Wayback Wednesday: 24/7 Mode in NBA 2K

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the various iterations of 24/7 mode in NBA 2K.

There are many features, modes, and concepts in basketball video games that are older than we may recall. To that point, MyCAREER has been a staple of NBA 2K since its debut as My Player way back in NBA 2K10; a game released in 2009. For that matter, the story-driven approach to MyCAREER has been the standard for over ten years now, debuting in NBA 2K14 Next Gen and appearing in almost three times as many games as the original version of the mode. In short, a single player career mode is nothing new at this point.

However, the concept is even older than that! While we didn’t get a fully-fledged NBA-oriented career experience until 2009, earlier games did experiment with single player campaign modes. Indeed, NBA 2K branched out into this area very early on in the series, introducing 24/7 mode in ESPN NBA Basketball (aka NBA 2K4). It was relatively short-lived as it was phased out after NBA 2K7, but it stands as a creative concept that undoubtedly paved the way for modern career modes. Let’s take a look back…way back…

When 24/7 debuted in ESPN NBA Basketball, the concept of creating a character and playing through a campaign certainly wasn’t new to video games. 24/7 did add a new twist to the idea though, which gave the mode its name. Upon starting 24/7 for the first time, you’ll be prompted to ensure that your console’s time and date are correct. This is because the passage of time matters. Unlike other modes that are essentially frozen in time until you fire up your saved game once again, your 24/7 player will be treated as though he’s – if you’ll excuse the oxymoron – actively idling. In other words, even when you don’t play the mode, time still marches on, impacting your player.

Basically, the mode is meant to be played constantly, and around the clock; 24/7, if you will. If you do let your game collect virtual dust for days and weeks on end, your player’s skills will atrophy. For gamers who are familiar with MyCAREER in NBA 2K24, it’s similar to the concept of losing Badge progress if you don’t maintain them by performing the requisite in-game tasks. Mind you, in the spirit of acknowledging concepts that are older than one may think, 90s kids like me will recognise that it’s basically the idea behind digital pets such as Tamagotchis. I’ll admit that it’s kind of weird to liken a basketball game avatar to a Tamagotchi, but in this instance, it fits!

With that being said, let’s dive into the first iteration of 24/7. As you’d expect for a game released in 2003, the facial creation features are deep enough for some variety, but still fairly limited. Also, black beards oddly show up as medium brown, so they’re mismatched with the hairstyle. After creating your player, you’re taken to the Battle Map, where you can access your home base, training facilities, and locations around the United States where the challenges/battles take place. As you’d probably expect, your player begins with modest ratings, so it’s a good idea to hit the training gym to get a feel for them and start raising your attributes before taking on any NBA players.

The basic premise is that you’re a streetballer looking to become a legend as you barnstorm your way across the USA. There are several locations to unlock, each of which feature an array of streetball challenges. Your player has to battle NBA players, Legends, and boss characters to prove that they’re the supreme baller. In addition to the main campaign, you can play against a friend’s 24/7 player locally (or online when the servers were still active). Defeating players adds them to your cell phone’s contact list, allowing you to call them up to play with you. The battles at each location are on a daily schedule, and you can set reminders for upcoming events you want to play.

Suffice it to say, this was quite an ambitious idea! In some ways, it was live service content before live service content. Events aren’t coming through from a server, but the battles that are available will change in real time. Battles take place in some fantastic-looking settings, from a driveway court to a construction site blacktop to indoor facilities. Games consist of 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 matchups with various rules and gameplay modifiers. Some battles are straightforward streetball games. Others use a mini ball that’s easier to shoot, or a giant ball that makes shooting harder. There are games where steals and blocks subtract points, and where jumpshots aren’t allowed.

This makes for a good blend of sim-style streetball gameplay, and wacky “video game mechanics”. You have to adjust your strategies depending on the modifiers, which can lead to some unorthodox tactics. In Bomb Ball, where the ball is rigged to explode and cost you a point, it can be wise to give up rebounds so that the CPU takes the hit instead! That adds depth and freshness to the campaign, and playing through it and winning games also unlocks items that you can equip. In between games, you can duck over to the training facility to keep raising your attributes. As you raise your ranking, you’ll gain enough rep to be able to challenge the boss characters as well.

