I've played around 6-7 hours so far, mostly play now, followed by getting a feel for the game in the freestyle practice mode, then the career stuff that i played was just the mandatory stuff.
My overall impressions are that it's a competent game, but it's not a good game yet. The base is now here for the team to iterate and improve. I think it's still behind 2k, by a few iterations. I think both 2k16 and 2k17 are much better games than this, but this was a big step in the right direction.
Stuff i liked:
- Controls feel good, very responsive, and chaining dribble moves is smooth. the transition from 2k to live was seamless because their controls are very similar with just very minor tweaks. That said, executing moves become significantly more difficult due to the momentum and movement system, which I am so far not liking (more on this later). Though one thing I ran into is that the game gets confused with when I want to use the shot stick vs dribble moves - could be user error as I get used to things more.
- I feel that shot success is fair on the perimeter. So of course, shooting is still timing based, but contested shots are graded accordingly (when your shots are contested well, the game lets you know you were guarded and reduces shot success accordingly). However, this doesn't necessarily translate to interior defense, where i feel shot success is dependent on an animation, and is way more random (more on this later). EDIT: As I'm playing right now, it seems like getting green releases even with shot contests is easier than I thought - so I may have to reevaluate this. I just hit 3 straight contested 3 green releases from 3s.
- Presentation from a broadcast perspective and atmosphere are really good. The courts look really good, and the ESPN integration looks great. The street court stuff, pro-am stuff, all are really good too.
Stuff I didn't like:
- The biggest thing i absolutely hate is the overly cluttered UI. The shot meter placement is distracting, the many arrows you see on the floor telling you who you're currently targeting with your pass, all the UI elements and hints that pop up - these are all too distracting (I think there are options to take them off - which I recommend you shouold). But the biggest pain for me is the UI overlay when calling a play. Jesus. Just try calling a play, and see for yourself.
- The movement and momentum system feels bad. I feel like I'm sliding too much, and I actually feel like movement is a bit too floaty. This is something that they need to work on in the future, because it gives the player less control, and gives you the impression that you're fighting with the sticks to regain your player's movement.
- Please stop with the canned walk-up animations. This is really annoying when I want to speed up the pace, but instead, I'm forced into a slow-walk dribble animation when I'm bringing the ball up the floor .
- Passing and more importantly, pass logic is not working well right now. To be fair, this is something that 2k struggles with too, my biggest issue is that passes occasionally don't go where you want it to and so you're going to want to rely on icon passing primarily.
- Problem is, icon passing is executed stupidly. Why do i have to hold R1 the entire time to keep the icon passing option on? It should be a press, and the icons should stay on top of the players, so you don't need to be holding R1 all the damn time. This is a weird design decision, which I feel can be corrected easily - so hopefully they do.
- Inside defense doesn't feel good or rewarding. There's very little contact in the paint, which makes waltzing in there and getting in a dunk animation very overpowered (your only hope is to get the block animation activated). For layups, it's actually worse, as interior defense or shot contessts relies to heavily on two-player animations. I remember one instance where I was on a fastbreak using KD, with a clear advantage for a dunk. Lebron was behind me, but not close enough to really bother me, as I was about to dunk, I got drawn into an animation, allowing lebron to chase down block me (The game slowed me down to initiate a layup, instead of dunking).
Things that are solid, but need some tuning:
Defense is fine (on the perimeter), I feel like I can defend well enough but I still don't like the risk-reward system of left stick timing. Timing defense perfectly stops the guy you are defending immediately via a bump, while bungling the timing puts you in a stagger animation which means you're gonna get blown by immediately. This system where both the reward is too high, and the punishment is too strong is not a good mechanic in my opinion because it allows guys who are not lockdown defenders to bump someone and stop them immediately as long as you press the button correctly.
Anyway, I think it's still a decent game, but it's not a good game. There are things I need to evaluate more, like the 5-player movement and off-ball movement, which so far seems fine, but it's not as fluid and dynamic as the freestyle set system that 2k has.
I played on all-star by the way, tried playing superstar but the computer will not miss any shots at all in the few games that I played lol.
streaming right now for those interested in giving a watch: twitch.tv/ron_bato