Wayback Wednesday: An Experimental MyCAREER in NBA 2K15
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 MyCAREER in NBA 2K15, and the experimental approach that it took.
After going back and finally playing through that first cinematic MyCAREER story in NBA 2K14 – and getting completely hooked on it – that left NBA 2K15 as the only eighth gen game whose tale I hadn’t completed. There are a couple of reasons for that. In 2014, I still hadn’t warmed up to the idea of a narrative-driven MyCAREER mode, and unfortunately, the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER isn’t the most likeable protagonist to take control of! I was also trying to give NBA Live 15 a fair chance to impress, and actually ended up playing a lot of Ultimate Team that year.
However, you don’t produce a feature like Wayback Wednesday unless you’re willing to give games a second chance, and dive into the history of the virtual hardwood! To that end, I have gone back and finally properly played through MyCAREER in NBA 2K15. It does have its issues, in terms of both the story and the general experience, and some of my initial impressions were on the mark. At the same time, there is an enjoyable experience there, and the approach that it took was definitely an interesting experiment. Let’s take a look back…way back…
As has been the case since NBA 2K13, we’re prompted to create a MyPLAYER the first time we boot up NBA 2K15 (or after we reinstall it). As advertised during the preview season, the face creation tools were expanded, allowing us to sculpt and customise our appearance rather than selecting from premade faces. Unfortunately, it’s far too easy to end up with a very Neanderthal-looking mug! Face scans were actually introduced that year as well, though only on console, and they required the PS4 camera or Kinect rather than a mobile app. I could never get the scan to work, or get satisfactory results with the sculpting, but both were a step in the right direction.
If you’ve ever played through the NBA side of MyCAREER, you know the general approach to the mode. There’s some pre-NBA gameplay – sometimes a fully-fledged prelude, other times just a Rookie Showcase or some other introductory gameplay – and then it’s on to the league. We may be drafted or we may get a choice of where we play, but either way, our NBA career begins on opening night. The New Gen version of NBA 2K14 actually changed things up slightly by making us all register DNP-CDs in the first two games of our freshman campaign, before a teammate’s injury cleared the way to debut. MyCAREER in NBA 2K15 featured an even more ambitious idea.
The story in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER begins with our MyPLAYER going undrafted, something they are not happy about. This established two key points about the mode. It was clear that it was going to be a different path to the NBA, without an immediate connection to a team. We also very quickly learned that the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER is…kind of a jerk! He berates his agent, Will Regan, for failing to get drafted. After Will is chased around the room, he manages to calm down our avatar, pointing out the freedom and opportunities that come with going undrafted, and encouraging him to be like Michael Jordan and take the slight personally as added motivation to succeed.
Our avatar mournfully questions whether his dream is over before it’s even begun, and indeed, six months go by before an opportunity arises. Regan presents us with a list of teams that are willing to offer us a tryout. He makes the mistake of addressing us as “my friend”, leading our avatar to coldly reply that he’s his agent, not his friend! It’s an understandable response given his frustration, and Will is openly preoccupied with money and the chance to succeed on the back of our MyPLAYER. At the same time, he’s friendly, patient, and clearly hardworking, which makes our avatar come across as egotistical, ungrateful, and rude. This dynamic with Will becomes a running theme.
It turns out that I’m not alone in my distaste for the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER. Going back and reading other gamers’ reactions to NBA 2K15 MyCAREER back in 2014 and 2015, our avatar being a jerk was a common complaint. Indeed, the story seems to have been a bust for many MyCAREER enthusiasts, who were bothered by moments on rails, unskippable cutscenes, and an overall unpleasantly antagonistic vibe. While I did enjoy playing through NBA 2K15 MyCAREER at long last, I can’t disagree with those criticisms. After all, it was one of the main reasons that I struggled to get into the mode when the game was released, and it’s a stark contrast to NBA 2K14’s tale!
