THE FIRST TWO HOURS - NBA 2K11

Nick,

I think the CHUD SITE MAIN FEED posted this in the wrong forum.

I just figured out if you catch one of your teammates slashing to the basket try LT+B and you should be rewarded with an awesome alley-oop. I love this freakin' game.

Thanks for bumping this sad little unread article!

I love the FIRST TWO HOUR game articles, don't stop believing Nick!

I added some custom music to The Association mode and I have the NBA on NBC theme playing over the game's highlight package. It's nostalgia wrapped in awesomeness.

I actually like these articles a lot too. I've never really seen sports games threads take off here though.

Somehow the Grizzlies managed to shoot 72% from the field for an entire game against me. OJ Mayo and JOSH HOWARD combined for 16/19 with two hands in their face every time they shot. Ridiculous.

I'll wait for the inevitable price drop. Are there easy achievements? I'm still trying to catch up to Trejo in my achievement war.

A lot of them are for the My Player mode which is the only part of the game that is just OK, it feels like it takes too long to progress. But if you're looking to pull ahead of someone in achievements there are probably better games, if you don't know anything about basketball then it could have the potential to be fairly boring and difficult. If you like basketball and watch games on television with any regularity this game is worth getting for that alone, not to mention the incredible Jordan stuff.

And being a Heat fan doesn't hurt this year, either.

My Player mode isnt nearly as frustrating as it was last year, but there are still some major kinks the developers need to work out. The biggest one is the fact that every single person on your team automatically sucks the moment you begin to play for them. I was drafted to OKC and saw nothing but Durant driving into the paint, pulling back, then attempting some bullshit shot with 2 defenders on him over, and over, and over.

I got traded to the Lakers, who had the best record in the conference. Guess what Kobe started doing? Our record went from 12-3 when I joined to 13-8. It really blows my mind.

I have to end up scoring 70% of the points, no matter what team Im on. The upside is that I have my own Jordan billboard and am consistently ranked Rookie of the Month.

I don't like how my team doesn't crash the boards. At all.

Didn't there used to be a setting to tell your team how aggressive to be in different aspects of the game (i.e. crashing boards, full court press) etc? Maybe that was the NBA live series.

You can always adjust the "sliders" which will impact how adept your team is at crashing boards, 3 pt shots, etc.

You dont have that option in my player, though.

Somewhere in the options there are sliders that might affect it, but the only thing that ever works for me is quickly switching players and hitting Y to rebound manually, and if the other team comes down with it try a quick swipe with X, sometimes you can knock the ball loose right under the hoop. I played the Magic in The Association mode yesterday and in only 5 minute quarters Dwight Howard had over 20 boards, it killed me.

I'm doing the MY PLAYER thing and it's frustrating as fuck.

Same here. It's really hard for a non sports-nut like me to justify shelling out full price for any sports game, especially when by the time the next one comes out they're littering used shops for 5 dollars or so. I don't care about updated rosters, but I do occasionally enjoy some simulation basketball and hockey. I'll pick this up next year.

Good write-up Nick, I enjoy these.

If youre a PG, SG, or SF, the best way to do it is max out our mid range shot and shoot off dribble.

Dont spend points on literally anything else as you get going.

Has anyone done any of the Jordan Challenges? I've played The Arrival about five times and always come up a few assists and a hand full of points short. I should skip around and do the easier ones first, but for whatever reason I want to play them in chronological order.

And thanks for the My Player tip. I'm thinking of going with a PG so I'll stick to the mid-range and dribbling.

I haven't tried this year's game yet, but last year's MyPlayer was a chore. The problem with how they do these modes is that real future stars don't leave school as complete scrubs. So they're making us play a part of an up-and-comers career that doesn't exist. More realistically, they should let you pick one skill to be really good at from the start, then let you round out your game as part of the career.

In the MLB2k MyPlayer you can stick around the minors as long as you like to bulk up your stats before hitting the bigs... does NBA2k allow something similar?

No, youll only get sent to the D league if your performance sucks. Once you start doing well youll automatically join the rotation.

I am playing for the lowliest team in town.

Im turning into a beast on My Player. Maxed out my mid range and 3 pt shooting ability, plus I got the Jordans that give me an additional +2 3pt shot. Got a billboard and just made the cover of Sports Illustrated, and as of right now Im who everyone predicts will be named MVP.

Just gotta make sure my Thunder make it through the playoffs, but fucking Westbrook strained his back and is out for 4 weeks.

Fuck My Player.

I just picked this up and from a Sim perspective its simply the best recreation of professional sports I have ever played.

The game plays like the NBA period.

It does require some major slider work though. The default difficulty and slider settings are total horse shit. Once you up your team's shooting and most importantly pass accuracy you can actually play a decent game.

2kSports/visual concepts knows how to put a game together man.

NFL 2k5 was easily the best football game I ever played, and NBA 2k11 is now the best sports game I have ever played.

I restarted a new My Player on HoF difficulty with simulation sliders, and if you're making a guard I would highly recommend going with the Athletic build, then keep doing the dribble drill to work up your speed (I exploited it a bit and only saved the ones that gave me +speed). It's the most expensive skill to level up with points, but you can get +1 or +2 from each drill. My guy has 95 speed entering his first combine game, and I put the rest of the points in mid-range and off dribble shooting.

Reviving this thread since I just rented (and then bought) this one.

This is hands-down the best basketball game ever made, and may just be the best sports game ever made. I'm not even a big basketball fan, and I'm just having a blast, despite the loud and profane screams I routinely assault my teammates with.

My giant white blonde-afroed Center named Hugo Reyes is tearing shit up for the Utah Jazz. I dominated Dwight Howard (thank God he has no post moves because I always bite on the pump fake), and got the most ridiculous looking billboard ever.

My favorite touch is the post-game press conferences. The added level of personality of giving douchey responses to reporter's questions increases the feeling of living a career tenfold. The endorsements and the way the telecasts start focusing on you more as your minutes and numbers improve is completely addictive. I desperately hope they transition these ideas to their other sports games (especially MLB), and it redoubles my sadness that EA has the NFL exclusively.

I tried a Guard at first, but I found it as maddeningly difficult as last year. But the overall level of polish on the game made me give a Center a shot before giving up, and I'm glad a I did. Centers barely need to be able to dribble, pass, or shoot, which makes them perfect for a mode where you start out with skills that wouldn't make a junior-high varsity girl's team. I'm free to concentrate on skills like "Layups" and "Standing Dunks" and "Get that Weak Shit out of My House!" (I think they call that "Blocks" or something).

Between MyPlayer and the Jordan Challenges I may never play a "League" game and will still likely put as many hours into this game as anything else I've played this year. Amazon's currently selling NBA2k11 for $39, and it's a steal.