in-game requirements, and just set up a drill/workout schedule which would function as a permanent boost, if the schedule is maintained throughout the year…but if he/she is not hitting the goals to upgrade the level of those skills from within the games, then they will never really improve.
You would also have the option to add weight training into your personal training schedule, which would allow you to add strength and size - but care should be taken not to do so too quickly.  Which is to say, the game should never dictate to you what you can and cannot do in your training sessions; but there should be negative consequences for poor choices.  If you put on too much weight too soon, it will harm your stamina and could even effect your jump shot; it could even lead to injuries.  If you spend all 3 training time blocks on weight lifting, you’re going to be sore as hell the next day and will be rather ineffective.  Afterwards, of course, the game should let you know what mistake you made - perhaps by via a mentor or coach - so that you will know not to do it again.  But I wouldn't spoon feed the player the info: the team will have a trainer to walk you though it all and give you suggestions, but those suggestions will not be tailored to your specific player and body type, and he must be sought out.  He won’t come to you.
Which, of course, opens up the window for you to hire personal trainers, and  shooting coaches, and any other type of coach.  They will take a block of your workout schedules for hiring as many of them as you wish - one per field - but come with an added bonus: aside from being able to customize the info for your specific player due to your weight, height, age, and abilities, the consistent use of trainers can cause your stat caps to increase slightly.  You will never be able to max out all of them, but hiring the best shooting coach in the world could see a +3 boost to all shooting caps, but an additional +2 to one of your choice.  The weight training would work the same, except that it would add strength and size, and affect many of the physical attributes.  Hiring a personal trainer, instead of doing it yourself, would of course be expensive, but the benefits are the stat-cap boosts, and advice on how much to lift and how often, warnings about when you might be pushing yourself too hard, and suggestions on altering the regimen as your body ages and changes.
You even can have access to training with the great Legends of the Game at your position(s), provided you impress them.  Doing so can result in learning a new set of moves, or just drastically increasing the levels of your current skills and moves - but it would still function the same as any daily workout block: training with them will only result in a permanent boost/ability to use the moves if you complete the in-game objectives to do so.
You can also choose to build a gym in your home or your own back yard, and it can be just for weights, or just basketball, or both.  It will cost money, which you might not have at the outset, and it will take a few months, especially if you're building a full training complex with a weight room, basketball court, track, spa, and Pizza hut - who knows, maybe you can even throw in problems with the contractors to add to the realism - but once done, it would add an extra workout block to your daily schedules on days when you are not on the road.  Maybe that is too big of a reward for it, but it should really reward forward thinking players who are looking to perform in the long run, not just those looking for a quick fix.
Here’s another little wrinkle to making use of the workout sessions: if you are invited out to a party with teammates and decline, it might hurt your standing on the team…but if you then hit the gym that night instead, they’ll know it and that negative bump you might have taken will be nullified.  It won’t increase at all, but you no longer suffer from a negative impression; because they will see that you are dedicated to the team, and will not be offended.
I should also mention that in the easiest difficulties,  the benefits of weight training and personal coaches might not be necessary; but in the hardest difficulties, the stats increases will be slower in coming, and harder to succeed at, so that putting in some additional, personal work would be required to reach the top.

In-game Interactions

I don’t think the teammate grade works.  They can call it whatever they want, but it’s basically just an event tracker that scores how well 2KSports thinks you are performing.  I would abolish it completely, because again we aren't really using VC.  Instead, the game would track:

1.  How happy the coach is with your performance, which would be determined by how well you adhere to his game plan, and whether or not your veering from it has been productive or detrimental.  Consistently failing to appease your coach could result in loss of playing time, attempts by the coach to have you traded, and even the Coach quitting or being fired.
2.  How happy your teammates are with your performance, which would be measured by the passes you make, your defensive effectiveness, your shooting percentage; basically, if they enjoy playing with you and think that you can help them win games.  If they are mad at you about something, the grade might start pretty low for a while.  Consistently failing to appease your teammates will result in having less influence with altering their playing style, fewer passes to your player, significant drop in production by all affected players, deep grumblings in the whole organization, trade requests, demands that you be traded, and even fights in practice and off-the court.  Or in short, your character morphs into Josh Smith.
3. Your own personal goals, that will be required to permanently boost stats or learn abilities, as mapped out in your most recent training session.  May also include career related goals, such as high-score, triple-doubles, etc.  These goals will sometimes be at odds with the coach and teammate expectations, and you will then need to choose to which ones you will adhere.