Anyway, once those introductory cutscenes are done and we have a list of teams we can potentially join, we finally get to some gameplay. These tryouts essentially take the place of the Rookie Showcase that influenced our Draft stock in previous games, only now we have to impress the team of our choice. It was a fun idea after previous games left our fate up to the Draft, while still tasking us to prove ourselves. Of course, without an opportunity to choose our animations or even upgrade ratings before the tryouts, we’re undoubtedly at a disadvantage. You’d have to be really good on the sticks to put up numbers, and even then, five minutes doesn’t give you much time.
Fortunately, our performance is judged by our Teammate Grade, not our stats. In order to impress the team you’re trying out for, you need to finish with the required Grade, which varies depending on how interested they are in you. Most teams will be happy if you finish with a C or C+ Grade, and there’s usually at least one team that’ll still sign you even if you perform poorly, but stacked teams with lukewarm interest will really need to be impressed with a higher Grade. That’s harder to do without also putting up big stats, but as long as you’re setting picks, making good passes, playing good defense, and basically not messing up, you’re going to succeed at the tryout.
In this way, while it may be challenging to land on the team you really want, even novices will be able to progress. However, it is actually possible to get a game over here! If you somehow fail every single available tryout, you’ll be presented with an opportunity to re-try the last scrimmage, or give up and start over. With the number of teams willing to give you a shot and so many of them accepting an average Grade, you really have to go out of your way to blow every tryout! Still, it’s interesting that it’s possible to get a game over, and that the mode doesn’t just fudge your final tryout for the sake of the story. It underscores how NBA 2K15 was trying something new.
The tryouts are overseen by a generic assistant coach, voiced by Tony Winters (and also sharing his name, though you only see that if you look at the Staff menu). This is a fairly realistic scenario anyway, but his presence in the tryout and future coaching cutscenes alleviates the need to record voiceover from each NBA head coach. Once you’ve had a successful tryout, you’ll be offered a 10-day contract, which of course our avatar balks at due to undeserved ego. Regan lays out the reality of the situation, which leads to the first meeting with the GM. It’s awkward as the GM is snooty and reluctant to even shake your hand, but nevertheless, you’ve made it to the NBA!
At this point, we’re introduced to the new player hub, which included MyCOURT. As I’ve admitted before, I was initially dismissive of MyCOURT all those years ago. I saw it as merely bringing back the practice court that was missing in NBA 2K14 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and slapping 2K’s My branding on it. In a way it is, but it’s still nice having that court to practice moves, test animations, or just shoot around on in between games. It didn’t have all the customisation features that later games boasted, but I’m not bothered by that, especially since those options involved online content, and aren’t available these days anyway following server shutdowns.
Our in-game social media feed confirms that our career officially begins on January 26th, 2015; ten years ago last Sunday! It was an ambitious and risky decision to start our rookie season halfway through the campaign, and I’ll get into the pros and cons of that choice. However, it must be acknowledged that there is historical precedent here. Obviously hundreds of players have made their NBA debut later in the season, though barring injuries or other unusual circumstances, it doesn’t usually happen for highly-touted prospects and future stars. In the late 70s though, there was a player whose brief NBA career somewhat resembled the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER: Billy Ray Bates.
Let’s detour a moment to talk about Billy Ray Bates. Bates was drafted 47th overall by the Rockets in 1978, but was cut before the season began when the team refused his agent’s demands for guaranteed money. Such negotiations were possible before the adoption of the rookie scale. Glenn Robinson famously held out until training camp, landing the richest rookie deal in history from the Bucks, while the Celtics could’ve potentially lost Larry Bird’s draft rights had Red Auerbach not backed down from his pledge to not pay Bird a higher salary than any current Celtic. As a third round pick, Bates didn’t have that kind of leverage, and thus he went to the CBA.
There Bates dazzled fans with his high-flying dunks, which led to four shattered backboards! Unsurprisingly, he remained on the radar of NBA teams, and the Trail Blazers signed him to a 10-day contract in February 1980. The similarities to the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER don’t end there. In sixteen regular season games with the Blazers, Bates averaged 11.3 ppg in just 14.7 mpg; numbers reminiscent of what one might put up in the early stages of MyCAREER! Bates also once lit up the Clippers for 40 points in 32 minutes, while scoring 35 points against the Mavericks in just 25 minutes. In the Playoffs, Bates’ performance resembled a MyPLAYER even more.
