NBA 2K11 - G.O.A.T.

Hi 2K Sports Fans! I am Asif Chaudhri and I work on all things presentation for NBA 2K10. Let me introduce you to something amazing:

The NBA, the REAL NBA, is in your game and it’s updated every day…

NBA Today is a revolutionary way to experience the NBA 2K game play you love. In the “old days” you’d fire up your basketball game and wind up on a team select screen…try to figure out what matchup you wanted to play and then get going. When it came to commentary, presentation and overlays your game was happening in a vacuum. There was nothing “real” about it. It was a fantasy matchup that had no real-world context and no impact. There was a limited list of subjects the commentators could discuss. They could talk about what was happening in that particular game and they could talk about what happened last season. That was pretty much it.

In NBA 2K10 that’s all changed. NBA Today takes the sport you love, NBA basketball, and the game you love, NBA 2K, and finally puts them in the same “world”. When you start 2K10, your Internet-connected console will reach out and grab all the latest information about what’s happening in the league. After that, you won’t land on the team select screen: instead you’ll go directly to the NBA Today screen which lists the REAL NBA matchups that are actually being played TODAY. Additionally you will see a breakdown of scores from last night’s games, as well as view which players in tonight’s matchups are leading their teams in the various stat categories. Furthermore, while the game is loading you’ll get a quick update on how both teams did in their last games and the stats their key players put up. From the NBA Today Menu, you can access box scores for ALL NBA games that have already been played, division and conference standings, league leader stats, the latest transactions, follow any trades that are happening around the league, and check out an All-Star voting watch menu.

Pretty cool, huh? But that’s just the start. Now that your game and your league are in sync, the door is thrown open for dynamic commentary and presentation that’s based on what’s really happening in the real NBA (have I said “real” enough times?) Throughout the season, there is no doubt you will be impressed by the intelligent commentating that not only keeps you informed on the ACTUAL latest league happenings but also keeps track of your team info as well. Examples include knowing that you just got home from a 3-game road trip where you won one and lost two, knowing the opposing team’s starting center is out with an injury, knowing your point guard put up 22 points in the road win against the Grizzlies Tuesday night and that he’s averaging 17 ppg this season, knowing this is the first of a four game series between the two teams … get it? The commentators now have the knowledge of what’s happening league-wide and will reference the most up-to-date information possible in their conversations. But it’s not just all talk, a lot of the topics, the commentary team will talk about, have overlays that coincide with their analysis. During the season, they’ll catch you up on who’s leading the league and how teams are ranked in various stat categories, check out a team’s upcoming schedule and even do a promo spot for an upcoming game. If it’s a holiday, as you may have seen in previous screens, that isn’t going to be ignored; the game will present the holiday in overlays and commentary. As the playoffs are approaching you’ll get the east/west conference standings and once the post season starts, you’ll get playoffs and finals screen wipes. The commentary and presentation will constantly be changing throughout the season to coincide with the real league and transition from pre-season to regular season and finally to the postseason.

For the few days during the season where there are no NBA games taking place (or anytime you feel like playing your team) you can simply use Quick Game to create your own fantasy matchup. All the NBA Today commentary/presentation will still be valid looking back and forward in time. And yes, all the NBA Today commentary/presentation will also occur in your Association (but it will be your Association data that drives the commentary, not the real NBA). A quick note: Often during an NBA game, commentators let the visual demonstration of the game lead itself if they are having a conversation. That changes, however, if there is a huge highlight play. If a thunderous dunk rains down, you’ll get the commentators attention. The same can be said during our game.

We’re really excited to see what you guys think about this new feature. Drop me a line in the comments and tell me what you think!

Asif Chaudhri
Presentation Producer

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tobi said:

October 6, head to head with Live.

I'm waiting for the IGN preview to go live, been waiting for two hours now!

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NBA Today - All the real world matchups, news and stats are automatically streamed right into your game. No longer will your commentary and overlays be stale and out of date. NBA Today keeps everything fresh and up to date based upon what is really happening in the NBA.

My Player Mode – Create the ultimate NBA player and guide his every career move. Start as an undrafted rookie in the Summer Circuit; work hard enough and you may get an invite to participate in an NBA team’s training camp, or you may end up in the D-League. The road to being an NBA star is a long and hard battle.

Living Rosters - The 2K Insider and his team of NBA analysts continue to provide the most up-to-date team and player information, including roster and lineup moves, trades, injuries and player ratings. Now track all of the changes through the season with interactive menus and analysis.

Seamless Online Experience – Forget the past, with NBA2K10 online play is fully incorporated into every mode of the game. Now you can play the AI, challenge the friend sitting next to you or play your buddy across town anytime, from anywhere in the game.

