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How do you all feel about the first Dev. Insight? 
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^I'm loving it. I always felt NBA LIVE 10's crossover controls + 2K's overall gameplay = Most enjoyable basketball game experience.
T0INE
formerly toine2983
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Good looks posting the first Insight Grand Puba.
Watched the video, gonna to read the article in a few.
The real time physics collision systems has me intrigued.
Watched the video, gonna to read the article in a few.
The real time physics collision systems has me intrigued.
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I just use a Xbox controller.
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"If you just throw the right stick around, you're gonna get cool stuff"
worst quote I could've read
worst quote I could've read
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I feel you but as long as the offensive player is punished (fatigue) when he is simply dribbling around like a mad man, I am not complaining."If you just throw the right stick around, you're gonna get cool stuff"
worst quote I could've read
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If I buy the PC Version, would I have to buy two controller adapters for my 360 controllers? I might do that this time around.
-DC do you play on PC? Any insight of that over console?
-DC do you play on PC? Any insight of that over console?
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I have a wired controller for my XBOX, so since it is essentially a USB connect at the end it works on the PC.
I don't play on the PC but I will be converting this season for sure.
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@Toine, I don't view it that way. I simply look at it as specific skills that separate players. I don't think they will make it arcadish at all.
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If I play this on Kinect I'll be ejected by halftime.
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It's cheaper on PC too.
jhawk826
Banned
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[h1]NBA 2K13[/h1]
[h1] [/h1][h2]25 Things We Know About NBA 2K13[/h2]
Preview
by Matt Bertz on August 10, 2012 at 07:00 AM
1,659 Views
6
At a recent visit to the Game Informer offices, Visual Concepts spilled the beans about everything NBA 2K13 has to offer, including My Player, Association, online plans, and a few new surprises. We’ll touch on all of this at later dates, but first and foremost we’re sharing details on our hands-on gameplay session.
NBA 2K13 is building off a solid gameplay foundation, but that isn’t preventing Visual Concepts from shaking things up. Here are 25 things we learned during our meeting:
PRESENTATION
- In past games Visual Concepts felt that after the whistle blew the presentation would often break the sense of immersion with flaws in the way players acted and reacted. The transition of seeing LeBron James make one of his signature dunks, but then stumble aimlessly around the court like a zombie as a quarter came to a close was jarring. In NBA 2K13, the team made an effort to seamlessly integrate ambient actions to make sure that players are doing things they would actually do in real life during dead ball situations.
- The dynamic commentary I heard between Steve Kerr, Clark Kellogg, and Kevin Harlan proves they are still the premier virtual broadcast team. The conversations flow seamlessly, they discuss off-court activity and statistics like real-life commentators, and their cadence rises and falls with the intensity of the action.
- The broadcast replays are also unrivaled in sports games. This year Visual Concepts has added a few new flourishes, like Nike+ Basketball integration that shows you how high a player jumps during a slam-dunk replay. These replays only trigger if the player making the dunk is wearing Nike+ Basketball shoes.
GAMEPLAY
- It turns out gameplay producer Mike Wang may have learned a thing or two while working on the NBA Live franchise for EA Sports after all. This year NBA 2K takes one of the few good pages out of the Live playbook by revamping its right analog controls to include dribbling moves.
- Dubbed the Control Stick, the right analog stick now works for dribbling, shooting, post play, and passing. Visual Concepts says this new control scheme opens up a plethora of new moves they didn’t have before.
- Isomotion didn't allow players to do anything standing because it was tied to your movement stick. Now you can cross over, go behind the back, or between the legs. This allows you to set up a guy up the way you would on a real court.
- Holding down the left trigger turns the Control Stick back into the Shot Stick from last year.
- Visual Concepts revamped the passing so players are smarter about which passes they make. This year if you take the ball down the middle on the fast break and see a guy filling the lane you will make a nice bounce pass instead of an overhead pass that is easy for the defender to pick off. If you want to guarantee your player throws a bounce pass, you can hold the left trigger and press the pass button.
- Previous NBA 2K games married the passing and catching systems, which meant that the moment you made the pass, the catch was determined as well. This made it hard to jump the lane and cause a turnover on defense because if you weren’t in the passing lane at the time of the pass the system wouldn’t register you as a factor. In NBA 2K13, Visual Concepts has separated these systems. The game makes the appropriate pass at the time you press the button, and the intended receiver makes the appropriate catch based on when the ball is arriving. This should inject more variety into the pass catching animations and hopefully make some balls more susceptible to interception.