Another issue I have when in-game, is that you have no avenue to express displeasure with the coaches performance or that of your teammates; if they get to do so to you, shouldn't you be able to make suggestions to them?  Things like: "I don’t think the defense is working"; or "Brandon Knight has it going right now, we should feed him the ball".  Maybe you could even tell them to shoot more often when they are left open, or to try swinging the ball around the perimeter.  Your leadership ability on the team would determine how successful these suggestions are, which would be measured not only by your teammate grade, and coaches approval rating, but also by in-game and off the court elements.  Leading your team back from a deficit would increase your leadership, but blowing a game with turnovers and missed shots would decrease it slightly.  Skipping out on a party the night before a game would not increase your leadership, but inviting certain teammates to lift weights or run extra drills with you most definitely would.  You would also have the option, when off the court, to sit down with the coach and even with other players and discuss in-game strategy with them.  Taking these opportunities - which would come at the expense of a full block of your personal time, whether you use it for training or anything else - would increase your leadership.

One of the most fundamental in-game interactions that has been missing from every 2K game since their inception back in 1995 (officially titled NBA 2K -5) is the one between you and the other team, and even the referees.  Think about it; what happens in the NBA after you hit a shot over your man?  You let him hear about on the way back down.  If you stop his next shot, and then hit your own after that, you let him hear about it even more.  Why is trash talking not even an option?  It could just be automated based on degrees of intensity, degrees which you would choose when you decide to start talking.  Of course, you’ll need to be careful not to start talking too intensely to the wrong guy, or at the wrong time: he could catch fire and start torching you, or maybe he gets really frustrated and lashes out physically - and maybe the refs swallow their whistle, because you've been letting them hear about it too.  That would add another element to the in-game experience.  Or if the two of you start going at it too hard, the refs will start watching it very, very closely and call more fouls than maybe they need to, to try and get you both to settle down.  If that doesn't work, they might decide to call a technical on you.
Which you could argue about, if you chose; which of course could result in another technical, if you are too persistent.  If you have a high teammate grade and/or leadership ability, your teammates would come to your defense and pull you away before you said anything too stupid.  But you should have the option of jawing with the officials, too, whether it be for your benefit or your detriment.  This should also include the ability to pick up flagrant fouls, and even get in fights if the situation escalates that far.  Why not, because it shows a “bad image” of the league?  Poor or fair, it happens to be a real image.  Flagrant fouls happen; they are rarely malicious, especially in today’s NBA, but they will occasionally occur.  You would have the ability to take a hard foul on a player, with the understanding that there is the risk of a flagrant foul; if it is an egregious one, you would end up being kicked out of the game, possibly even suspended without pay.  Fighting would absolutely result in an ejection and a suspension, as per league policy.  If you become a frequent perpetrator, you could even face complete expulsion from the league - thus ending that career.  These are all elements of the game that real players have to deal with, decisions which they must make in a split second, with emotions running high; why not allow the player to immerse himself into the experience as far as possible?
     One last, quick little thought: I hate most of the celebration animations for so many reasons, not the least of which is that a lot of them look corny.  Even worse, though, is the fact that not every character in the league celebrates after plays, and when they do it is not always so dynamic.  Think about Tim Duncan...has he ever celebrated in the middle of a game?  Like, ever?  Maybe, but it had to be something pretty big, because doing so is outside of his character.  Why then is your MyPlayer forced to react to every dunk like he's Russel Westbrook finger gunning his way across these United States?  Why can't I choose what my Player's temperament is; and if I choose to  celebrate outside of that, why not allow me to do so manually?  Some people prefer to see the slow, intense burn of a guy like Dirk, who reacts sparingly, to the overly effusive self-congratulatory shlock that passes for 2KSport's versions of a celebration.
     Actually this is the last, quicker thing, and is actually three-fold:

1. Each profile can only have 1 MyCareer account attached to it?  That's stupid.  S-T-O-O-P-I-D, stupid.
2. You can't change any of the MyPlayer's appearance settings within the MyCareer editor.  Which means that you have to leave the game mode, load the MyPlayer editor, save and exit, the reload the MyCareer...just to change his haircut.  And you can change his face, but you can't change his body type, or his nickname?  That's just wrong.  
3. Why do they have names that are only usable as first names OR last names; especially when they are commonly known to be used as either?  Take, for example, my last name: Donovan.  For 10 years of 2K games, Donovan has been unavailable as a pre-programmed last name (which really only matters if you want to hear the announcers say your name, but it matters to me) but has been available every single year as a first name?  What the hell does the order of the words have to do with their functionality; and just as important, how many people in the world have a first name "Donovan?"  Other than McNabb, I can't think of any.  It is far more common as a last name.  My point is...if you're going to take the time to pre-record the commentators saying the names, you might as well make them use-able.  

