NBA 2K21

Providing a complete NBA experience, NBA2K21 accurately captures and then places you center stage of everything that makes NBA basketball great. The music, the sounds, the energy, the hype, and most importantly the gameplay, this sports sim provides fans of the game the complete experience. With detailed controls and dynamic gameplay which mimics the game’s best players, you, the player, can play out your hoop dreams on the world’s biggest stage. Just mind your step on the microtransactions on your path to glory.

NBA 2K21 is a good, but severely flawed game. Once those flaws get fixed though, there won't be a better basketball game on the market.

The best basketball returns with NBA 2K21, a new release that comes with several new features in its most played modes and a totally renewed shooting system.

The work of Visual Concepts is, also this year, solid and of absolute quality, even if necessarily less "busy" than usual.

This current-gen version of NBA 2K21 definitely feels like a transitory episode of the game, with welcome improvements to MyTEAM, career and shooting mechanic, but without any other meaningful changes to the game's formula over last year.

2K21 is another solid entry in the series that builds upon the great gameplay strides of the last few years. Visual Concepts has some fires to put out and hopefully that happens sooner rather than later so fans can get on to enjoying the grind.

NBA 2K21 is positioned as a too continuous delivery of its predecessor. Visual Concepts has tried to surprise everyone with the new Pro Stick, but the result has been too irregular in the different shooting situations to consider it a hit.

NBA 2K21 still offers the best gameplay in any sports game this generation, but the lack of innovation does little to distinguish this game from the previous year's entry. If you add a new shooting system that is counterintuitive, the utter disinterest by the studio in the single-player modes, and the ever present microtransactions, you finish up with a game that could be much greater than what it manages to be.

In a generation where NBA 2K had border on excellence as the norm, a last-minute change in gameplay due to a new shooting mechanic makes its farewell bittersweet. Hopefully in the face of a new generation they'll return to what worked in the past.

Aside from the polarizing shooting concept, a new look to the Neighborhood and a completely revamped MyTeam mode, there isn’t much difference in this and NBA 2K20. If you’re not a hardcore MyTeam player, I’m not sure this is a must-have for you–especially if you’re buying it on next-gen...Also, were this a half-priced or free-to-play expansion to NBA 2K20, I would have evaluated it through a different lense. As it is, there are some strong components, but it doesn’t feel like a completely new game in as many aspects as usual.

In short, NBA 2K21 is a solid entry for the franchise, and is arguably the smoothest on-court performer of this console generation. However, its value will largely depend on how tolerant users are of a corny, repetitive story mode and mostly the same options as in previous editions. According to most of the web, 2K Games is building the next-gen versions of NBA 2K21 from the ground up to match the improved technology. Here’s to hoping they upgrade more than the graphics, while keeping the on-court play intact.

Beyond the controversy, NBA 2K21 manages to save itself only because of the special attention that the development team puts on its playability since the game does not offer anything at the moment other than its already known modes, which are beginning to being flagged by the community as old and outdated, as well as an online component that got eaten up by microtransactions.

NBA 2K21 is a tough game to review. On the court, the game is mostly very good. The passing and dribbling feels excellent and the My Career mode is certainly well-acted. It could easily be a high 8 or 9 if the whole progression system didn’t feel so broken. If you know how aggressive the microtransactions are going in, and are willing to either stall your progress or spend the money, you’ll find a really good on-court game here. If not however, it’s likely to be a very frustrating experience.

While there are issues, which are worst in MyCareer, it still is enjoyable. If you’re willing to play the long game and deal with the current difficulties, what you’re going to get is going to eventually be a good game with a solid experience. My guess is the issues will be fixed at least by the launch of the next gen systems so that every version of the game has a strong experience. The biggest issues might be fixed earlier. If you were dead set on getting the current-gen version, I’d say give it about a month. Things should be working better by then. And if you’re planning to play on console and upgrade to the next-gen consoles, get the Mamba edition. For $100, you got both the current and next-gen version as well as any fixes that had been put in.

Only the novelties of the My Team mode are satisfactory for a forgettable title on the current generation of consoles.

NBA 2K21 is still a wonderful digital simulation of basketball, with a wealth of modes to enjoy, but the MyCareer story has become stale and the microtransactions far too prevalent. This is not the step forwards that it needed to be to keep the series fresh and engaging. In other words, this title does not provide a compelling argument to upgrade from last year's version.

An incredible simulation of the game of basketball, which might as well be a free-to-play mobile game with so many microtransactions at times. If you can resist the temptation to pour money in, it’s the best sports sim on the market by a fair distance. Unfortunately, this is the worst game in the franchise for attempting to exploit that temptation. Wait for a heavy discount to make any further outlay a more palatable decision.

Lacking fresh ideas, NBA 2K21 feels like it's just going through the motions and is a placeholder for its next-gen counterpart.

NBA 2K21 provides a good game of basketball, though its new skill shot system will thrill some players while frustrating others. MyTeam has had a bit of a refresh, which is nice, but MyCareer is really beginning to feel stale. Also, they both still rely too much on VC. Outside of that, there’s little to note that’s different to NBA 2K20, so owners of that might want to think twice before picking it up. Hopefully the next-gen version will offer up more incentives to stump up the cash.

Unless you've missed a few iterations of NBA 2K, there are few – if any – reasons to delve into this year's offering. NBA 2K21 features the same old insidious microtransactions that have marred MyCareer for years, but provides very little that's genuinely new or fresh. Capping off the generation with a whimper, we remain hopeful that NBA 2K21 is a lot better on next-gen platforms, because this current-gen version is a lukewarm rehash.

NBA 2K21 is in the end another basketball simulation game. Nothing here will catch you by surprise and leave you in awe. The biggest thing this game suffers from is the painstaking grind for VC so you can be on par with everyone else, which is not very welcoming to newcomers. It’s an enjoyable game but without any new updates or features it will end up lost in your backlog.

I wish I could call NBA 2K21 derivative but still good. It looks great as ever, but gameplay balance was ruined completely by the new shooting system, there are no new features, the MyTeam mode is going downhill plagued by microtransactions, and the game as a whole lacks even a tiniest spark of passion. [12/2020, p.67]