Bates averaged 25 ppg in Portland’s first round series against the Supersonics in 1980, and then followed it up by averaging 28.3 ppg against the Kings in 1981. Not only is his career Playoff average of 26.7 ppg the highest of any bench player in the history of the league, but his 28.3 ppg in 1981 was the most any Blazers player had averaged in a Playoff series until Damian Lillard’s 34.3 in 2021. Before that, you might have expected Clyde Drexler to own the team’s record (he came close in 1989 with 27.7), or perhaps Rasheed Wallace (25.3), Brandon Roy (26.7), or even LaMarcus Aldridge (26.3). Instead it’s Bates, the non-All-Star who once joined them on a 10-day contract!
Now, while there are some entertaining parallels with the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER, there are also more than a few differences, so I doubt that Billy Ray Bates was in fact the real life inspiration for the story. I suppose it’s possible, but between the relative obscurity of the tale, Bates’ legal issues, and the brevity of his career before becoming a legend in the Philippines, it’s more than likely just a coincidence. I certainly enjoy his story though, and it’s given me a greater appreciation for NBA 2K15’s tale. Sure, it was probably unintentional, but it’s fun that there’s a real life precedent for an exciting rookie to join a team midseason on a 10-day contract, and proceed to put up big stats.
Getting back to NBA 2K15 MyCAREER, the late debut does leave us with some catching up to do. Fortunately, the progression system is quite fair in that regard. It was a less greedy era, before we were forced to painfully grind or pay for VC. A new upgrade system definitely helped. Upgrades are now separated into “buckets”, which comprise ratings for a specific discipline; shooting, athleticism, defense, and so on. Purchasing a level upgrade in any of the categories improves several ratings at once, which is more economical. The approach was retained for NBA 2K16 and 2K17, and to date it remains one of my favourite methods of upgrading ratings in MyCAREER.
NBA 2K15 also introduced caps and cap breakers, limiting the amount of upgrades you can make out of the gate, even (or indeed, especially) if you’d bought VC. The Signature Skills were also replaced by the first iteration of Badges, which were all earned by performing specific on-court actions and then upgraded using VC (or Skill Points in an offline file). While I’ve always liked the flexibility and intuitiveness of that approach, the lack of an in-game guide or progression tracker makes the process of unlocking Badges feel imprecise and cryptic. It does make them feel more organic though, as if your player is mastering a particular skill through putting in the work.
Such an idea doesn’t really gel with today’s focus on builds and meta-gaming, which weren’t really a thing in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER. To that point, the style/build on your player’s card will change as you level up your buckets and gain new strengths. It’s been interesting to see my swingman based on Terry Hanson go from being a Raw Prospect to Point Forward to Wing Defender to Two-Way Wing to All-Around Small Forward, as I’ve invested in different buckets. It’s a shame this flexibility, fair rate of progression, and a balanced approach to builds and upgrades, have all been cast aside in the name of generating recurrent revenue and catering to the elitist online gamers.
One of the most infamous additions in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER is the mentors. I actually covered them for Wayback Wednesday back in 2018, but no retrospective of NBA 2K15 MyCAREER would be complete without them! A player from each team has a voiced role in the game, appearing in various cutscenes where they give your player advice. These interactive cutscenes include dialogue options, which boil down to humble/mature or arrogant/immature. Given that the NBA 2K15 MyPLAYER is kind of an egotistical jerk, this leads to amusingly contradictory scenes where he’ll be a gracious teammate one moment, and a tool in cutscenes with no dialogue options!
Of course, it isn’t the actions of our avatar that makes those mentors in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER infamous, but the performance of the NBA players. Most of them are just reading/mumbling their lines without nuance or emotion, though the ones who are trying to act don’t fare much better! Dion Waiters is one of the most hilariously terrible, though Eric Gordon is pretty funny as well, which is why I opted for the New Orleans Pelicans in my playthrough. Funnily enough, Waiters and a couple of other mentors ended up being traded that very season. Fortunately, the developers had the foresight to realise this might happen, with updates placing them on their new teams.