As a concept, the first iteration of 24/7 in ESPN NBA Basketball is impressive. You can see the desire to innovate that became the trademark of NBA 2K, which over the years has led to incredibly deep modes and connected experiences. However, having actually played 24/7 in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7 first, I’ll admit that I don’t find the first iteration of the mode to be all that enjoyable. Most of its ideas are good and certainly well-intentioned, but not always well-executed. There are definitely issues with balance and grinding, and it begins with training. As I said, you’ll want to train your player, but that can be a struggle.

In the first iteration of 24/7, there are no drills as such. Instead, you play games to 21, with a set repeatable goal: make two dunks or layups without getting blocked, make two jumpshots without missing, intercept two passes, etc. It’s an intriguing approach to training, but it doesn’t take long to see the flaws. First of all, because it’s a pickup game, you need to manufacture the scenarios to complete the tasks. Second, it’s easy to win the game before completing the tasks, or squander your upgrades if you lose. Finally, some “drills” require a teammate, so you’ll need to defeat a player and get their number before you can attempt them. This approach is annoyingly inefficient.

Take the steal drill game, for example. In this 2-on-2 game, you need to intercept two passes. Every pair of interceptions will earn a point for your steal attribute. Because the game is winner’s outs however, you’ll need to miss a shot or turn the ball over so that you can get a second interception after the first. At the same time, you do need to keep hitting shots, because if you don’t win the game, you won’t get those upgrades. Similarly, in the dunks/layups drill, if you make one and then take a jumpshot on your next attempt, the training point counter resets. All well and good, except when your momentum stops dead and you take a jumper instead of going into a driving shot.

To be fair, when everything works as intended, the approach is viable. It’s still quite tedious though, especially when your failure is more on the game’s mechanics rather than your input. This carries over to the battles themselves. To the above point about losing momentum and taking a jumpshot instead of continuing your drive, this is a killer in the “no jumpshots” games! The combination of low starting ratings, those clunky Isomotion controls, the CPU’s tendency to stick to you like glue and steal the ball as you try to blow by them, some tough opponents out of the gate, and the need to adjust to gameplay modifiers, can result in the challenge feeling artificial and unfair.

Perhaps worst of all, the CPU isn’t bound by the battle rules. You can’t take jumpshots, but it can. Having your shot blocked will obliterate your score in “no blocks” games, but the CPU suffers no such penalty. This is actually the case in later iterations of 24/7 as well, but improvements to the controls don’t disadvantage you as in ESPN NBA Basketball. Games can run long – especially with any modifiers that subtract points – and if you lose, you don’t even gain some token XP, making it feel like a waste of time. I appreciate that it’s intended to be challenging and losing shouldn’t exactly be rewarded, but it can feel contrived, and not as fun as I believe it should be.

Of course, that’s personal preference. Some gamers may like the unforgiving nature of that challenge, but in my view, it’s a bit too much. With the gameplay modifiers, the low starting ratings, the quality of opponents from the very beginning, and a flawed method of slowing grinding up your ratings, it strikes me as poorly-balanced, with too many variables contributing to the challenge. On top of all of that, if you don’t play often enough, your player’s ratings will decline! Once again though, that will (and indeed, did) appeal to other gamers, as 24/7 mode is remembered quite fondly from what I’ve seen. I understand why, because it’s certainly novel and relatively deep.

ESPN NBA 2K5 features an “enhanced” 24/7 mode, with a new Respect system and unlockables. It also adds a couple of new gear options when creating your player, though the issue with black beards being brown carries over from the previous game. The basic structure of the mode remains unchanged: you barnstorm across the USA, unlocking locations and taking part in challenges that run according to a schedule that goes by your console’s clock. It’s still necessary to play the mode frequently, so that your player doesn’t get “rusty”. The interface and options are very familiar, but there are some new items that you can unlock as you win games and level up your player.

