Review for NBA 2K21. Game for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 04/09/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 12/11/2020
Version for Xbox Series X from 10/11/2020
The NBA basketball season has just ended. The Lakers of LeBron triumphed, able to seal in the best possible way a long, difficult but ultimately triumphant ride. With the complicated situation linked to the Covid-19 emergency, the future of the NBA, the "real" one, is still all uncertain. It is not yet, for example, when and how the new season will start, and the uncertainty surrounding the most famous basketball league in the world continues to extend more and more. Fortunately, however, fans of the wedge ball can console themselves with the arrival of the new version of NBA 2K21, renamed in a very original way "NBA 2K21 Next Generations", which arrived on the market in conjunction with the release of the two machines. of the new generation.
After having thoroughly tested all the various modes and features we can say that a large part of the play experience has remained unchanged, but the innovations introduced, especially from a technical and gameplay point of view, manage to push this new version towards impressive qualitative peaks. . In short, if the next-gen starts like this we can sleep peacefully, but that's not what glitters, of course. If you are curious to find out all the details, you just have to continue reading our review of NBA 2K21 Next Generations.
New content and old confirmations
In terms of content NBA 2K21 Next Generations proves very similar compared to the counterpart of the current generation. Some modes, such as MyTeam, among other things “continuable” passing from one console generation to another, have remained virtually unchanged.
The WNBA enjoys different attention, which on next-gen offers the player in addition to the possibility of starting a My League mode, complete with draft, market and many customizable rules and mechanics, as happens for the NBA, finally also sees the possibility of starting a player career or best Player. My Player, however, on the field and structurally speaking, seemed limited to us compared to that relating to the male counterpart. In the mode MyPlayer, called The W for example, there is no story but you simply throw yourself on the pitch immediately, but in the most identical way possible to the known style, that is, unlocking skills and rewards based on how you play, the satisfaction of teammates and the impact on the games . What gives us hope for the future is the great attention paid to this aspect, in particular also to the creation of the character, really well structured and above all full of possibilities that makes it possible to indulge oneself even with the many archetypes present, with which to realize one's own player, as happens for the male counterpart. Another important element of NBA 2K21 Next Generations is undoubtedly related to some changes made to the mode MyGM e My League, in which some interesting innovations have been introduced, which make the experience more immersive.
Among these we find, in particular, the possibility of assigning a tutor to some of the younger players of the team, to make them grow in certain aspects or customize and program some aspects of the training and management of the team at three hundred and sixty degrees. In general, however, the management of the team appeared faster but no less managerial, simply everything appears "lighter" and faster, in order to make the experience as practical as possible in the right situations. For the rest, as mentioned at the beginning, the game modes appear almost identical, both as regards the online ones and as regards the various offline modes, but this is not a negative point or a defect, indeed, also because already in the current-gen version NBA 2K21 boasts an impressive and enviable size and quality of content.
The "new" Career
As it was anticipated during the launch phase of the game and then with the arrival of more information about the new NBA 2k21 Next Generations, one of the most revised modes is certainly the main mode of recent years: My Career. Without upsetting, since a large part of the career backbone itself has remained identical to the current generation version, which we already tried and reviewed in September, on PlayStation 4, 2K and Visual Concepts manage to bring a breath of fresh air to the market with a partially revised plot and the possibility of making different choices, changing from a certain point in which the story of the protagonist.
There comes a time when you can in fact choose not to go to college by going straight to the G League, which causes the player to modify both his background and his playful structure but also the playability of the title. This happens because by choosing the G League not only you go to change the story but it is as if you choose the "difficult" mode, going to compete with players already more difficult and ready for the NBA, which makes the level of challenge decidedly higher. However, the rewards are greater: more economic income, more speed in leveling up and in general a feeling of more abrupt and sudden advancement. The news does not end here, on the contrary.
The nicest and most nostalgic thing about this mode is that by choosing to go to the G League you realize that the team is made up of the "nemeses" of the careers of the previous titles of the saga, so Jackson Ellis, ATM, Shammy Wells, and all the rest of the "enemies" found in the past, who initially block the rookie and then support him and accompany him in his rise as a potential future star of the NBA.
All of this culminates in the final stages of the adventure in the G League, where you face off against a super team made up of the old protagonists of the career, then AI, Freq, OG, Che and DJ, with some of these decidedly difficult to keep in mind. defense (damn Freq!). After defeating them, however, everything ends up a bit "in tarallucci and wine", with many handshakes, hugs and all the rest. Junior then returns to normal, with the ending of the original story in which you choose which agent to rely on, start the Draft Combine and then launch into the world of the NBA in all respects.
gameplay
The power of the new hardware is not only exploited for the "simple" technique, but also for some facets of the gameplay of this NBA 2K21 Next Generations. And here we go straight to the focal point: there have been no revolutions or upheavals, and indeed it looks quite similar to what has already been seen on the PlayStation 4 version, but from a first glance it is evident how much it has been properly supported thanks to the additional possibilities offered by the new consoles. Clearly what makes the difference is the different management of the animations, which thanks to the power of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X are multiplied almost infinitely. This happens in particular with the management of dribbling movements but also and above all for the work in the low post, two of the aspects most dear to the production. Once again, 2K and Visual Concepts have done a great job in managing player post movements, which in recent years have often turned out to be inconsistent and credible and that in this next-gen version have really sent us into ecstasy. when we got to try them.