- For the first time in the series, the controls for a dribbler and a player in the post mimic one another. Twirling the right analog stick to spin works in both states. Since players no longer need to master a different minigame when posting up, it should be much easier for players to transition between attacking the basket and playing with your back to the rim.
- Visual Concepts also changed the alley-oop controls. This year when you see an opportunity for a quick basket at the rim, you can mash the A and X buttons to throw it up.
- For players who developed muscle reflexes for the Shot Stick, getting used to the Control Stick is going to require an adjustment period. In my short time with the game, I was still accidentally making a dribbling move instead of hoisting up the rock when I saw an opportunity to shoot. Visual Concepts producer Rob Jones says that after playing a handful of games you should get the hang of it.
- NBA 2K games have always packed in a ridiculous amount of animations, but shots tended to play out the same regardless of contact. Thanks to the new Dynamic Shot Generator, the game now uses a physics system to takes into account momentum, the degree of contact, player size, and strength ratings to determine if a player knifes through the defender, is stopped at the point of contact, or gets the shot off but stumbles and falls to the floor. Visual Concepts hopes this will make contact more realistic and keep the outcomes from looking like canned animations.
- The physics system introduced by the Dynamic Shot Generator also affects rebounding, blocking collisions, and charging. Savvy defenders can actually take a charge this year.
- Speaking of defense, players have more smooth movements on defense and appear to be much more reactive. The physics helps more physical defenders guarding against drives to the baskets as well. If you step into the dribbler’s lane, the collision deflects guys the way it would in real life so the attacker won’t just slide off the defender. The dev team hopes this will help players feel like defending can play a vital role in the game instead of just feeling like an obstacle.
- Last year, the AI had multiple options to attack your defense, but it would pick one approach at random. To cut down on the amount of times a player can cheat the system by standing in an obvious passing lane to pick off a ball, Visual Concepts has developed a reactive AI that is smart enough to know when you are trying to take away options. This year, it will notice your guy jumping the lane and look for a backdoor option instead of throwing the obvious pass.
- To better distinguish between the AI point guard performances in the league, Visual Concepts has added awareness differentiations. While a veteran, pass-first point guard like Jason Kidd has a 360-degree view of what’s happening around him, shoot-first point guards or less talented players will have part of the court shaded like a fog of war in strategy games.
- In past games, fans found that it didn't matter how wide the player ratings scale was, because the talented players at a respective position always played the same. To better differentiate between players, Visual Concepts has taken a page out of FIFA and Madden by introducing Signature Skills. Each player can have up to five signature skills, which cover everything from being a spot up shooter or alley-ooper on offense to being a chasedown artist or pick-pocketer on defense.
- Most of the signature skills are individual traits, but some players also have skills that extend to their teammates, which Visual Concepts is calling “team auras.” A floor general will improve the play of everyone else on the court, as will a high-energy defensive specialist.
- Visual Concepts is still locking down the number of skill traits for the game, but right now they are hovering around 28. The developer has not commented on whether or not players will gain or lose signature skills as their career progresses.
BETTER WITH KINECT?- Like FIFA and Madden, NBA 2K13 takes advantage of the Kinect’s voice recognition software to offer players a new way to interact with the game.
- The Kinect controls work for several basic menu functions, such as calling a timeout, substituting players, changing defenses, or calling plays.
- Most of the commands are conversational and supplemented with AI logic. If you notice Kevin Garnett is tired, simply say “substitute Kevin Garnett” and the AI will chose an appropriate player. If you want to bring a resting star like Kevin Durant off the bench, say “bring in Kevin Durant” and the AI will choose who should sit.
- These conversational commands extend to playcalling as well. Rather than calling out specific plays for players, you can simply say “Run a screen play for Kobe” and the game will automatically choose one of the many screen plays for him. Once the play is activated, the play vision art will appear on screen to guide you though the attack.
- You also need to watch your mouth when using Kinect. If you swear after a bad call, the ref may decide to issue a technical foul.
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Seems like Wang is trying to implement things he was using in Live 10 into 2K--which is a great thing.