In-Game A.I.

It needs to be overhauled.  That’s about the only thing I can say; throw it out and start over, seriously, we’d all be better off for it.  Or at least allow the player to manipulate how his teammates end up playing, by virtue of his leadership stats.  If he notices that the point guard isn't spotting up correctly, he can make that suggestion.  If he then sees that the same point guard is now spotting up correctly, but is not shooting the three when he’s open, you should be able to adjust that, too.  If your big man has a mismatch that game, you should be able to tell him to be aggressive and power through the weaker player, when you notice that he hasn't been doing so.  That would allow the player to the mold his team’s style of play to his own.  If they don’t like you, or you don’t have any leadership, they won’t bother listening to you and will continue playing their own way…unless it has clearly become your team, in which case they will probably be more inclined to listen.  If not, you can tell the coach to bench them.  There’s that too: the lineups are occasionally really terrible.  Why can’t you make suggestions to the coach about what lineups to use?  If you’re playing a team that has gone small, and their power forward is torching yours, why can’t you make the suggestion to match their size?  Or vice versa?
The speed at which the plays run need to be increased; the overall movement of players on the court needs to be quicker.  The higher a team’s chemistry, the better spacing they should have, the faster they should be able to run plays, the more ball movement should there be.  I think I just turned into Yoda there for a second; or at least A Puppet.  The screen and roll play especially needs to be more intuitive and fast-paced.  It takes far too long to tell Dirk Nowitzki to run a pick-and-pop; he’s Dirk Nowitzki.  His default play is a pick and pop, unless the entire lane is wide open and then he’ll roll.  The computer needs to stop holding onto the ball and waiting for the other computer pieces to develop the play, especially if the play isn't working.

Off-Ball Movement

For the computer, it needs to be there more often and it needs to be more effective: players don’t half-way cut to the basket.  It doesn't happen.  For yourself, it needs to be more effective.  I don’t understand why the computer is allowed to grab onto you and freeze you in place, and there is literally nothing you can do about it for three seconds.  In real basketball, you chuck him off of you, and maybe hit him with an elbow if things are getting heated.  The spin-cut especially could be way more effective: your player currently will spin, and then run at an angle away from the basket.  Every cut should be directed towards the rim, regardless of positioning.  V-Cuts should also be available, since, you know, every cut you make in basketball is supposed to be a V-Cut.
And why is it that no one your team ever throws you an alley-oop?  It’s capable of doing it, the computer team does it against you all the time, and you’ll have cuts that are even more wide open than the successful attempts on the other end.  I’ll tell you why: because the A.I. sucks, and is a slave to the pedantic routines it has been programmed with.

Passing

The passing engine is awful, the ways in which it sucks having already been detailed; but let's break it down a little bit more to discuss how it can actually be massively improved. There are only 4 options when passing:

1) Press A and hope to god that the computer wants to pass it to the same player that you do
-Nominally, you are supposed to be able control the direction of the ball with the Right Analog            Stick, but it almost always registers that you’re trying to pass it to a player other than the one              you were actually trying to pass it to.
2) Hold the Left Trigger and the Right Analog Stick in particular direction and perform a “flashy” pass - which is automated by the computer, chosen at random from a list of possible such passes - and again, hope that the computer has decided to pass it to the player you think you’re pointing the stick towards.
3) Hold the Left Trigger and press A, which should result in a bounce pass…except that it sometimes just doesn't; and even when it does, half of the time the A.I.’s angle of the bounce is accurate on about half of them (that's 25% accuracy, for you math majors), so instead of slipping the ball in between the defenders, as often as not you bounce it off of their torso.  Best of all is the fact that you might tell it to do a bounce pass, but sometimes it just won’t.
4) Press down on the Right Bumper and hit the button corresponding to the player to whom you are passing the ball.  This is really the only way to be sure that you are passing it where you want, but even then many of the random pass errors that I have already detailed will still occur.  Aside from that, there is another huge issue with the Direct Passing system: say that there is a substitution, and Kevin Durant - who had been at the Small Forward position (X button) before - slides over to the Power Forward (Y button) slot for a while.  Here’s the problem with that: the openings for passes are narrow, and if you take the time to double check the letter over Durant’s head, the window may have closed.  So you just press X out of habit; you noticed almost immediately that he had the Y over his head, but your fingers reacted faster than your eyes.  This usually results in a turnover, and is completely unrealistic because, in the real world, you don’t say: “I want to pass it to whomever is playing at the small forward right now;” instead, you say “I want to pass it to Kevin Durant right now.  That Kevin Durant, the one standing right over there.”  And then you pass him the ball.  There is a very simple fix for this: allow the player to specify specific buttons for certain players, regardless of their positioning.  That way, Durant is always X, or Y or whichever button you want him to be.  If he’s actually playing at the 4 position, and would default at the Y button, no problem: the player in the small forward position, who would normally be X if Durant had not been on the court, would be assigned the Y button.