Signature Play - Signature Play pulls together all of NBA 2K’s player Signature Styles and adds in all-new Signature Tendencies and facial expressions, creating NBA 2K10 teams that play and react like their real life counterparts for an unbelievably realistic NBA experience.

NEW Intuitive Offensive Controls - All-new easy-to-use dribbling and post game controls allow you to pull off ankle breaking IsoMotion moves and dominate like Kobe from the perimeter to the paint.

Shut Down D - Shut down teams down like never before with innovative defensive controls that allow you to shadow your opponent’s every move, deny position off-ball, and even select how you want to contest shots.

Deeper Association – The Association strives for the title of best franchise mode in sports with full incorporation of the NBA Development League, the ability to control all 30 NBA teams at once, restricted free agency, real-time practice, an all-new player progression system, and a host of other enhancements.

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tobi said:

FIFA vs PES is very similar to NBA 2K vs NBA Live, 2K was the better game on the PS2 like PES but 2K embraced this generation immediately while Konami didn't.

EA being the giant that they are hired Mike Wang from 2K to work on their game, looking at the NBA Live videos you can instantly see the influence that he has had. The only problem is that a lot of the features in Live 10 already exist in 2K9.

They'll always be a year behind and the only way they can catch up is if 2K get complacent like Seabass n co.

Looking at the Draft Combine trailer, 2K10 has silky smooth animations. For this reason alone I don't believe it when people say that Konami can never have better animations than EA.

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jonneymendoza said:

i played NBA 2K in the original dreamcast which was the first game these guys made and it was brilliant. Now they have made it soo deep and real to the sport that its difficult for any newcomer to the sport in general to jump in the arena and start to enjoy themselves without dumbing it down via the sliders.

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Rob92 said:

I'd love this with a football game, having it fairly realistic as default and online, but have sliders available like "shot accuracy", "shot power", "attribute effectiveness" (make the gap between low and high bigger), "goalkeeper reactions" etc. so offline we could make the game as hardcore simulation or arcadey as we liked.

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jonneymendoza said:

yea that would be great. Also, with the sliders in nba2k10, do they have an effect for online play?

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- All the major shoe brands are in the game, and you can customize the colors for every shoe -- pretty much can make 15 million different shoe combos if you want. You can also have home and away versions of the shoe.

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Signature Style

-Teams that stand up until their team scores the first points of the game will do that in the game.

-To give some example of the non-gameplay signature style:

* DHo does his fadeaway before the game
* KG and Pierce will be screaming on the scoreboard during the initial zoom in to a game in Boston.
* KG will bang his head off the stantion under the rim.
* Ray Allen also rocks the powder before the game.
* Wade will lift himself on the rim.
* Vince will lift himself on the rim.
* Cleveland will do the picture thing before the game.
* Shaq will do his bowling thing.
* Cleveland will also do the knocking it out of the park thingy.
* LeBron of course has his powder.
* Boobie and LeBron will do the brush off your shoulders and salute thing.


-The cool part about a lot of these pregame rituals and so forth is that you won't see the same ones every time. So maybe you see KG bang his head off the stantion one time, but the next time you see Ray Allen making sweet love to the powder. It happens this way because the camera is dynamic so it won't always focus on the same stuff or players.

-I was told LeBron and Kobe got new shots, but I didn't see those teams in action. As for the players I did see, Ray Allen got a new shot, as did SJax, Deron Williams, Korver, Boozer and Nash. Many many more apparently got new shots, but I didn't have time to scope them out.

-Nate Rob has his free-throw routine in the game.

-The ImageMetrics people (the folks behind GTA IV) created the signature and generic facial animations in the game. I didn't see too many signature ones while playing, but was told that LeBron puffing his cheeks out after he does something big-time is in the game. The facial animations looked good when I saw them, and the eyes looked pretty lifelike as well.

-The organ will be playing at Madison Square Garden.

-Signature play involves all the signature stuff done before as well as the tendencies. The AI system was also built on the tendency system. How does a player like to get to a particular spot, what moves does he like to do to get to that spot -- think of it as "the how" -- is where 82games.com comes into play. So the point is that someone like Iverson would not do a spin move to get to where he would want to go on the court, he would do a crossover -- so the tendencies tie into that fact.

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-"Crews" is another new addition to the Team-Up mode. This is the ability to get together with friends and form an online team. You get to compete against other crews, and there are leaderboards that rank the top crews. You use NBA teams for these, and you can also use your 'My Player' -- but you don't earn points since there is no rating during this mode. This is partly because you're playing with friends and also because the number one goal is getting the W.

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