The Postgame show is hosted by Shaquille O'Neal, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith the play-by-play is done by Clark Kellogg, Greg Anthony and Kevin Harlan. Commentary, halftime shows, pre an post games shows, are all addressed and given the same attention to realism. Different camera angles offer more realistic broadcast displays or traditional angles from previous basketball titles. The presentation for NBA 2K16 is astounding. In addition to the actual players, cheerleaders, coaches and fans were also scanned to add more realism to the overall environment "“ something typically criticized in most sports games. Of course with any good physics engine there come a host of humorous bugs like collision and funny limb movements regardless, the physics in this game truly do elevate the simulation aspect from previous iterations. On top of that, over 10,000 animations were added to 2K16 with the new "Living World" physics engine, which generates more intelligent, almost hyper-realistic movement that factor in a character's weight, height, foot-planting and even their wingspan. This method allows for the entire body of a specific character to loot totally different and unique from other players.
Many of the NBA players have had their full body scanned to allow for the most realistic representation to date, unlike previous 2K instalments that simply scanned a person's face. There has also been a considerable amount of attention directed at the real NBA players. The facial mapping technology present in NBA 2K15 returns once again, allowing you to utilize the Playstation Camera or Kinect sensor to digitally map your face to your player. To put it in perspective, the tattoo section alone has roughly 1500 different designs. Your additional create-a-character mode hosts a slew of customizable options, almost on a daunting level.
What's delivered is a very personal journey for a sports title, and to my knowledge it's the one of the very few sports simulator titles to actually include a legitimate story mode. Throughout the campaign you interact with other characters which can result in different relationships with rivals, coaches, members of the media, fans, and more.
This entire mode plays like a pseudo-RPG As you go on, you can upgrade your player's abilities and stats. Given the personal nature of the story and how the main characters are fully motion captured, it's understandable that the more crucial elements are restricted for the purposes of a story's fluidity. Players can customize certain aspects like your character's height, weight, preferred position and other sliders, however there are set elements that cannot be adjusted "“ like your character's name, and your hometown growing up in the streets of Brooklyn, New York.
The purpose is to tell a story and journey of a character beginning in high school, continuing their basketball career in college, and finally making it to the NBA Draft and continuing on in their professional career. Very seldom does a sports game get this much attention to a single player aspect, but the whole experience is extremely refreshing. With NBA 2K16, one of the most interesting features has to be "Livin "˜Da Dream." It's a story mode written and directed by Spike Lee, which should already raise some eyebrows. With only a year of development time, Visual Concepts still wanted to make sure they would raise their own bar with a far more ambitious title. 2K15 introduced some terrific gameplay refinements and some impressive facial capturing technology for created characters to offer some eerily realistic representations of your face. And year after year they continue to demonstrate exactly why they're consistently "Number 1". Even still, the fanbase behind 2K has shown the world who the leader is, and has been.
For roughly half a decade they were actually the only series to look to, until EA Sports revived their NBA Live series. 2K Sports and the talented team at Visual Concepts have dominated the industry with their long-standing NBA 2K franchise.