Mentor cutscenes include counselling your player after tough losses, reminding them that individual accomplishments mean nothing without a win, praising them after a great performance, and discussing other events, such as an in-game scuffle where you can choose to either escalate the situation or be cool. It’s a good idea to make the story more immersive, but the poor acting does make it more comedic. It’s still entertaining, albeit more ironically than I’m sure was intended! It also doesn’t help that as in NBA 2K14, cutscenes get repetitive, still treating you like a rookie after your first season. Still, mentors are easily one of the most memorable parts of NBA 2K15 MyCAREER.
Since you’re on a 10-day contract, the goal is to impress the coach and GM, earn a second 10-day contract, and then latch on for the rest of the season. It’s possible to play poorly enough to not be offered a second contract with your first team, but much like the game over, you pretty much have to go out of your way to fail here. There is a Trophy/Achievement for it though, so it’s worth doing at least once! At that point, a random team will pick you up on a 10-day contract, and then sign you for the rest of the season no matter how well you play. Contrived as that may sound, it’s for the best, as a game over at that point would’ve been rather harsh for anyone who bought VC.
Once you’re on a guaranteed contract, the Calendar function is unlocked. In addition to simply viewing the upcoming games, you can choose to simulate them if you don’t want to play. Simulating and forfeiting the VC/Skill Points is a bad idea early on, but it’s an introduction to a handy feature, especially since the “Next Key Game” option in NBA 2K14 wasn’t available until your second season. Different opponents offer their own VC/Skill Point rewards based on difficulty, so there is merit in simulating an easy game with a low payout, or perhaps a tough game if you feel you’re not ready for it. Whatever your preference, you’re given more control once you’re on a full contract.
You’ll also start unlocking the ability to customise arena sounds, select a pre-game ritual, and generally flesh out the experience. The menus in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER fix a few issues from NBA 2K14, including access to many of the stats screens that were oddly absent. Unfortunately, the NBA.com interface is gone, and there’s no way to view injury listings or transactions. During the Playoffs, the brackets and leaders are also nowhere to be found, which is quite frustrating! Whoever was designing the frontend in NBA 2K during this time was doing a rather sloppy job with oversights like this. Not being able to keep track of other teams is absolutely a major annoyance.
The Twitter-like social media feed provides some news, while also being far more interactive than in most iterations of MyCAREER. You can call out teammates and opponents with friendly or not-so-friendly banter, or suggest teaming up. You can also interact with other figures, including reminding Will Regan that he’s your agent, not your friend (of course). Social media also plays a role in the story, as your mentor discovers a message from Will suggesting that you’re thinking about where to play next year, rather than focusing on the task at hand. This makes things awkward, but also highlights a recurring problem with all the cinematic stories in MyCAREER.
No matter how you respond to your mentor, no matter how many positive cutscenes after big games you see after that, no matter how high the team chemistry rating is, you’ll get a scene where the assistant coach berates you for alienating the entire team. In TV Tropes parlance, it’s classic Gameplay and Story Segregation. The incident will be mentioned in passing in the commentary, and there’s a press conference where a reporter will try to stir up trouble with leading questions and snide remarks, but there’s no tangible effect on the virtual hardwood. Again, it’s a recurring issue with the story-driven approach to MyCAREER, but in NBA 2K15, there’s also a ton of negativity.
It gives the story a weird vibe. The player character is often egotistical outside of the times we can choose a friendlier dialogue option. Our agent, Will Regan, is friendly but always talking about money (at least he’s not trying to rob anyone, as his actor Tom Christensen did in a bit part on 2 Broke Girls!). The assistant coach berates the team like children, even after scrimmages that seemingly went well. The GM is cold and standoffish compared to his counterpart in NBA 2K14. Whenever there’s a press conference, one of the reporters is a pot-stirring muckraker. The tale just seems to be full of drama, confrontation, and characters being generally unpleasant to each other.