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The way of the future my ***! Wasn't EA doing this in Live in like, 04?! I don't know how to feel about this. I guess I need to see it first. Personally, I liked it when the moves were more natural. You trying to manuver your player around would automatically send him into moves if his handling skills were good enough.
wavy bone
Banned
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Which is kind of stupid if you're thinking how things work realistically. Just as mentioned in the article...you aren't able to perform a move while standing because the movement/dribbling was on the same damn stick.
futuremd
Banned
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I feel like we want too much out of video games at times...
our hands can only control SO MUCH and have only so many buttons available to us.
our hands can only control SO MUCH and have only so many buttons available to us.
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A must have. Especially since Jay is the executive producer
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dude in the video (wang?) looking like restore my sneakers long lost lil brother
video did get me a little excited tho
video did get me a little excited tho
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T0INE
formerly toine2983
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Link[h1]First hands-on look at 'NBA 2K13'[/h1]
Russell Westbrook dribbles the ball as I call for the pick. Kendrick Perkins rumbles to the top of the key, and in pure brick-house fashion, he simply destroys Mario Chalmers, who made the very painful mistake of trying to run through the screen. Now that Westbrook breaks free, I use the right stick to spin the freakishly athletic point guard through the lane, and as Chris Bosh slides over to play help D, I pull the left trigger while hitting the shot stick away from the hoop to drain the step back jumper.
“And one!?!” I scream at the TV. Bosh was all over him on the shot and it looked like he hit nothing but arm. “That’s bull----!”
This leads to the polygonal ref calling a technical foul on the bench for the way I cursed him out.
That’s right -- the first technical foul where the player is yelling from his couch. And that’s “NBA 2K13” and all of the new gameplay changes in a nutshell.
Now read the sequence of events again and tell me how many differences you can spot from “NBA 2K12.”
I’ll help you out: Kinect play-calling using voice commands, signature skills to help further define player attributes (brick-wall screens, team leaders, corner-men who love to shoot threes), right stick dribble moves, left trigger plus right stick shot stick, and swearing at the screen now equals a technical foul.
And that’s just the beginning. As I got my hands on the latest build of “NBA 2K13” for about an hour this week, I have to say: What I just played blew me away. The game is already so smooth, so seamless, and so flat-out spectacular, having to wait until October to get my hands on the final build now seems like years away.
http://“For us, it seems like we hit a home run every four years,” admits the game’s producer Rob Jones. “In between those big games, we’ve made good games, but they weren’t games that resonated in a consumer’s mind like that one. We had ‘2K7,’ then we had ‘2K8,’ and in a lot of ways, ‘2K8’ was a better game than ‘2K7,’ but people don’t remember that. All they want to talk about is ‘2K7.’ Then we had ‘2K11’ and ‘2K12,’ and ‘2K12’ in a full picture, is a better, fuller, more complete package than ‘11’ was, but ‘11’ was incredible, and people will still go back to that.
“But to me, ‘NBA 2K13’ is finally going to break that four-year spell. It’s a game that’s evolving, and for the first time in a long time, I think the minute gamers pick it up and play, it’s going to be both familiar and different at the same time. The moment you feel it, the moment you play it, you’ll realize the differences right away.”
The biggest change to the game is that all dribble moves have been transferred to the right stick. Now if you want to cross-over, dribble behind your back, between your legs, or spin, it’s no longer about dribbling with the left stick and shooting with the right stick. Now you dribble and make moves with the right stick while pressing the left stick in the direction you wish to move, and then when it’s time to shoot, you simply hold down the left trigger to switch the right stick to 2K’s famous shot stick. Sound complicated? It’s really not, and took less than a quarter to get used to. I had a beautiful crossover and shot one play, but the next play I’d pass to a wide-open Ray Allen but forget to hit the trigger, causing me to look pretty stupid as I dribbled directly into the oncoming defender and kicked the ball out of bounds. A few plays later, though, it’s like I’d been playing with the new controls for years, and they just became part of the game.
“For years, we’ve championed our shot stick, and it’s still the only way I ever want to play our game because it gives me all of the options that I want,” says Jones. “On the flip side, we’ve always struggled with not having the dribble controls that are free from movement. With the left stick dribble moves, we just couldn’t achieve everything we wanted. So this year, we’ve added the control stick. It’s the first year where we have the control stick, with dribbling first, then you modify it to shot stick. So you now have both controls on the right stick, separated by the trigger. Now you have the full stick for dribbles, and the full stick for shots, so your options are pretty much limitless.”
