NBA 2K15 – My Career Rookie Season Impressions

January 13, 2015 Josh Gilbert

When playing a sports game, it can be really hard to enjoy every single feature of the game. For games such as MLB The Show and NBA 2K15, the seasons are so long that it would take hundreds of hours to experience multiple seasons of each mode. That is why I like to put my eggs in one basket and focus on a single mode through the entirety of my gaming experience. For the last couple of years with the NBA 2K series I have focused on My Career mode. There’s something so rewarding about taking a player with your likeness, rising to the top, and eventually posterizing Lebron James on the fast break. During my rookie season I noticed plenty new changes that were great additions, and also some things that still need some work. Here are my impressions of my player’s rookie season.

Face Scan

The face scan feature for NBA 2K15 was one of the main reasons I bought the camera for the Playstation 4. In previous years I have tried features in other games that attempted to personalize your player to your likeness, and they failed miserably. A few years ago I decided to give the Madden Game Face feature a shot, which essentially took a picture you uploaded to the EA website, and crop your face on a blank head. The end result looked like someone printed my face on a piece of paper, cut it out, and then glued it onto a balloon.

I had pretty low expectations before trying the face scan feature, especially after seeing some of the early results that looked like characters from Monsters Inc. My first face scan wasn’t as horrible as most of the results you find, but it was still pretty awful. I was sporting a bit of scruff at the time, and the scan didn’t really register my cheeks, making me look like I got hit with a hot iron on both sides of my face. My eyes were extremely puffy, like I had an allergy attack or went 12 rounds with Mike Tyson (unfortunately I did not grab a screenshot). I decided to keep this version for a few games, thinking it was the best I was going to get, but got sick of looking at a Frankenstein version of myself. What I really liked was the fact I could go back and do another scan and my player would be automatically updated for my saved progress without having to start my season over.

All in all, the face scan feature is pretty excellent. That being said, there is a lot of fine tuning that needs to be done. A major issue with the face scan was I wasn’t able to wear accessories such as a head band, without it looking mangled. Another issue was how long the scan actually took. It felt like I was sitting in front of my camera turning my head back and forth for over 10 minutes. Hopefully these issues are fixed for the next installment of the NBA 2K franchise.

One of the few issues with the face scan: No cool head bands allowed

Player Interactions

One of my favourite things when playing my player’s rookie season was the player interactions. Almost immediately after joining the Denver Nuggets, fellow point guard Ty Lawson took me under his wing. Before or after games he would give me advice or invite me to shoot extra warm up shots. Once during a game my teammate took a hard flagrant foul, and my player confronted the opposing player and I had the decision whether or not I wanted to throw down on him or not. Being that I was on fire that game, I resisted getting ejected, but it would have been pretty interesting to see how it would have played out.

There was one interaction in particular that I wasn’t too fond of. It wasn’t a player interaction, but who introduced himself to me after a game? None other than Pharrell Williams and his stupid gigantic Arby’s hat. I get that he put together the soundtrack for NBA 2K15, but the whole scene was just corny.

10392460_10155140001845473_9156068402585071831_n — When you’re on top of the league you get to meet celebrities, like Pharrell and his stupid hat

There are plenty other things I’ve really enjoyed, as well as disliked. I will breakdown the rest of them now:

I thought it was pretty neat that when I decided to re-sign with Denver they had a press conference, and also announced the signing of head coach Doc Rivers.
The rivalries between fellow rookie Dante Exum made it more competitive when facing off against the Utah Jazz. The other rivalry with James Harden was a little too much too soon, since my rating was 65 and he’s in the mid 90’s.
I’m not sure how I feel about the skills being bundled into categories. Instead of specializing in specific skills you have to level up entire categories. For example if you wanted to improve your free throw shooting, you would have to also improve your shooting from all ranges on the court.
I really enjoyed how there was more of a storyline implemented into My Career mode. Being an undrafted free agent and having to work your way up in the NBA ranks was a fun experience.

NBA 2K15‘s My Career mode has made some really good strides compared to the previous year. With some simple tweaks and improvements My Career mode will continue to be the most entertaining mode in all of sports games. For NBA 2K16 impressions, click here