Spike Lee’s vision of MyCareer mode is an ambitious leap for the series. Players begin their story at the high school level, earning the attention of college scouts who attempt to recruit you to one of the dozen or so schools available in the game. You play one year of college basketball and then head to the pro-level with an agent who promises you big things. No matter what you name your player, you’ll most often be referred to as “Freq” an abbreviation of the nickname “Frequency Vibrations”. Once you reach the pros, things go sideways as your player is torn between family, money, expectations, friendship, and romance.

 

After you're drafted by an NBA team, you have eight games to play in the first season, each game is followed by a very long cutscene that goes along with Spike Lee's story. While the story isn't bad, fans may be turned off by a rookie season with games that have no outcome on the story. This year's big feature for MyGM was team relocation, and the feature works great. You are given a long list of cities to choose from and then are allowed to change your team's logo, colors, design new uniforms and an arena. The options for designing your uniform and arena are surprisingly deep, with hundreds of different fonts to use for text and you can even upload a logo to your jersey. The arena creator allows you to change the court color, seats, scoreboard, scorers table and more.

 

Meanwhile 2K Pro-Am allows you to play standard 5v5 games with friends or play as a walk-on in an established squad. Well, at least in theory. Any NBA 2K fan will know how fickle the servers are in the series and the game consistently failed to put me in a Pro-Am match. In fact, it regularly had me walk onto the court as if I was going to play a match only to walk around and go back into the locker room that serves as a loading screen. Your mileage may vary, but the mode was completely busted at the time of writing. All of the soundtracks are great with rappers such as Nas, Drake, and Ace Hood lay down some great rhymes to play basketball to. If you’re not a fan of rap music, then you’ll be glad to know that there is enough variety for everyone. The wide ranging soundtrack also features Ramones, The Flaming Lips, and Living Colour. This is one of the best licensed soundtracks since Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 and Wipeout XL.

 

My biggest gripe is the new in-game substitution system. During the game, 2K has always given you the ability to make changes on the fly (rather than pressing pause) to take effect after the next whistle. Those of us who play the game a lot swear by it. For some unknown reason this year, 2K decided to change the buttons and system for using this function. It’s also packed with things to do. From the create-a-player MyCareer mode, to the new 2K Pro-Am, you won’t be running out of stuff to do any time soon. I’ve spent a large amount of my time with MyCareer and MyTeam specifically, but for those that enjoy the General Manager experience you’ve got MyGM, you have online options with MyPark, along with some standard Exhibition modes both online and off. So no matter how you like to play video game basketball, there’s a good chance that NBA 2K16 has you covered this year.

 

It's a setup that layers in a lot more drama than the typical career mode where you create your virtual avatar and pretty much live your life on the court. On the plus side, it's nice to have a story to chew into before you get into the nitty gritty of building up your custom player. On the flipside, there's also a sense that you don't have full control due to the predetermined plot, like you're essentially playing someone else's story. Even if you scan your face and recreate an almost perfect representation of yourself for example, you still get the same family and the same friend that Spike Lee dreamed up for you. You do get some semblance of choice as far as which college to go to from a set list, for example. Then again, you don't get one as far as bolting college for the pros after your first year whether you want to or not. The story also mostly sticks to its script regardless of how well or bad you do on the court. Still, it's a notable addition to the stock career mode, even if some may see the initial story more as a distraction.