At any rate, for this installment - and maybe even a second, if this one starts running too long, I will begin to examine the issues that I have with NBA 2k14's A.I. performance; I should also point out that, with very few exceptions, these are all issues which have existed in the core gameplay for a decade's worth of annual releases. Which, if you think about it, means that that shiny new 2K15 box you just purchased holds a game within it which, outside of improved visuals, the controller layout, and different commentators, is virtually no different than 2K5 was. If that makes you feel like you've been cheated, or lied to, or have been ripped off, or taken advantage of, well...you should. Because you have been.
Turnovers
- The game seems to feel the need to fabricate these out of thin air, most likely because the guys coding it looked at some stats that said, “the average NBA game has such-and-such number of turnovers,” and they just wanted to make sure and fill that quota like a beat cop handing out parking tickets. That’s the most rational explanation I've been able to come up with.
- Seriously, if a defender’s hand comes anywhere near you, the ball just sort of bloops out like (insert analogy here. I’m feeling lazy, you can come up with your own. What, I have to spoon feed you everything? Besides, the odds of anyone else actually reading all of this are so slim, you could turn into Bill Gates over night by successfully wagering $1 on it). Which is in pleasant contrast to what happens when your own hand nears the man your defending as he’s dribbling, which is that you are almost immediately whistled for a foul.
- Also remember not to run faster than your teammates in transition when you’re dribbling the ball, because they will almost certainly cut in front of you, causing the ball to bounce off of their foot and into the hands of the other team, resulting in you losing points for the turnover.
- But by far the worst turnover is the half court, simple 5-10 foot pass to a wide open player that gets caught into the gigantic gravitational field caused by some court-side celebrity’s career imploding, and is pulled 20 feet away from the intended target; landing instead in the lap of the supernova-ing famous person, who only has a moment to wonder at the occurrence before exploding into random bits of matter and code.
- I don’t get it; I mean, the passing and ball-handling is atrocious enough on its own without the computer having to manufacture turnovers for you. A high average for turnovers in a real NBA season is 3-4 per game. Good luck averaging that as a minimum if you play every game of the season. You’ll be looking at 5-6 a game.
Ball-handling
- The dribble moves are only effective when the computer does them; then, they are harder to stop than the Kardashian-West baby will be in 18 years. But when you try them out yourself, it results in little more than the defender raising an eyebrow as he polishes off a monocle, and says in his best Sir John Guilgud impression: “My apologies, sir; but if you had wanted to pass by, you needed only to ask.”
- I really like it when I try to do a simple hesitation or behind the back dribble near half-court (sometimes even when not really all that near half court, like just 1 step outside of the three point line) or even just pull the dribble back out of range of a defender, but the game decides to counter by forcing me to run backwards five steps and directly into the other side of the court; resulting in yet another unforced turnover. Seriously, I love it. It makes me so happy I could poop sometimes.
- Just as great are the times when - because remember, the dribble moves and shots are done with the same joystick - the game decides that it thinks what I wanted to do from half-court was shoot a reeeaaally long 3, when actually I just wanted to do a crossover. The best thing about this little glitch, is that if you ever are lucky enough to witness its incomprehensible glory, don’t worry: it’s going happen multiple times in that game. It won’t happen again for about a month, but then you’ll have the game where you’re launching long, half-court bombs like it’s 1991 and you’re Marky Mark Wahlberg on MTV Rock N Jocks, and you‘re looking for that 10 point shot.
- By far the worst, though, is the spin-move dribble glitch. You know the one I’m talking about, right? The one where if you try a spin dribble when the defender is standing near the side of the court to which you spin, you are stopped dead in your tracks like freedom in the Cultural Revolution Era China, and you lose the ball. Even better, because every forced animation that occurs happens at 1/10th the speed of everything else on the court, you can’t even bend down to pick up the ball as it rolls around between your feet. Another turn-over.
