NBA 2K Playgrounds 2
First published in GRIND Ediția Definitivă, pages 58–61.
buy your favourite players (in my case, Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Larry Bird).
But besides the fact that the sure thing doesn't trigger the same dopamine release, it's also more expensive – it costs you, IN MY OPINION, more to unlock a single legendary player than to buy an entire pack with players or skins for
BASKETBALL IS THE MOST
courts and balls. And there's always the chance to unlock two or more le- SPECTACULAR SPORT. gendary players in the same pack… but if that doesn't happen, If we strip out the tactical elements and the defensive schemes to put a greater emphasis on humiliating slam dunks, devastating alley-oops and dizzying dribbling, then we get something close to NBA 2K Playgrounds 2: an arcade take on the tooth-shattering ball sport, one that sits closer to the NBA Jam and NBA Street series than to the realism of NBA 2K21.
What drew me to NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 in the first place was the price: on every console, the game can be had for less than 50 lei. But the lads at 2K haven't shown so much as a trace of generosity or mercy towards players' pockets: in its initial form, Playgrounds 2 ships with only half the content. And there are only two ways to enjoy everything the game has to offer: either you wallow in the pettiness of microtransactions so you can build your dream team, or you earn it all through honest graft by unlocking your favourite players.
But since the magazine is called GRIND, I don't suppose I need to tell you how I ended up approaching the game. What I can tell you from the off, though, is that it's hardly worth sinking dozens (or maybe hundreds) of hours into winning seasons with your favourite team, all in the name of earning the virtual currency you spend on card packs that unlock new players – the loot box equivalent, but closer to the Panini albums we'd start and never, ever finish. If you do want to cut out the luck factor, there's also the option of going for the sure thing and buying for that to happen, you have to go back and finish another season (or sign off another bank transfer into 2K's account).
But beyond the shortcomings and the grind, the game is fun and it's fleet-footed. NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 is exactly the kind of title you can fire up every day for 2-3 matches of five minutes apiece. For newcomers it has surprise turns, like supernatural powers unlocking mid-match – so the result of an impeccable defensive strategy can be turned on its head by a flaming ball that drops into the hoop no matter where on the court it's thrown from; and big score gaps can be levelled at any moment by circles appearing that double or triple the points awarded for a basket.
In basketball there are 1-point baskets (from the free-throw line), 2-pointers (from inside the 6.25m arc) and 3-pointers (from outside the 6.25m zone). In NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 you get an extra point for a perfect release (when you manage to press and let go of the button in perfect sync with the bar in the corner of the screen) and another for scoring the first basket of the match. And if you've got the nous to pull off a double alley-oop, passing the ball at least twice in the air before making the finishing shot, you get a 6-point basket – by far the most devastating and humiliating way of showing your opponent who's king of the court.
Obviously, in a 2v2 streetball game the slam dunk is king. And unlike real life, where only a handful of players can actually pull off the move, here almost every player has an impressive leap and can put the ball through the hoop while pulling at least one pirouette in the air. If you've got the patience, even the smallest players, or the biggest and most cumbersome, can put on a show. The downside, though, is that the moves become repetitive after a while and lose their charm – once you've worked out how to pull them off, there's no satisfaction left in them (just as in DOOM 2016 you stop marvelling at glory kills after the first 15 minutes). There are far more interesting challenges, though, like perfecting your 3-point shot and coordinating alley-oops. And if the art of offence no longer holds any secrets for you, then you can try optimising your rebounds and blocks so the opponent can't score against you at all.
I think NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 is the right sort of game for matches with friends in the same room. Like any other game where you face a single opponent, it's far more enjoyable to be able to watch their reactions as they happen and to start up challenges mid-match (the classic “let's see who scores first from half-court” is compulsory at any party). There's an online mode too, and a cross-platform approach to widen the pool of connections, but I rarely found anyone to play against. And when I did happen to drop into a match with someone, it was a die-hard player with his own “dream team” of legendary basketballers, parading his veteran skills in crushing wins. Maybe my chances would have gone up considerably if I'd put in more grind or paid into 2K's coffers, but is it really worth the effort? Beyond that, the game doesn't encourage you one bit to face a more competent AI: the points you earn are the same whatever difficulty you pick, and if your goal is to unlock everything Playgrounds 2 has to offer, then it's in your interest to win every time… by dropping to the lowest difficulty, where you don't have to hone your style or learn anything new.
NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 is a 6/10 game, complemented by a 3/10 grind. Beyond the joy of unlocking another legend from NBA history, there's no joy to be had in winning yet another championship. The rewards don't justify the time invested well enough, so I can't recommend the game to anyone but die-hard basketball and/or streetball fans. What's more, the music and commentary are so repetitive that after a few matches with one team you already know what you're about to hear after pulling off a move or finishing a game. The menu tune is catchy, but it wears thin after the first hour of play.
What I do like about 2K's effort, though, is the graphics – the players are caricatures that exaggerate individual features, the courts are animated, and the crowd is lively in a way that reminds me of Street Fighter 2: beyond the challenge in front of you, it suggests you're part of a bigger world that keeps moving, one with an existence of its own independent of what you do.
Obviously there's no 4K, no millions of polygons per model and no ray tracing. But for what it's trying to do, the game doesn't need any of that.
If you have a friend, a partner, or a family member with a competitive streak, then you'll have a whale of a time with NBA 2K Playgrounds 2. But if you want to lean on the single-player experience, then I'd only recommend it as a few minutes of daily relaxation. The more seriously you take it, the more frustrating it gets – precisely because the rewards on offer more often than not prove unsatisfactory next to the effort. That didn't stop me rewriting history with the Boston Celtics, mind, winning championships and flattening the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers in the finals. Like any other activity in our lives, the game has no purpose in itself – we're the ones who define its role, give it our time and decide what it means.
VLAD COSTEA
PERSPECTIVE
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Is it nostalgia when we choose to play a title from previous generations?
ARTICLES
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