NBA 2K20 Basketball Sim From 2K Arrived Review

NBA 2K20 is one of the best sports games I’ve played in a long time. It’s also a giant scam that is perpetually gross, and sometimes even terrifying, to be around. NBA 2K20 excels at recreating real-world basketball, but loses focus off of the court.

Basketball is one of the most exciting sports, and the NBA is the most exciting league, at least in terms of showmanship. Along with the NHL, NFL, and MLB, the NBA is one of the most-watched sports in the world. Having a game that emulates reality seems like the obvious choice.

The first thing I noticed about NBA 2K20 is that everything feels more intuitive. The learning curve is still immense, but learning the basics is now a lot smoother than it used to be. A redesigned “2KU”, NBA 2K20’s optional tutorial mode, is particularly helpful and doesn’t require more than an hour to get through. Thoughtfully, an on-screen controller mimics the movement of the desired skill, making it plenty easy to imitate.

While the NBA 2K franchise has always done an excellent job making each player feel unique, having a renewed sense of mastery over the controls brings out the best in each player. Pulling off step-back jumpers with James Harden or blow-bys with Eric Bledsoe is really satisfying, and with improved defensive A.I., more important than it has been in the past.

NBA 2K20 returns with a story mode, called When the Lights Are Brightest, which is a significant improvement over the previous iteration, although it could have been better. To be fair, the story mode is a collaboration with SpringHill Entertainment, a company that works on a number of projects for Warner Bros, and which has James Lebron as a co-founder.

KEY REVIEW INFO

Game: NBA 2K20
Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Stadia
Gamepad support: Yes  
Reviewed on: September 30, 2019 16:30 GMT
Written by: Silviu Stahie 

Hide system requirements

RECOMMENDED:

OS: Windows 7 64-bit, Windows 8.1 64-bit or Windows 10 64-bit
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4430 @ 3 GHz / AMD FX-8370 @ 3.4 GHz or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770 2GB / AMD® Radeon™ R9 270 2GB or better
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 80 GB available space
Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Additional Notes: Dual-analog gamepad

The Good

- Excellent ball control
- Exciting matches
- WNBA implementation
- Worth-playing story mode

The Bad

- Microtransactions at every step
- The AI makes stupid mistakes
- Some problems with animations