Rebounding
- You can always tell when a player on your team is going to make the shot, because the computer knows as soon as the ball is shot and reacts accordingly: if you find yourself with a wide open lane for the offensive rebound, don’t get too excited. That shot is going in, and the defenders all know it already and don’t bother boxing out. If, on the other, you think you had a wide open lane, but a defender sticks his ankle in your general direction - which is what passes for boxing out in 2K - but still manages to freeze you into place faster something that occurs quickly and is completely surprising, congrats on the hustle but calm down: your teammate is missing the shot and you are under no circumstances getting the offensive rebound.
- If only boxing out worked as well when you try it, as it does for the computer when you’re on offense. You could be boxing your man out, pushing him far from the basket, but if the ball comes anywhere near you twain, that bitch is bouncing right into his hands. Just mentally prepare for it now, so you don’t have a heart attack later.
- But don’t worry, it’s just as ineffective for the A.I. players on your team. You could trot out a line-up of Dennis Rodman, Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Dwight Howard, and Kevin Love, and still get out-rebounded by 20. It’s most apparent on the offensive boards, where the other team’s point guard will routinely gather rebounds away from both of your big man and a small forward, all of whom have better position for the actual rebound than the opposing point guard had.
General Animation and Maneuverability (and the Obscene Lack Thereof)
- Everything is too slow. It is nigh-unto impossible to change directions; if you are trying to help off of a shooter by even a step, it takes full on 2 seconds for you to head in the other direction. God help you if your man is running around the court through a series of screens. You might slip through 5 of them, but that last one is going to get you, he’s going to get a wide open shot - which is absolutely going in - and you’re going to get dinged for it. Be warned.
- When you fall to the ground after a layup, or get knocked down by a screen when no foul is involved, it takes 10 seconds for your character to complete the animation and be controllable once again. This includes any time you run into the referee or fart on a spectator.
- The setting of screens is one of the most mysterious combination of forces in the 2K-Verse. For when a screen is set by a player on the opposing team, you will be hard pressed to get through it (and of course, the thought of teammates hedging out to guard the 3 or dropping back to stop the screener who is now rolling to the basket is just preposterous!); and the screener will immediately roll to the basket and get an open shot. Yet, if you set a screen, your feet are glued to floor for a full second after the screen has been set and the there is no longer any contact between you and the defender, so that there is no open window to roll to the basket. If, instead, you choose to try and have the computer come set a screen for you, good night and good luck! It’s going to take half of the shot clock to determine the type of screen you want him to set, and then wait for him to get in position. But the screener will again wait a full second - sometimes more - before rolling to the basket or popping out for 3, so that what is in reality the most fundamental play in every offensive set that has ever been run by every single basketball team that has ever played in the NBA - it’s actually the first play that most little kids learn when they are taught basketball strategy - turns out to be a colossally ineffective waste of time. Pick and roll? I say thee nay!
- Seriously, I have never set a screen or had one set for me, that was even half as effective as the ones I have to run through all of the damn time. This really bothers me, because, again: the pick and roll is the most fundamental, effective play in basketball.
- There is a general input lag on commands that you input, across the board, and you never really know when it’s going to rear it’s ugly, Fat Britney Spears-ian head (because it’s everywhere and nowhere all at once, and no one has any use for it). It could strike when you try a spin move, having finally gotten your defender off-balance in the wrong direction, in preparation for this exact move, but the computer decides to have you take three steps before spinning, which of course allows the defender to switch his positioning to block the spin, resulting almost unanimously in the afore-mentioned spin-move-dribble turnover. Good times; gooood times.
- But good news: the lag can present itself on defense, too! Let’s say you are trying to time a block-from-behind on a man shooting in the paint, in which you’ll want to beat the shooter up into the air, but instead the computer wait’s a second or two and jumps after the shot has already been released. In order for that play to work - and you can watch tape on Michael Jordan to study this block, because it was his favorite - you have to get to the ball the moment the big man releases it. This will never happen in 2K14, however, because that is usually the only time when you can actually predict the input lag.