Now, hang to your reality caps, cause here is where it gets crazier than a pillow vs. pillow Pillow Fight!  When actually passing a basketball in what I like to call "the real world" - and which MTV likes to call "Reality TV That's About as Real as a Strippers Boobs", you have control over not only who you are passing it to, but also:

• Speed of the pass
• Angle of the pass
• Height of the pass
• Which hand/side of the body or basket you are placing the pass on
• Which hand you are passing with

Guess what?  None of those are controllable in 2K14.  You can choose who to pass it to, and whether or not it’s going to be a bounce pass, but that’s it.  Endless as the stars in the Wyoming-midnight sky are the times I've tried to make an entry pass into a big man that has his defender sealed off, and is placed near to the basket to my left - I should also add that my own defender is to my right side, leaving on the left a wide open passing angle to hit my teammate - but rather than simply make the simple pass that any simpleton could simply dump down into his hands, the computer (which controls how my character is going to pass the ball, remember) opts to lean over to my right side, towards the defender I just took such care to avoid, and try to wrap the pass around the right side of his body, where it would then have to bounce past the other defender in the post, who from this angle has an easy steal on the ball.  You might not believe this, but it results in a turnover.  All because the passing A.I. makes the wrong decision 9 times out of 3.  That is not a typo.
Here’s my solution: let me control every facet of the pass.  I’m thinking that once you’re passing stats reach a certain level, you gain the ability to control all of these in a bullet-time sort of sequence, which I would call Court Vision.  It would not be very long, of course, maxing out at 1 full second, and would occur after you initiate a pass to a teammate.  Once the Court Vision begins, you can then quickly choose the type of pass - be it a lob, bounce, chest, or whatever - and to which hand you’re going to throw it.  You can also determine the speed of the pass, by borrowing from a previous incarnation of NBA 2K: if you tap the button quickly it will do a slow pass.  Hold it down all the way and it will fire that baby in there like a fully-’roided up Roger Clemens.  Holding down the Left Trigger and the A button would still initiate a Court Vision bounce pass sequence, where the angle of the pass can be determined.  But in this case, tapping the pass button lightly will result in a near bounce that will float a bit higher, while holding it down will bounce it quicker and nearer the player to whom you are passing, to hopefully pass underneath the outstretched hands of defenders.
The higher your passing stats, the more time you’ll have in Court Vision.  You can move the camera around freely if you choose as well, but remember that the window to adjust the angles on your pass should are short, so expedience is a must.  Wouldn't you feel like a boss, and isn't that how 2KSports wants the customers who play their games to feel?  There would still be some degree of error on the pass, just as you don’t always put the ball exactly where you want it to go in real life; and there’s also the fact that sometimes where you want to place the ball might be the wrong place.  That’s perfect!  As long as the mistakes were my own, I can live with them and hopefully improve.  But to consistently miss easy passes just because the A.I. that controls the passing angles is more useless than the first window of a drive-thru, is maddening.

So that’s it, the end of my interminable review.  I hope it didn't cause you to lose all hope in humanity, question your entire existence, quite your suddenly meaningless and un-fulfilling job, and move up to the Yukon territory in Alaska to be closer to the Earth, before finally remembering that being closer to the Earth usually also means being further away from the internet and every other form of entertainment - not to mention getting really filthy and old-man stinky in the process - and so you move back to civilization and start updating your resume.
B.T. Dubs, here’s some free advice: company’s love it when you use Wing Dings!