On the bright side, the training games have improved. They’re more akin to drills as opposed to the 1-on-1 and 2-on-2 to 21 games in ESPN NBA Basketball. There’s 90 seconds to complete the drill enough times to hit the target score and earn an upgrade. If you exceed the target score, the boost will be bigger. If you fall short, you can still earn some partial upgrades, which is a welcome improvement. Where these drills fall short, however, is in the AI. Rather than properly running the drills with a consistent scenario, the CPU plays as if it’s a regular game. This makes gaining upgrades much tougher in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities on the sticks.

For example, in the blocking drill, you’re tasked with challenging shots at the rim. The problem is that your CPU opponent won’t always drive, taking a jumper if you leave them room, or simply trying to fire up a long shot in your face. It’s frustrating to be scolded for contesting a perimeter shot rather than a layup or dunk, when the CPU didn’t even give you the chance! Likewise, the steal drill – which still requires you to defeat and unlock a teammate beforehand – is better than before since the scenario resets, but more than half the time, the player you’re guarding will just toss up a shot instead of throwing the pass that you’re supposed to intercept, wasting precious time.

Still, it’s a step in the right direction. Granted, much of the mode is the same, but when you think about it, franchise and modern career modes also present a familiar journey year-in, year-out; especially when they reach the depth and form that most enthusiasts desire them to be. A complete overhaul to a mode with that level of depth every single year is unlikely and usually unnecessary, so I can’t really fault ESPN NBA 2K5 for being more of the same. All things considered, the improved training, revamped rep and upgrade system, and new unlockable items, are quite sufficient. There’s room for improvement, but still plenty for gamers to sink their teeth into.

That brings us to NBA 2K6. While the mode still largely resembles its predecessors with its battle map layout, unlockable locations, and a variety of different challenges, it moves away from the original premise. As indicated by the subtitle “Road to the EBC”, it has an overarching goal of reaching the Entertainer’s Basketball Classic: the annual tournament held at Rucker Park. The 24/7 moniker thus becomes a relic/legacy title, as events are no longer available on a real-time schedule running by the console’s clock. Instead, there’s a checklist to complete in order to unlock the next location. It’s also no longer necessary to play the mode frequently to avoid your player regressing.

I’m sure this came as a disappointment to some gamers, as it did drop a significant and innovative idea that the mode was originally built upon. I can absolutely relate to the disgruntlement that arises when a mode that you love is overhauled in a way that you don’t care for! However, there are drawbacks to a single player mode wherein time doesn’t stand still when you’re not playing it, and to that point, it could be argued that the original 24/7 concept had a shelf life. If nothing else, it would’ve been even more of the same for the third year in a row. With NBA 2K6 also set to be a launch title on Xbox 360, there was an opportunity to freshen up the mode for the next generation.

The PlayStation 2 and Xbox version didn’t miss out though, as they have the same 24/7: Road to the EBC as on Xbox 360. It’s a great example of continuing to care about the previous generation, and a stark contrast to what EA Sports were doing at the time. Once again, the journey begins with the creation of a custom player, though unfortunately the Xbox 360 version didn’t improve upon any of the options for facial features. In both versions of NBA 2K6, the Road to the EBC begins in Chicago, with the home base and training gym being the only other unlocked locations. Speaking of training, this is where NBA 2K6’s take on 24/7 made some excellent improvements.

Now that it’s no longer necessary to constantly play the mode and train to keep your player’s skills sharp, each drill costs a set amount of development points. Gamers are gifted a handful of points for some initial training sessions, and then additional points are earned by winning games. Best of all, every drill is an actual drill! Shooting drills task you to shoot from spots on the floor and elude defenders. The interception drill involves two opponents passing the ball back and forth. CPU players actually run the drills with you, rather than trying to play a regular pickup game. This is the kind of underlying polish that modes like 24/7 need on top of all their bells and whistles.

Opponents in 24/7: Road to the EBC include current NBA players, NBA Legends, and hip-hop artists, emphasising NBA 2K’s growing relevance and popularity by the mid 2000s. I won’t say that seeing Flavor Flav in a basketball game is necessarily on my wishlist – I can think of more important additions and enhancements – but it was a novelty when he showed up, horned helmet and all, to challenge me to a 1-on-1 game at Rucker Park! The mode actually helped to bring NBA 2K6 for Xbox 360 back into my rotation, as the short games with all of their different challenges really hooked me. There’s no question that for me, Road to the EBC is a preferable take on the mode.