- It’ll happen on rebounds, too; like when you want to jump for a rebound, but instead you just stand under the basket…until, wait for it; waaaaiiiiit for iiiiiiit….NOW! JUMP NOW, RIGHT WHEN YOUR TEAM IS IN-BOUNDING THE BALL!
- Another irritating animation glitch is what occurs after you attempt a block: nothing! You are frozen for half a second and can no longer move, because apparently professional athletes who have trained at jumping quickly for their entire lives are unable to do so in an actual game. Perhaps because they, not unlike Jeff and Troy on their secret trampoline, are having an existential moment of such peacefully fulfilling bliss after their brief sojourn into the World’s Whisper that they don’t care about what happens in the real world within that half-second. Who needs all of this dribbling, and shooting, and pushing, and shoving, when there are clouds in the world, and you are currently on a short-term version of the ninth?
- This delay becomes even worse after you actually do block the shot, because when it is combined with the wonky physics involved with your hand striking the basketball in the 2K universe, the ball will shoot straight up into the air and land in-between your own feet and those of the opposing player whose shot you just blocked. But of course, because you are still existentially exploring more important things, the man you were guarding simply picks up the ball and shoots it again, this time free of the annoying burden your defense once presented, back before you became momentarily enlightened.
- But wait, it gets better! You know that pause that happens after you try to block a shot? You’re never going to believe this, but the computer doesn't have to put with it on defense! And in what’s probably the best turnabout since fair-play was effectively abolished at 2KSports, you yourself will experience a lag after your shot is blocked - meaning that you are again physically unable to grab the ball bouncing around at your feet; but this time, perhaps, because you never even fathomed that such a thing as one of your shots being blocked could be possible, and your entire world is being shattered in so many Inception-ed brain levels, that you momentarily forgot which world you were in - the real life, or the fake, man-made dream life of Leonardo DiCaprio’s bitchy, murdering ex-wife-infested nightmares; and your totem is to see if the defender picks the ball up. If he does, you’re safe in knowing that you are still alive in the actual present, and may then continue your basketball game free of any lingering doubts. If he does not, get your ass out of there: cause that murdering hag is coming at you, and she’s taking to the streets with guns already drawn. She aint no fool, a lot can go wrong with a quick draw.
- Onto another topic: have you ever pump-faked your man up into the air, and he is totally encroaching on your personal space like a stage five clinger? What do you? You know what you do; you jump back into him and pretend to be in the act of shooting, so that you get some extra-free free-throws out of it. You know to do this because it has been ingrained into you since middle school that, if a defender is ever flying towards you in the air, you jump right back into him and force the refs to blow the whistle; because 95.275% of the time, you’re getting those free throws. But in 2K, you just have to stand there and take the contact, on the floor, and then pass the ball in from the sidelines - devoid of your extra-free free throws. It’s weird; I guess 2KSports thinks that NBA players are less fundamentally sound than most middle-schoolers.
- Lastly (I think) is the embarrassing frequency with which you lunge in the opposite direction of the shooter or ball handler when attempting a block or a steal, respectively. It’s as if you are playing defense, and then see a bat on the court in the middle of the play, and are trying to Ginobli your way into ESPN legend. Even worse are the times when you want to grab a rebound, but the game thinks you are trying to block the shot that already happened, so you jump away from the ball like it was the sole cause of Magic Johnson’s (mostly cured) HIV.
- I was wrong! Two more: at least once per half, a ball that should have been a steal or a block will clip completely through whichever part of your body you managed to thrust into the ball’s intended path, resulting in the player you were defending looking like a magician, and you looking like an idiot. In extreme cases, I've even seen the defender’s body clip through my own when positioning myself for a charge.
- And last of all (really this time, at least for this sub-topic) is the complete lack of any animations or even sense of contact when a foul occurs; or at least, when the foul is called. You’ll probably miss the shot afterwards, but you won’t know why. But on the times when you can see and feel the contact, and specifically when they took the time to animate your player being effected by the contact, there is never a foul called. I don’t really have any explanation for this; maybe they put a decimal point in the wrong place somewhere?
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