M圜areer portrays me as the character I already am in my sports fantasies: humble, but also the greatest player of all time, and it’s a privilege for everyone else to play with or against me or even see me play, because that’s how good I am. I felt the pressure, despite bumbling around like a toddler. I wanted to live up to my high school reputation and be picked first in the draft. I wanted to impress the Loovulle crowd every time. But sitting on the bench, waiting to go in for a chance to show off was exciting. The unskippable, sometimes pointless cutscenes can be a bit rough-I remain haunted by Matt Walsh's Matt Walsh mask-and it clearly doesn’t work as an introduction to NBA 2K17, which I mistakenly assumed it would. I also think I'll skip the face scan thing next time. (At least I didn't blow a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals.) But it's probably best that I get better at NBA 2K17 and start over so it makes sense that I'm in the NBA and not, say, a jail cell for streaking across the court, which seems more probable.
There's much more to M圜areer, obviously, had I stuck with it and risen to NBA stardom despite not understanding the three-second violation. So that was that: The Warriors Ble W A Three-One Le retired after one practice session with the Suns, went back to college and majored in political science.
(Rather than making practice sessions into mini-tutorials, if you don’t know how to execute a pick and roll you just suck.) Instead, I decide to retire after going to one team practice and failing all the drills. At this point, I have a calendar of games and practices and promotional events I can attend, and there's a whole story that takes off from there. Of course, I’m still treated like a star-I have an agent looking for shoe deals and everything-while objectively being the worst player on the Suns. It has some plans for that contingency, though: my nickname is ‘The President’ because I announced my college pick in front of an American flag (it’s a whole thing), and this jerk said they should impeach me. I’m not sure why any team would draft me-I guess M圜areer mode just doesn’t expect players to be this consistently bad. I’m clearly feeling more confident, though, because I’m calling my virtual mom a second time to tell her I’m planning to go pro. Stepping it upīack in Loovulle, my game isn't getting much better, though I manage one B- performance by accidentally grabbing a few rebounds. I also tried to make him dunk because I love seeing Curry dunk but he wouldn’t do it. It’s frustrating to end up somewhere I didn’t intend to, but I enjoyed learning to think of every push of the analog stick as a complete movement, eventually getting comfortable making Curry’s quick layups and threes. But NBA 2K17 does its best to approximate the weight and movement styles of its players, leading to a lot of contextual animations as you power around the court. I’m used to games where when you let go of the analog stick, your character stops. The hardest thing for me is basic movement. The animations are smooth and-as a side note-NBA 2K17 runs at a steady 60 fps on my original GTX Titan and supports my ultrawide monitor, so no complaints there. I quit out of M圜areer mode to practice a bit so I don’t totally disgrace my Loovulle team, and start to get the hang of moving, pivoting, and taking shots as the more agile Steph Curry. If you want to do a mid-air change shot or a post shimmy hook you can do those things, provided you know what they are and how to manipulate the analog sticks to make them happen.
But I am impressed by the number of actions NBA 2K17 has mapped to two analog sticks and the triggers (and if you didn’t know, you need a controller). Plus, a lot hinges on the stats of my hideous player, who’s 6’11”, 258 lbs, once killed a man, and moves like a redwood tree on a yoga ball. I should get into some analysis of how NBA 2K17 plays here, though it’s difficult because, as I said, I don’t know how to play basketball. The ball is the most precious thing in the world to me. “The Warriors Ble needs to cut down on the mental errors, and show more value for the ball.” Screw you too, Nate. After a cutscene in which I call my mom-which means I’ve called a virtual mom more than I’ve called my real mom this month, shamefully-I manage to score 7 points in my first real game, with 0 rebounds, 0 assists, and 0 blocks for a scouting score of D+.