In addition, post moves have been consolidated to use the same controls, so once you back your opponent down, the moves on the right stick are mapped to be the same as what you’re trying to accomplish in the lane. If you want to spin, spin the right stick. If you want to drive, simply press and hold towards the hoop.
“We’ve also done a lot to the defensive end using the right stick,” adds Jones. “We have crowding, shading, hands up, quick cut-offs ... there are a number of advanced moves you can now do on defense thanks to the right stick controls, and it’s so much more than the usual hands up or take a charge. This is actually one of the things we’re most proud of. Our defensive control is very, very tight this year. If you play honest defense this year, you’ll force the A.I. to look for other solutions beyond attacking the guy who you’re controlling.”
Another cool addition is the ability to throw alley-oops off the backboard to either a teammate or to yourself. Using the Xbox 360 controller, alley-oop is the simultaneous button press of X and A. But now if you want to do a little something even more crazy to get the fans on their feet, while hitting X and A, simply press the left stick towards the basket. My first attempt was a bit wild and actually went flying over the backboard, but on my second attempt I was able to pull off a sweet-looking play where Ray Allen threw the ball off the backboard, went up in the air, caught his own pass, switched to his left hand, and finished with a scooping layup (I guess even polygonal Ray is a bit old to finish that one off with a slam).
Voice commands have also been added to “NBA 2K13” via the Kinect mic. Simply say, “Give me a screen,” and a player will set a screen for you. Or you can shout commands like “Post up Chris Bosh,” or “Sub in Mike Miller” and you’ll see everything play out in front of you, from Bosh going to the post and calling for the ball, to Mike Miller getting up off the bench as he gets ready to enter the game (I think he needs to stretch out that back first).
Like I said in the intro, though, with the Kinect mic on, you have to be careful when questioning the wisdom (and vision) of the virtual officiating crew. Technical fouls are actually tied to certain curse words and phrases, and a technical foul will be called on the bench. “We didn’t want a player to be kicked out of the game for something you said,” laughs Jones. “We just wanted to make it fun.”
Also entertaining is the game’s new dynamic shot generator, where collision and physical reaction come into play with every move. Kevin Durant drove hard to the lane but was fouled hard across the top of his head, and I actually saw him stagger and rub his forehead, looking like a punch-drunk boxer as he tried to run back on D.
“This creates a fluid and physical offensive, defensive, shooting and dunking game,” Jones said. “And since these animations aren’t canned, the reactions are going to be completely dynamic every single time you play them.”
The ability to quantify and differentiate between player traits is the final piece of the gameplay puzzle Jones showed me, introducing what he calls Signature Skills.
“If you played last year, and you were good, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between playing as Rudy Gay and playing as Kobe Bryant,” admits Jones. “If you knew how to play as Rudy Gay, he was pretty much the same guy in our game. The truth is, Kobe has these intangibles, he has these abilities in real life that Rudy just doesn’t do, and we needed to find a way to bring that into the game.”
With Signature Skills, there are 28 special talents that affect the way you play, giving up to five of these special traits to certain players in the game.
Explains Jones: “This isn’t as simple as saying Kobe’s better at this, and giving him an attribute boost. This literally changes the way the game reacts to certain things that happen. LeBron is a chase-down artist. You’ve seen him run down players all the time to block their layups. So now in a situation where he’s chasing someone down in ‘NBA 2K13,” this comes into play, and we make it easier for him to run down and make the block. I look at it like a game trait.”
Other skills include Kendrick Perkins as a brick wall who will floor players with his hard screens, while a lockdown defender like Andre Iguodala will neutralize the brick wall screen because he will know how to get around it while keeping his hands in the shooter’s face.
“It becomes a matter of not only knowing what a guy’s attributes are, but what he’s good at, and this is a fun way of learning that,” says Jones. “It’s not rock-paper-scissors because not everything has a full counter. Chris Paul is a floor general, so he makes everyone’s awareness on the floor better, and that helps him execute plays quicker. Shane Battier is a corner specialist, so pass him the ball in the corner and you know that ball is going in because that’s where he likes to shoot it from. We want you to be able to differentiate why Kobe is better than Rudy Gay in the video game, and these signature skills will help you figure out why while having a really fun time doing it.”
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I like the move to dribbling with the right stick
Will buy, and hope to not be disappoint.
Will buy, and hope to not be disappoint.
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I'm excited for this game!!!!