Mind you, it really helps that the dribbling controls had also been greatly improved by NBA 2K6. With 24/7’s games involving so much 1-on-1 play, the weaker dribbling controls in ESPN NBA Basketball and ESPN NBA 2K5 make it significantly harder for me to enjoy the on-court experience. Admittedly I’m more accustomed to the feel of NBA 2K6 and may well warm up to the earlier iterations in time, but for me, Road to the EBC is more enjoyable. It also helps that it feels more like a traditional offline career mode, whereas the original 24/7 resembles live service content, which I have mixed feelings about. Then again, at least those games predate microtransactions!

It’s also impressive that the sixth gen and seventh gen version of Road to the EBC are practically identical. As I stated, it demonstrates how 2K avoided EA’s blunder by tipping off a new generation on the right foot, while still delivering on the soon-to-be superseded platforms. Interestingly, the Xbox 360 version doesn’t include all of the clothing unlockables that can be used to make your 24/7 player look like a modern MyPLAYER in the Park, but you can unlock shoes that provide ratings boosts, which I personally think is a preferable reward. After all, as a digital marketer might feel so inclined to point out, NBA 2K is a sim basketball title, not a Barbie dress-up game.

Road to the EBC is also well-designed in that there are challenges that will trip you up, but they’re spread across the campaign in a way that won’t hinder your progress. The ability to tackle each location’s checklist in any order also reduces the likelihood of feeling as though you’re stuck, while the distribution of the different gameplay modifiers avoids repetition. Particularly difficult modifiers are also used sparingly. A notorious example is the challenge that reverses your controls, which is definitely disorientating! It reminds me of some of the levels in the Donkey Kong Country series, and as in those games, I was relieved to clear the reversed control challenges!

Upon completing the Road to the EBC and winning the tournament at Rucker Park, you’ll unlock the ability to import your player into The Association. This is a really fun idea, and I wish we had that connection with MyCAREER today (though I could also see it ruining MyNBA/MyLEAGUE with an always online requirement). You can also replay any of the challenges, including staging another EBC tournament at any time. You can of course begin a new campaign with a new player, levelling them up and eventually importing them into The Association as well. Progression is fairly swift and nicely balanced, so there’s actually an incentive to start over fresh like that.

NBA 2K7 is the final game to feature 24/7 mode, now appropriately subtitled “Next”. It was majorly overhauled, now featuring – as the back of the box called it – “a fully developed storyline”, complete with cutscenes. In fact, you could basically call it a forerunner to what MyCAREER would eventually become seven years later, albeit with a barnstorming streetball setting rather than putting us in the shoes of an NBA player. The player character isn’t voiced, so he simply reacts silently to his two friends that accompany him to all of the games, as well as his rival and all other supporting characters. He’s basically NBA 2K’s answer to Claude Speed in Grand Theft Auto III.

Indeed, from the fashions to the slang to the cheesy video game acting, the mode just screams mid 2000s, but in the best possible way. I do appreciate that MyCAREER has had better-written stories (sometimes!) and accomplished actors lending their voices and likenesses to the characters beginning with “Livin’ Da Dream” in NBA 2K16, but I’ll always get a kick out of those early to mid 2000s video game cutscenes with lower production values and B movie acting. There’s a certain charm to the amateur writing and equally amateur delivery of the lines, as characters gesticulate wildly to make up for the lack of proper lip sync. Yes, it’s dated, but in a tremendously entertaining way!

The story opens in first person, which is a clever way of hiding your appearance until you’re able to customise it. On a court at Miami Beach, you and your friends Antoine and Brad spot Shaquille O’Neal. Shaq declines Antoine’s request for a game, but does challenge you to a free throw shootout to help him practice. After you win – you’ll repeat the shootout if you don’t – Shaq tells you about a Legends Charity Tournament providing amateur players with the opportunity to lead teams of NBA stars at Rucker Park. You’ll then “get an image” – i.e. create your player – before heading to Chicago to begin your journey, as well as meet the mode’s antagonist, Bernard “Skills” Rogers.

