Comprehensive NBA 2k14 Review (It's not going to be good, by the way) part 2

In case you missed it, my score for the game was 5/10.  And it's only that high because most of the graphics are pretty good; you'll notice I said "most of."  There's a very specific reason for this: because with certain characters, the 2KSports team clearly put little-to-no-effort into the animations.  Here are three of the worst:

Pete "Non-descript" Maravich 

Bristle Head!

Are you noticing a disparity?  Me neither!

 Look at Pistol Pete's character model first...I mean, is there anything in the face that makes it even remotely recognizable?  It looks more like a mannequin's face than the face of Pete Maravich; and to make it even worse, there is almost no texture or detail to face anyway.  It might as well have been randomly generated (which, by the way, I wouldn't rule out).

With Dirk, you might notice that, while the face is actually pretty good, the hair is absolutely awful.  It's like a mop of unmoving bristles plastered to his head, pulled straight out of 2K9 for the original Xbox.  There's no reason it should exist on a console as powerful as the Xbox One.  

Then take a look at Larry Bird.  While Kevin Durant looks nearly perfect, Boston's legendary forward looks...well, less so.  He's got the same straw-broom hair that you had to put up with on Dirk, but to make it worse the face doesn't really look anything like Larry Legend at all.  If you took away the mustache and stuck him in a Heat jersey, he would look more like Bill Clinton than Larry Bird.  Also, I should add that Bird actually had curly hair, not straight, pointed clumps of what appears to be dried sand.  I'm just saying. 

 One more, by way of contrast - just to show that these aren't indicative of the entire product, only the players that the developers didn't think the customers would really care about: 

Near life-like, right?  Why put so much time into a few models and completely neglect others?  I'll add that almost every "Legendary" player's character models are underdeveloped, including Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Magic Johnson; they didn't even care enough to hit the big ones.  Young Kobe looks great, but that's just because they stuck an afro on their already existing Kobe model.  I've also noticed that every single team in the MyCareer mode has a computer-generated rookie player on it that looks exactly like Eric Gordon.  Just...weird.

Moving on.

A huge problem with every NBA 2K release since I started playing them back in 2007, is the simulation algorithms; at least, I assume they're based off of algorithms, even though they seem to be more random than anything else.  I tried the MyGM mode for a time, dropping VC into it like a gambling addict into penny slot machines at a road-side Indian Casino - which VC, I should add, is nigh-unto impossible to earn within the MyGM mode, and must be either purchased,or earned in other modes (and if you don't have have a surplus of VC going in, it's going to take about 30 seasons for you to earn enough to unlock the ability to perform even simple GM functions).  I quit because, after building a starting 5 of Micheal Carter-Williams (ranked 93), a #1 Draft pick Richard Anthony (87), Carmelo Anthony (97), Serge Ibaka (95), and Demarcus Cousins (92), with Sean Livingston (82), Lamar Odom (79) and Carl Landry (74) as my main subs off the bench, I suffered through two straight 15 win seasons before finally clinching the 1-seed through the playoffs...and was swept in the first round.  I simmed every game; if I want to play through a game, I'll do it in the MyCareer mode.  The point of MyGM mode, to me, is to build a team that shouldn't require having to play every damn game just to get a realistic outcome.  But that's a chronic issue throughout every game mode, and is thus obviously a problem with the simulation coding itself: I can't even count the number of series' I went down 0-3 as the freaking 1 seed (and not by a small margin, either) only to have to claw my way back by manually winning 4 straight.  It was also irritating to see my stats plummet so egregiously every time I allowed the computer to simulate my player's performance.  I might have every stat up as high as the caps will allow, and I might easily be the best player on my team, but I miss the All-Star team some years (years in which I also won the league MVP) because when the sim starts to run, I'm only averaging 15 ppg on 39% shooting.  Ugh.  But the personal stats aren't as irritating as being in a position to run through the playoffs but if the computer had its way, always getting dumped out in the first or second round.

Next issue:

A small aesthetics problem I've had for years with the 2K games is the actual in-game presentation.  Yeah, it looks very much like a real sports broadcast, but...look, after being forced to play every single game of your rookie season before being allowed to skip the non-Key Games, you get pretty damn sick of waiting for an animation to be completed just so you can continue with the game.  They need to add a gameplay mode which strips the presentation of all of the ancillary pieces, leaving just the nuts and bolts of the game on the floor.  It could function just like the scrimmage option that used to be available.  I get so sick of ineffectually mashing the "A" button out of habit just on the off-chance that one of the moments I've pressed it happens to coincide with the moment that will speed up the "broadcast elements".  Allow players to cut all of those out, and just play basketball.  But they'll never do that, because if they did, then - once the fancy menus and new commentary dialogue have been taken away - we'd realize how little they actually changed between the newest version of NBA 2K and not just the previous year, but almost every year since they moved up from the original PSX.  Seriously, the lack of development beyond the actual aesthetics is appalling.

And that is what the next post will focus on, and hopefully it will be the final post in this interminably long review: the core gameplay A.I, and all of the faults and errors and stupidity it has perpetuated on its customers for well-over a decade.  They promise change and improvement every year, but when the nuts and bolts of the game - the actual, simulated game of basketball - is laid bare, you'll see just how pathetically overpriced and ultimately unnecessary each annual installment really is; and you may start to wonder why my final review score was as high as it was.  Sometimes I wonder about that myself, until I remember that, as terrible as it usually is, and as frequently as I want to drop the disc into a blender and drink it with a boost of protein (and maybe some frozen berries to add some flavor), ...I still play it.  I guess the fact that it's really the only functional basketball simulation on the market has to count for something; even if, at its best, it is usually no better than barely-functional.