NBA 2K17: The Good, The Bad And The Amazing

The greatest sports gaming franchise is returning with its next annual installment. Even though NBA 2K17 releases Sept. 16 for pre-order customers, 2K is offering “The Prelude” on Friday, a free download which allows gamers to begin their MyCareer a week early. Here, we analyze the talking points from everything we know about the game.

When 2K Sports first launched NBA2K, the series paled in comparison to EA Sports’ NBA Live 1999.

All these years later, it’s safe to say that NBA 2K is the greatest sports gaming franchise. Ever.

At this rate of technological advances, we’re nearing a day when 2K would allow the gamer to assume his/her virtual character while wearing a VR headset, plugged in with the option to literally talk to teammates, coaches and reporters in a simulated reality, not to mention playing basketball.

Very soon, kids are going to substitute real life basketball for NBA2K because the latter is becoming too realistic for comfort! Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

Next: 10 NBA Players On Their Last Chance In 2016-17

The game has transcended beyond the world of gaming, into a tool, an entity, that helps real life basketball players enhance their skillset. That was such a geeky thing to say, right? How much athleticism do you need to sit in front of a TV screen and play a game?

Karl-Anthony Towns, the reigning Rookie of the Year, can’t imagine life without NBA 2K. When the future MVP isn’t playing, working out or practicing, there’s a good chance he’s playing 2K.

Rookies Ben Simmons and Dejounte Murray were seemingly challenging one another to an online game when the San Antonio Spurs rookie inquired about his NBA 2K17 Player Rating from 2K’s Twitter representative.

D’Angelo Russell has been sharing videos across social media platforms about his love for 2K. Andrew Wiggins and Kristaps Porzingis are unhappy with their Player Ratings.

Is it possible that some of these youngsters are already unable to tell a virtual space from reality?

Media outlets are actually covering the NBA 2K17 Player Ratings of players like it’s actually news. This is no longer just a video game. During the course of the season, real life NBA and NBA2K are so deeply in sync, it’s almost scary.

When Stephen Curry hit that buzzer-beating half-court shot against Oklahoma City Thunder, NBA2K recreated the moment on 2KTV. Every regular season game is also simulated by 2K with latest box scores made available during the course of a game.

Besides the obvious players and team upgrades through the season, 2K does all the little things to give gamers the most realistic experience conceivable.

For NBA 2K17, the game developers traveled to every team’s arena to record sounds that are exclusive to each arena. Simply amazing.

As great as NBA 2K16 was, NBA 2K17 promises to take it up a notch. With enough details emerging about the game, we analyze the Good, Bad & Amazing:

Next: The Good