One of the features in Take-Two’s NBA 2K12 video game is a live player roster which gets updated automatically in response to real-life changes on the basketball court. One player who’s been making headlines in real-world basketball in recent weeks is Jeremy Lin—a player most NBA 2K12 gamers wouldn’t have even recognized on their player rosters until recently. Lin’s original rating on the NBA 2K12 roster was 56—the lowest ratings in the game are in the low 40s, so this wasn’t an outstanding rating. The highest rating available is 99—but basketball players aren’t rated 85+ until they’ve demonstrated long-term success on the court.
Lin’s fans have been clamoring to play Lin in the game as he is now—not as he was with his lowly 56. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this with our fans wanting to talk to us and interact and find out if Jeremy Lin is going to be in the game,” says Jason Argent, VP of Take-Two’s 2K Sports Division. “The feedback about Lin’s player rating was tremendous; we’ve never seen volume like that before.”
“We bumped him up to a 69. That’s one of the biggest increases we’ve ever had,” says producer Erick Boenisch. “The size of the move is unusual. It’s not common for a player to go from ‘why’s this guy on my roster?’ to scoring 20 and 10. Lin’s now a 75 and he’s up there with starters in the NBA.”
Boenisch goes on to add, “We don’t overreact to players who had a good week. We don’t think that’s the case here, but we don’t just hand out 85 or 90 ratings without someone earning it over a long period of time.”
During the month of January, NBA 2K12 was a best-selling physical sports video game. Argent is hopeful that Lin’s performance will help spur sales in the upcoming months, but at present the company has no plans to launch a brand new sales campaign focusing on the rising star. “We want to support Lin and we are going to let it play out organically,” Argent explains. Nonetheless, he also states that Take-Two plans to do some “fun stuff to continue the Linsanity.” Analysts like Michael Pachter are less optimistic about Lin boosting the game’s sales this year, but as Pachter says, “Next year, if they make him the cover athlete, that’s a different story.”
NBA 2K12 is an exciting game—it boasts some unique features, and one of them is the “NBA’s Greatest” mode. This mode allows you to pit famous NBA players against each other in one-on-one, two-on-two, and three-on-three modes. One of those famous players is Scottie Pippen. What does Scottie Pippen think of NBA 2K12 and the decision of the game developers to include him the cast of playable characters?
“It’s great to see how they created me in the game,” Pippen said. “It’s like I get to reach back into my youth a bit and see what it was like when I was younger. As a player, I never appreciated the video games as much as I do now that I’m not playing. It enables me to look back at my career in a unique way and replay some of those exciting moments from my memory … I can be 60 years old, but I can always go back and play like I once did by just playing a video game. It’s really great.”
Pippen goes on to say that nothing could have prepared him for the honor of being recognized as one of the top legends of all time in the video game. He says that he has been inspired by the respect which the fans of the game have given him. Pippen’s comments on being able to relive his own glory days through NBA 2K12 are an interesting and poignant commentary on the capability of video games to inspire us—and even to uplift those who originally inspired the creation of the games. Video games like NBA 2K12 allow us to expand our experience and do things which we can’t in real life—or even things we can’t do anymore. Games like NBA 2K12 create real joy.
With NBA 2K12 out (and yes, it’s a great game), it’s time to take a look at the game’s features and consider how it could be improved upon for next year. As far as basketball games go, this is one of the best, but there are a lot of possibilities which could still be explored in future releases. One great idea for example would be for NBA 2K12 to team up with a collector-card publisher. Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay for collectible cards using points from MSFT or PSN? It would also be great if we saw more of the simulation aspects that we see in other sports games, where team players have rivalries and other disputes or triumphs which influence gameplay in different ways. This can keep things from getting repetitive and add more realism to the game.
Another interesting idea would be to implement some real life events into the gameplay. Imagine for instance that you could play through a real-life season involving a legendary sports upset? Being able to bring the excitement of real life memories or historical events to the console would be entertaining to the max.
These are just a few ideas for improvements to an already great game. NBA 2K12 is excellent as it is and there aren’t too many criticisms one can make about the game. It could still be even better, though—which means there is plenty of room for the game to grow with its next release.
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With every video game, there is always room for improvement. The NBA 2k series is no different. What did you like most about NBA 2k12? And most importantly, what did you like least? What are your expectations for NBA 2k13 and what would you like to see changed? Please post your comments below.
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