Of course, there are thousands upon thousands of customization options for your player, your clothing, and your MyPark, but it's unfortunate that the character models for created players still look like characters from the Xbox 360 release of Skyrim. That said, this year's Mењњareer mode is a lot more freeform, and allows for much more player choice between game days, which is a nice change from last year's more linear Spike Lee Joint. Jordan turns in a great performance as your player's rival-slash-teammate-slash-motivator-slash-friend, which is more than I can say for Coach K, who delivers his lines with all the excitement of somebody who just got invited to an acquaintance's improv performance. The NBA 2K franchise has made a name for itself in past years with well-written and fleshed out career modes, and NBA 2K17 is no exception. Again, it's not a hugely noticeable change, but it makes the game feel a lot more true-to-life. It doesn't feel like the ball is snapping to players it feels a lot more alive. It is admittedly easier for defenders to poke the ball away, however, and the ball now ricochets realistically off of players' hands and arms, which is a nice touch. This is true, but at the end of the day, this isn't a hugely noticeable change if you're not forcing passes. Much has been made of the fact that NBA 2K17 features new ball movement and passing mechanics, mostly by the 2K Sports marketing team. At the end of the day, however, this isn't a huge issue, given that the upshot of this annoyance is that it finally, thankfully, makes it fun to play as a big man. It takes some getting used to, and the fact that player momentum has been tweaked only exacerbates that problem. This is especially frustrating when you're trying to move through the key to shift onto a defender off of a screen, run into your team's power forward, and try unsuccessfully to get around him and his man before getting called for a 3-in-the-key penalty, and no, that totally didn't happen to me in the middle of a big game thank you very much. Once you're engaged with an opposing player, it's pretty difficult to move away from them, even if you're trying to move in the opposite direction. The flip side of this is that in making player interactions a lot more realistic, the developers also appear to have coated them in glue. Everything feels a whole lot less random. This applies to off-ball play as well - boxing players out and wrestling for position is now necessary to snag a rebound, and defenders have tools at their disposal to force their man to go to their weak side, or muscle them out of the key.

Drop steps, outlet passes, and post moves designed to bait a defender into fouling you are a lot more effective. For the first time, backing down an opponent feels natural.

That said, the changes the developers have made to player interactions has made post play a lot more satisfying, and a lot less confusing. NBA 2K16 featured a wide variety of moves players could unleash from a post-up position, and NBA 2K17 is no different. Happily, this inertia tweak is mitigated somewhat by the refinements that have been made to play in the post. Players are much harder to move past, screens are a lot more effective, and big men have more inertia, meaning that you have to be pretty precise on defense or risk over-committing to one side and careening off away from the play.

Whether you jump in with career mode, an exhibition game, or franchise mode, you'll notice that the game is a lot heavier-seeming. I don't know if the developers had Olivia Newton-John songs on repeat while coding this game, but I wouldn't be surprised. Fortunately, NBA 2K17 has avoided this pitfall by making changes in a strategic way, changes that have far reaching implications that drastically improve the way the game feels and plays. But change isn't always good - anyone who remembers the first version of Madden's Ignite tackling engine could tell you as much. We already went over some of the biggest changes you're bound to findВ the first time you boot up your shiny new copy of NBA 2K17, the newest edition of 2K Sports's flagship NBA franchise.

Nba 2k17 ps3 free