In particular, the writer has fished in the packagesi MyTeam a center, Nikola Vucevic, and thanks to his movements he got an idea of how much 2K has worked in an important way also on shooting animations, in particular, precisely those in post, and in the phase of entry to the basket, one of the obscure points of the last editions in which there were situations that were not very credible and coherent. Excellent work has also been done on the hand animations, which accompany each movement much more responsive and fluid. However, we noticed an excessive ease in stealing the ball and an artificial intelligence that sometimes proves to be too witty in reading situations of passes, cuts and so on, making it possible to arrive at a lost ball too easily and sometimes in a way almost inexplicable.
The AI itself has undergone some "tweaks", although we must admit that it is not yet anything really revolutionary compared to the current-gen version, but thanks to the power of the new hardware there is a greater awareness of one's own means even by teammates. We see, for example, Ray Allen who goes to place himself on the corner automatically in order to try to shoot using an indisputable historical characteristic, or a "long" who tries to take a position against a point guard in a miss match to try to crush him on the head and so on.
La new management of the AI, however, has failed to file some historical problems of the series, especially with regard to the question of passage. Too often, in fact, our passes ended up in the hands of opposing players, which made many sessions frustrating and poorly balanced. Even the "momentum" issue has remained almost unchanged: once again we had to note the annoying presence of a dynamic difficulty, both in the Career and in the other modes, which did not exactly make us uncork a bottle of champagne to celebrate, with hope that with the advancement of new technologies all this can take on different connotations. Too bad, of course, but overall we can only be satisfied with the "new" gameplay of NBA 2K21 Next Generations, made even tastier by the power of the new hardware.
Graphics and technique
One of the most important aspects that can generate hype in players is that related to graphic design with which the new NBA 2K21 Next Generations was presented at the starting line of the new generation of consoles. Despite being a title developed separately, the first for next-gen, therefore suffering from some limitations of sorts as happened in 2013 with the arrival of NBA 2K14, the overall graphic rendering is truly impressive.
La polygonal modeling of the players, first of all, immediately catches the eye once the game has started, and is evident from the first stirrings of your game sessions, remaining in some way faithful to what we have seen so far and acting as a natural evolution of the technical evolution of last years. What scares, which is clearly evident in the change of generation is probably everything else, the outline, starting from the lighting, thanks also to the use of Ray tracing, which on consoles does a really excellent job.
This is particularly noticeable on parquet, for example, in "The City" mode, therefore online, or in MyTeam online and offline Triple Threat matches, in which the night lighting makes every single movement, every single step on the playing parquet , a real sensory epiphany for all fans of basketball, the NBA and beyond.
The attention to detail, thanks also to the power of the new hardware, is absolutely impressive, such as we see in the sweat, in the movement of the ball, in its heaviness on the pitch, in the spectators, in the background of every single arena; everything is truly sumptuous and, as this is only the first chapter on next-gen, we can't wait to understand how all this will evolve with the passage of time.
The title runs on the Microsoft flagship in Stable 4K and rock-solid 60 fps, with the use ofHDR 10 plus and a Ray tracing exploited to the great, in particular as regards the lighting of some elements more than others, such as the parquet, which we have just talked about, and the bodies of the players and the fabrics of the uniforms.
The latter, in addition to being more refined from a polygonal point of view, are more refined from the point of view of the effects that the lighting of the parquet has on their bodies. All this is also accompanied by a new management of the camera, which increases the feeling of technical power of the title, managing to emphasize, with framing and zooming designed ad hoc, all those that are the technical improvements of NBA 2K21 Next Generations.
NBA 2K21 Next Generations is already a big step forward for the saga and for the new generation of consoles, also keeping in mind the difficult period and a development, consequently, more "hasty". Without upsetting the content offer, the title has been able to perfect almost all the aspects already appreciated on the current generation of consoles, focusing in particular on elements such as visual rendering, general stability and animations. All goals are centered, of course, but on which we can certainly improve further, especially if we analyze some historical defects that are still impossible to abandon, on which an AI that still knows of an older generation stands out, especially in some passages. Overall, however, any good basketball enthusiast, in possession of one of the machines of the new generation of consoles should not think twice about the purchase, but beware: the micro-transactions speech has remained more than thorny than ever.
NBA 2K21 Next Generations remains, however, one of the best exponents of the next gen just arrived, as well as an essential title for all fans (and not only).
► NBA 2K21 is a Simulation-Sports game developed by Visual Concepts and published by 2K Games for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Google Stadia, the video game was released on 04/09/2020
Version for PlayStation 5 from 12/11/2020
Version for Xbox Series X from 10/11/2020