These opening scenes also introduce the concept of Rep, and the need to earn it in order to get games with the top players. As you play through games and raise your Rep, more players will be available to select as teammates. Continuing to perform well will lead to getting text messages from NBA stars who’ve heard the buzz that you’re generating, and want to play with you. A historical player hosts the games at each location, underscoring the Legends motif of the tournament. Each game features a familiar challenge or gameplay modifier: regular rules, no jumpshots, see-saw score battles, and so on. The three-point shootout is even used as a fun change of pace!

What makes 24/7: Next in NBA 2K7 particularly interesting is that it’s all about Rep and stick skills. There are no attributes to upgrade, as your player has all of the skills he needs, according to his position and other vitals. It’s all about hitting the virtual blacktop or hardwood – depending on the venue – and winning games. The more you win, the higher you’ll raise your Rep at the current location, earning more teammates and eventually unlocking the next stop on the tour. It’s highly unusual to begin with a sufficiently-skilled avatar and not have to train or upgrade their ratings in any way, but as someone who has done his share of grinding in MyCAREER, I actually love it.

Sure, removing the need to upgrade sacrifices some depth, but it’s also a purer virtual basketball experience. It’s all about your stick skills on the court, and enjoying the next cutscene in between games. Considering how heavily-monetised MyCAREER has become, you’d never see such an approach these days! It goes to show how back in the mid 2000s, it was all about creating a fun experience for basketball gamers, rather than milking them for recurrent revenue. The progression system in NBA 2K6’s 24/7 mode is still quite fair and could’ve worked in NBA 2K7 as well, but again, it’s refreshing to play a streamlined campaign where your avatar is already powerful.

Focusing on Rep rather than upgrades and a checklist of challenges also means that you can’t really get stuck. There are games against NBA players that are essentially boss battles, which must be beaten in order to progress and be taught a new streetball move. Apart from that though, losses just send you back to the sidelines to wait for your next game (though you can skip straight to it if you’d rather not watch the CPU). In some ways it makes the mode less challenging, but crucially, also less repetitive. If you fail a non-boss battle game, you may lose some Rep, but then you get to try a new challenge. Also, by cutting out the wackier modifiers, it’s all about pick-up basketball.

At least until you reach Rucker Park, of course. A 1-on-1 showdown with Bernard Rogers brings back the reversed controls, and the story even provides an in-universe justification for your disorientation! Once that challenge is cleared, you’ll get to pick which Legend’s squad you’ll run with, and enter the three-round Legends Charity Tournament. Interestingly, the pre-made squads that I had to choose between featured Ray Allen on the Boston team, while Amar’e Stoudemire represented New York. I doubt they were intended to be predictions, but they were accurate nevertheless! Strangely, Boston would’ve also included a duplicate of my Terry Hanson avatar.

Similar to the Road to the EBC, the Next campaign in NBA 2K7’s 24/7 unlocks your player for use outside the mode upon winning the tournament at Rucker Park. Rather than being given the opportunity to import your player into an Association game however, your player will be added to the default roster, on whichever team you choose during the final cutscene. Bernard Rogers will also be offered a contract, so that your rivalry can continue in the NBA. The game will actually remind you to save this custom roster so that you always have it on hand. At this point, you can also see the ratings you’ve been working with, and even edit both your player and Rogers.

Incidentally, this unorthodox but highly enjoyable story-driven single player mode is only found in the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 version of NBA 2K7. In fact, you won’t even find an updated take on NBA 2K6’s mode in the PS2 and Xbox release. As I said, 24/7 disappeared from the eighth gen releases beginning with NBA 2K8. Bigger things were in the pipeline with My Player and MyCAREER, but there was something special about 24/7. Obviously, the lack of grinding in NBA 2K7’s mode is something we’ll never see again – particularly in the age of VC and microtransactions – but the previous iterations were also fun, innovative, and in some ways, ahead of their time.

Judging from comments that I’ve seen when I’ve shared clips from 24/7 in NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7, there are long-time basketball games who loved the mode, and miss it. Modern NBA 2K games still have Blacktop, as well as The Playground as part of the connected experience in MyCAREER, but there’s no longer a standalone offline mode featuring a streetball campaign. It was an alternative to the NBA experience, yet still grounded in sim gameplay. Live service content and FOMO may be the bane of video games today, but in 2003, a game with dynamic content that changed with the time and date was a real novelty. It also helps when items are unlocked, not purchased.