I suppose it’s intended to demonstrate that being an NBA player isn’t all adulation and fun, but the acting feels amateur and the negativity is grating. One of the few positive subplots involves our player’s old high school coach, who shows up a few times with words of encouragement. Even then, it turns out that he’s after money to renovate the old gym, though he’s at least decent enough to be embarrassed to ask. You can agree to pay for the work, but it will set you back 1000 VC/SP. It does earn goodwill and a viewable endorsement though, and it also made me feel like less of a heel in the midst of beefing with Dante Exum, alienating Eric Gordon, and riling up the assistant coach.
Granted, good stories are seldom conflict-free. You need good antagonists, or at least compelling complications, otherwise it is – to quote Homer Simpson – just a bunch of stuff that happens. Other MyCAREER stories have had some great villains and twists in their tales, though the MyPLAYER was also usually a more likeable character who encountered more friendly faces along the way. I do appreciate it whenever a video game can make me feel something with its storytelling, and in the case of NBA 2K15 MyCAREER, it’s encouraging me to role-play as a less loyal character. It’s kind of impressive how the producers crafted a story where virtually no one is likeable!
Just in case there weren’t enough antagonists bringing the drama, Jackson Ellis is also part of the story. It’s here that his career-ending knee injury, which was revealed on the character’s real world Twitter, is made canon. Ellis is now a rep for Nike/Jordan, and insists that you must impress him if you’re to receive an endorsement deal. This eventually leads to a choice between playing his game and telling him where to go, but mercifully, choosing the latter option doesn’t throw away your opportunity. Even though he’s another antagonist, it’s great that Jackson Ellis was brought back like that. He’s become the character that holds together the MyCAREER Cinematic Universe.
Putting the narrative and cutscenes aside for a moment, the angle of a player making it to the NBA in January on a 10-day contract does provide an intriguing change to the usual career mode gameplay. When you play the whole season, you have a chance to influence your team’s success from very early on. Joining a team midseason, you can find yourself on a squad struggling to make the Playoffs; a challenge that experienced MyCAREER gamers may not face all that often. You’re not in a position to win the Rookie of the Year after playing in only 38 games, which is a fresh but frustrating scenario, particularly when you end up with fantastic numbers by the end of the year!
Game-to-game, I enjoyed the on-court experience. NBA 2K15 has great gameplay, retaining the benefits of the Eco-Motion engine that debuted in NBA 2K14. There are legacy issues such as psychic and body steals, but generally speaking, it’s great on the sticks. It can be more challenging than other iterations of MyCAREER, though. This is in large part due to NBA 2K15 having some tough and ruthless AI, but it doesn’t help that CPU teammates aren’t as smart, aggressive, or capable as in other games. It’s annoying when the challenge comes from teammates missing or refusing to take open shots, failing to rotate, rebound, or protect the paint, and not making snappy passes.
Coach Directives replace the Dynamic Goals from NBA 2K13 and NBA 2K14, and contribute to Coach Satisfaction both during gameplay and on the season. The higher your coach’s satisfaction, the higher the bonus VC/SP payout, and the better your team plays. Refusing to follow directives and Points of Emphasis can allegedly lower Coach Satisfaction to the point where you’re traded in subsequent seasons, though I haven’t experienced that yet, and expect that it’s difficult to drop that low. Speaking of grading, the Teammate Grade logic is mostly unchanged and the defensive indicator often spins like a compass near a magnet, but a couple of quirky penalties are fixed.
Despite a few issues and lacklustre teammates though, I still had a good time. You are called upon to carry the team more than you should be, but it’s an excuse to put up big stats. Of course, it feels silly when you’re the one carrying the team to victories with 50 and 60-point games, yet receiving all the blame for losses. The same goes for story beats such as the assistant coach yelling at you in practice and trying to shame you with a reminder that he stuck his neck out to get you on the team, or chewing you out for being late to practice and docking your minutes (which thankfully didn’t happen, as we were in the middle of our Playoff run that was only possible due to my play!).
None of this ruins the gameplay, but it’s a reminder that certain story beats are going to play out irrespective of your choices or on-court performance. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the timing isn’t always logical, with some scenes triggering much later than they should. A perfect example is the first interaction with NBA 2K15 cover player, Kevin Durant. KD talks trash to us, the newcomer receiving buzz. It’s clearly meant to be in an early regular season meeting, but because I didn’t face the Thunder until the Playoffs, it played back-to-back with a scene in which he promised to eliminate us. It makes these scenes feel shoehorned in; a recurring issue with MyCAREER stories.
