Last year I reviewed EA’s return to the basketball court with NBA Live 14. While that game was stillborn and ultimately not much of a contender to 2K’s reign, it still interrupted their brief monopoly on the virtual sport. Given another year or two, the NBA 2K series might have an actual competitor on the other side of the court, so it’s important to see if they’ve stepped up their game this year with NBA 2K15

2K Sports has tried to do just that with a number of new features and changes, particularly to the MyCareer mode where you create your own MyPlayer and work up through the ranks to become an All-Star. First off, you have the ability to scan your own face into the game using your Playstation Camera or Kinect if you’re on the Xbox One. While I didn’t have a camera to test the feature with my own PS4 copy, the results you can find online are left wanting at best and downright horrifying at worst (seriously just search on Google or Imgur for some screenshots). Better though is the addition of a mentor who speaks to you before and after each game. These mentors are voiced by an actual player from each NBA team, a very nice touch. You will also get coaching from Doc Rivers if that isn’t enough. Another nice change is the simplification of the upgrade process for your player, eschewing the abstract attributes for more easy to manage categories like Defense. Basic gameplay remains solid and superior to EA’s offering and is mostly untouched except for a new shot meter which is very handy for determining why you missed a shot and allowing you to adjust as a result.

Unfortunately the online franchise and the MyGM modes don’t really get the same level of attention, though the latter no longer suffers from microtransactions at least. Speaking of online, the game was plagued with server issues at launch that continue today to a certain extent, so if you’re looking to get this for multiplayer, buyer beware. This is a disappointment in particular because of the one online mode where you take your customized MyPlayer onto a street court to play others, MyPark, is difficult to play without lag or glitches as result.

NBA 2K15 continues to build upon its presentation and incredibly photorealistic engine with this edition, as players behave realistically and even star players have particular quirks you can pick up on. They even added a pregame segment that runs as the game loads up, something I wish more sports games would do, even if it might get repetitive over the course of a season. I also enjoyed watching a few episodes of their new live action show, NBA 2KTV, which gives behind the scenes look at the development as well as play tips and contests for in-game currency. The soundtrack is a selection supposedly curated by Pharrell Williams and is quite alright though it has some curious picks for a basketball game, IMO, not that I’m complaining because I enjoy No Doubt. Commentary is the same as last year, and that’s only a problem because the color guy is now one of the coaches in the game, so that’s just weird. I suppose that happened too late for the developers to change anything about.

I’m not a huge basketball fan, but NBA 2K15 is definitely one of the more well executed sports games out there (certainly better than NHL15), so if that’s your jam then you can’t really do better than this one. The only reason to hesitate is if you’re really counting on some multiplayer, as that is still not quite ready for prime time.

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