As someone who was still playing NBA Live at the time, I didn’t get into 24/7 back in the mid 2000s. Had I become a fan of the NBA 2K series back then, it’s hard to say if I would’ve been drawn in by the mode. Franchise was my mode of choice, so I’d have most likely played The Association. My subsequent enjoyment of MyCAREER, and the open-mindedness I’ve developed towards other games and the experiences they offer, makes a mode like 24/7 more palatable to me as a retro gaming experience. I’d recommend NBA 2K6 or NBA 2K7, but I am impressed by all four iterations of 24/7. Their appeal is clear, and it’s not surprising that many gamers back then loved them.

They certainly can test your patience, however! Beyond the rather primitive training mechanics in ESPN NBA Basketball and ESPN NBA 2K5, and the clunky dribbling controls of that era of NBA 2K, some of the challenges can be downright brutal. I mentioned the games that reverse the controls as one of the most taxing challenges, and based on a couple of comments on our social media pages, others share the same opinion. It keeps things interesting though, as you will need to adjust your strategies and be at the top of your game; especially when the CPU has an unfair advantage. Besides, the ridiculously hard parts of games are often what make them memorable!

Having played through the entire campaigns in NBA 2K6 and NBA 2K7, I can vouch for them being worthy challenges. Not only do you face some tough players, but the AI becomes increasingly capable and aggressive; indeed, ruthless at times. Games in which you have to spot your opponent a set number of points, or are restricted in how you can get buckets while they can score any way they like, are mercilessly tough. It can easily lead to some frustrating losses, and I absolutely took a handful of Ls on my way to winning the EBC and Legends Charity Tournaments. I was determined to keep trying however, and with perseverance, I finally eked out some hard-fought victories.

It’s a sign of great game design when the difficulty curve is frustrating enough to feel challenging, but in a way that encourages us to persevere. The goal is to make us play, not push us to pay, as is the case with artificial difficulty in modern titles. This is why a mode like 24/7 is so nostalgic today, even if you didn’t play it all those years ago. To that point, I don’t have fond memories of playing 24/7 back in the mid 2000s, but something that I am extremely nostalgic for – and I’d suggest others are, too – is a time when video games were all about being the best, most fun experiences possible. 24/7 represents an era when fun was the priority, rather than recurrent revenue mechanics.

Furthermore, for hardcore hoop heads, basketball video games were a celebration of the sport and the NBA. They weren’t about meta-gaming and beating everyone online, though of course, online play was growing in popularity in the early to mid 2000s. To that point though, streetball was also huge at the time thanks to the AND1 Mixtape Tour, and there was interest in seeing it represented in video games. 24/7 provided an alternative to the arcade-oriented streetball gameplay of the NBA Street series, or the sim-arcade hybrid style of Street Hoops and AND1 Streetball. With NBA 2K already becoming a deep NBA sim, 24/7 helped make it an all-around basketball experience.

24/7 was also vital in establishing a precedent for single player career modes. There was an undeniable call for a player-focused equivalent to franchise play, which is why the concept evolved into MyCAREER and its connected experiences. To that end, what we have today probably caters to a wider variety of tastes than 24/7 did or ever could, especially with the interest in multiplayer. As a proof of concept though, 24//7 demonstrated that gamers did indeed desire to take control of a single player, upgrade their ratings and outfit them with cosmetic items, and play against the CPU and other gamers alike. It even paved the way for a campaign mode with a cinematic story.

And of course, it still has value as a retro gaming experience. ESPN NBA Basketball, ESPN NBA 2K5, NBA 2K6, and NBA 2K7 aren’t difficult to obtain, and their 24/7 modes remain available and fully-functional all these years later. Just be prepared for some brutal challenges! I doubt we’ll ever see 24/7 mode return in the same form as the concept has evolved, but again, it’s further proof that these ideas are often older than people think. It was a superb innovation with great foresight, ultimately laying the groundwork for what became the series’ flagship mode. Given how much fun I had with it, it’s no surprise that it was well-received, and is remembered so fondly.

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