NBA 2K11

I’ll open this review with a quick caveat. I don’t really play sports games by choice, and I don’t usually volunteer to review them. So when NBA 2K11 arrived at my house, out of the blue, I rang our editor-in-chief to ask him why this had happened. It turned out I had agreed to do the review while under the influence of alcohol at the most recent Ready Up meet. Ooops.

So, to the game. NBA 2K11 kicks of with an impressive opening sequence featuring Michael Jordan, and then throws you straight into the action controlling Jordan’s team in one of his most famous games. When I say throws you into the action, I mean it. It literally slam-dunks you into the game without so much as a tutorial or a by-your-leave. This took me by surprise, due in no small part to the fact that the game looks as good as the opening cutscenes. It took me a moment to realise that the opening was over and the game was on. In fact, if it wasn’t for the circles around the players feet that indicate which player you are controlling, anyone could at first glimpse mistake this for TV footage of the real sport. A realistic looking crowd, substitute players sitting by the sidelines and even a dancing mascot were all present and correct.

As for the gameplay, well, it flows. Once I’d taken a peek in the manual (something I usually object to on principle) then I really started to get the hang of it. Controlling your player via the left stick, and using the right stick to throw shots, get your arms up to block etc, fits the game quite naturally. It was easy for an amateur like me to string together a few good passes and finish up with a decent shot. That’s not to say the controls are simple, though, as evidenced by the fact that the manual actually fills NINE whole pages with different moves.

(And that’s not including the different controls for using Playstation Move, but I tried that and it was a disaster. Using a Move controller in your left hand and a Dualshock in your right, as advised in the manual, turned to be laughably hilarious)

Overall, though, this game could easily have been called Total Immersion Basketball, as that is what it is. The on-screen graphics,  the squeak of shoes, the thud of the ball, the commentators, the substitutions, the clever way it advertises real upcoming NBA games all build up to a tremendously immersive experience. It’s creaking with game modes, from creating your own rookie player to playing as Michael Jordan, plus all of the usual multiplayer options you’d expect from a modern, very well polished sports title.