Maybe the most egregious predetermined outcome in NBA 2K15 MyCAREER is Doc Rivers becoming your coach in Year 2, regardless of where you sign. It’s done so that you can have scenes with a real coach as part of the ongoing story, and obviously 2K wasn’t going to record dialogue with every current coach. Forcing the player to join the Clippers would’ve also been incredibly contrived, taking away what is an essential choice in the mode. Still, it doesn’t feel right or realistic when Doc ends up replacing Gregg Popovich or another long-tenured head coach, just to facilitate the story. To his credit though, he does have some of the best voice acting, though that’s a low bar!
As far as gameplay, my biggest pet peeve is probably the delay during substitutions. Forget the repetitive scenes with the assistant coach; they’re annoying, but even worse is having to walk over to the scorer’s table and then wait for a stoppage to check in. It wastes so much time, compared to just immediately appearing back on the court after advancing to your next appearance, as in NBA 2K14. Strangely, the game sometimes does that, putting you right back onto the court, but the rest of the time you’ll have to watch the action until the whistle. It’s an idea that’s intended to be immersive, and it was kind of cool in the debut game, but the idle time it adds gets really old, really fast.
On the plus side, the road to becoming a starter is less contrived than in NBA 2K14, where the GM instructing the coach to keep bringing you off the bench was a plot point. While my Overall Rating may not have justified it, I played well enough to get the starting nod after 13 games, so it felt as though my performance mattered. While the forced story beats of being late for practice and alienating your teammates aren’t great, at least there are no predetermined injuries or other on-court consequences. On one hand, it makes all of those story cutscenes somewhat pointless, but on the other hand, it doesn’t negatively impact the gameplay, or the ability to keep levelling up.
There are plenty of gameplay-driven narratives as well. Tyreke Evans went down for the year with an injury, which confused the rotation logic leading to me playing entire first halves and all 48 minutes a couple of times. I hit a three to send us into a double overtime; though, given the scuffle cutscene was triggered in that game, I suspect that scripting might’ve tilted the odds in my favour there! Russell Westbrook was injured in Game 3 of our second round series against the Thunder, then Eric Gordon ended up being sidelined early on in Game 4. I experienced comeback victories, and the usual satisfaction of improving and beginning to play like a superstar on a nightly basis.
My playthrough culminated with an easy sweep of the Charlotte Hornets – of all teams – in the 2015 NBA Finals! It came on the heels of a tough six-game victory over the Los Angeles Clippers in the Western Conference Finals, which included a devastating overtime loss. Of course, this made Doc Rivers joining me in New Orleans after I re-signed even funnier! Unfortunately, I can’t say much more about the Playoffs, thanks to the aforementioned missing stats and results screens. I did enjoy the challenge of the run, though. In half a season, I reached 77 Overall with ratings that allowed me to score at will and not feel sluggish, making it a fair and satisfying journey in Year 1.
The offseason and opening night of Year 2 demonstrated that the cinematic aspects were definitely still a work in progress. For some reason, the players that tried to recruit me during free agency were all silent during their cutscenes, and since I didn’t have the subtitles on, it resulted in very one-sided conversations! Also, after making peace with Dante Exum following a single contentious cutscene together, I faced him in the season opener of Year 2, taunting him arrogantly after we won. Again, it’s clear that your team’s schedule can easily mess with the planned story beats! Still, I’m glad I finally finished a playthrough of the first season, and will pick it up again sometime.
Finally, one of the biggest advantages of NBA 2K15 MyCAREER – though we didn’t know it back then – is that it’s still playable a decade later! As with NBA 2K14, the lack of VC in an offline save means that you can’t customise clothing or on-court accessories, but the mode is otherwise intact and accessible. Not only that, but if you try to load a connected MyCAREER now that the servers are shut down, the game will offer to convert it to an offline file so that it can be continued. Any VC you had will be lost as your balance will reset to 0 SP, but the rest of your progress carries over. This facilitates retro MyCAREER gaming, something that is no longer possible.
