2K Sports conference call for NBA 2K8

by: John - posted: 9/30/2007 5:17:00 AM

NBA 2K8 from 2K Sports isn't too far off and on Friday September 28th, the folks at 2K Sports held a conference call about the game. I've always enjoyed the 2K8 series over the Live series from EA so I'm excited for this year's version to come out.  On the surface, the game's got an increase in graphics quality, improvements in association and franchise areas, addition of the Slam Dunk contest, and AI tweaks. The folks at 2K Sports state the Slam Dunk contest as a great party game and one newcomers to the series should have a lot of fun with. Grab a few of your friends and try to show off your best throw downs. You'll even be able to compete online, something that NBA Live doesn't have.

As far as the core gameplay goes, there's been many improvements implemented to create a more natural game looking and feeling game of basketball. Post moves have been updated with multiple ways to get to the basket and depending on the type of player you are they'll use their strengths in the post game. For example, Carmello Anthony will use his quickness to score while Shaquille O'neal will use power moves. One of the 2K Sports representatives mentioned that he wasn't a fan of the post game in the past and relied on guard play but with the new post game features he now goes into the post more and really takes advantage of it.

Speaking of real life players, they'll play more to their tendencies. For example, Lebron James might go off for 30+ points but they won't be forced just like in real life. I know there were many times I watched Cleveland Cavaliers games where James would lead both teams in scoring and it just seemed like he didn't shoot nearly as much to get those points. If you're playing the Spurs, you'll see players feed it to Tim Duncan more in this year's version as that's how it really is.

AI, of course, gets some upgrade and the AI will look for mismatches and try to exploit them as much as possible. So you'll have to be on top of your game this year and make sure you get some help D if you see EarlBoykins guardiing Dirk Nowitski . Conversely, the AI will play more help D. They'll also look for the right time to do certain moves in defense such as stripping the player with the ball as they are going up for the layup.

Animations have been worked on that also help gameplay. In the past, it was a little too easy to pick off passes. 2K Sports went to motion capture guards passing the ball and found that they got rid of the ball a lot quicker. Putting this in the game, it should be harder to pick off passes from guards now. The signature moves have expanded this year to include dunks, dribbles, post moves, jump shots, and free throws. I hope they don't have Lebron doing his kiss the wrist band moves when he's at the line as that really killed his free throw percentage last year. Anyways, movement and momentum is also affected by the size of the player and you'll be able to see a difference between the bigs and the smalls. For dunking, you'll see the different styles that NBA players are known for. Lebron's dunks will be all about power while Kobe Bryant's all about style so you'll see different animations between the two and all in between for other players. The buzz word around the 2K offices is OP or organically perfect as the team strives to make the players move as human like as possible.

As far as differences between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version, they are 99.9% identical says 2K Sports. The frame rate of both games should be the same. One difference though is the PlayStation 3 version supports a full five on five online game but the Xbox 360 only supports four and four and that's due to the controller limitation. Also, not much was said about downloadable content so we'll have to wait and see on that one.

An other wait and see was the possibility of the Wii version and whether the DualShock 3 rumble feature would be used in future versions of the game.

NBA 2K8 is due out tomorrow and here's to another great season of the NBA. I'm hoping my Cavs can make it to the Finals again.