With that being said, is it worth playing through NBA 2K15 MyCAREER today, and what are my overall impressions of the mode? Honestly, while the execution of the idea could’ve been better, it is an interesting spin on an NBA career mode, making it a worthy experiment that I’d recommend giving a shot. Despite some legacy issues and spotty teammate AI and performance, it’s as fun on the sticks as other iterations of MyCAREER that I’ve really enjoyed. If nothing else, the uniqueness makes it worth checking out, and while there were many valid complaints about MyCAREER in NBA 2K15 ten years ago, it’s also clearly quite memorable and was still enjoyed.
To recap some of the biggest criticisms, the story is often at odds with the on-court action and results, and undeniably suffers from a lack of likeable characters, with writing and acting that feels amateurish. Also, while it’s an interesting approach, it’s somewhat disappointing to not be able to contend for awards in our rookie season due to only playing 38 games. Repetitive cutscenes and contrived events like Doc Rivers becoming our coach understandably aren’t to everyone’s liking. While I appreciate the concept, it has its drawbacks. Key info/stats screens being missing is just plain sloppy design, and the teammate AI definitely took a small step backwards from NBA 2K14.
However, if you don’t take the story too seriously and accept it for its oddities, it can be a fun change of pace to play through such an antagonistic tale, with reporters trying to stir up drama and no-nonsense characters who clearly aren’t here to be your friend! The “acting” of our mentors is hilarious in a memetic way, being the main source of unintentional humour that makes the cutscenes bearable. The challenge of debuting with a team midseason is refreshing, and I appreciate the willingness to experiment with the formula. I’m also retroactively impressed by the fair rate of progression after enduring the obnoxiously pushy “mindlessly grind or pay” approach in newer titles.
It’s obvious that the developers were still trying to balance cinematic and immersive elements with gameplay, in an effort to not detract from the core experience. NBA 2K15 MyCAREER laid the groundwork for the next couple of games, introducing aspects such as level caps, Badges earned through in-game activities, and of course, MyCOURT. NBA 2K16 and NBA 2K17 built upon those concepts, making training sessions useful rather than just facilitating cutscenes, refining Badges, and eliminating time-wasting attempts at immersion such as checking in and watching “game film”; an idea that could be helpful for newcomers, but annoying for experienced gamers.
In another sign of things to come, recording artist Pharrell Williams – who curated the game’s soundtrack – also makes a couple of appearances, ultimately befriending our avatar after initially politely blowing off his invitation to hang out. I’m not suggesting that this paved the way for celebrities to be involved with MyCAREER – especially as Jay-Z already served as the executive producer of NBA 2K13 – but it was another step towards working with big names to produce and star in future stories, beginning with Spike Lee in NBA 2K16. We certainly came to expect well-known actors and popular recording artists to play major roles and make cameos in future MyCAREER stories.
While there’s much we can (and did) criticise about NBA 2K15 MyCAREER, the core gameplay is familiar and fun, and it’s possible to enjoy the cinematic aspects ironically. It’s funny how Kevin Durant’s brashness in his cutscenes clashed with the humble image he was cultivating at the time, but seem very in-character now! I also enjoyed the irony of being chewed out by Eric Gordon for thinking about playing elsewhere, only for the commentary in my next game to repeat an anecdote about him clashing with Monty Williams the previous season. His delivery is also one of the funniest for me, though Dion Waiters and DeMarcus Cousins are right up there, too.
It’s not the best story or MyCAREER mode in general, but it’s not the worst. The concept has a significant impact on the first season that may not be desirable, but there’s far more gameplay than in NBA 2K16’s “Livin’ Da Dream” the following year. It’s cheesy, it’s frustrating at times, and it isn’t the direction that the mode should always take, but I have to give more credit to NBA 2K15 MyCAREER than I have in the past. It’s been fun to play through, it took some admirable risks, and it’s given me some laughs. Indeed, by virtue of not being too grindy and still being playable ten years later, I’d actually rank it ahead of some of its more sophisticated successors.
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