NBA 2k12 Demo Now Available

Good news gamer dudes,

The NBA 2K12 demo is available on XBox Live and PS3.  I woke up at 5 am to study (and download the demo).  Unfortunately, I suck at multitasking so the Demo received as much PT as my textbooks did.

Anyways, the demo is only 1 quarter, you can only play as Dallas, and it’s only 4 minutes, no commentary, no playcalling, no subs, pretty barebones. I played about 5 games or so and my impressions are as follows:

• Control is much tighter.  Especially crossovers.  It was hard to tell with JKidd but I intentionally fouled him out so I could use Barea.  Barea’s handles were much quicker and tighter and I could combine moves much better than last year.  If you recall, in 2k11 when you sized up, you tapped the left trigger and pushed the analog stick in a direction and he started doing a sequence of moves.  This year you hold the left trigger and move the analog stick once to do one move and again to do another.  In the Momentous Trailer you saw Eric Gordon standing at the top of the key dribbling between his legs.  That was not a canned size-up sequence.
• Jumpshooting feels more natural.  2k11 really messed with the timing and release points.  Prior to the patch last year, you held the jumpshot for longer than it felt natural too to get a perfect release.  Then they patched it and sped up the releases and it just felt weird then.  This year it’s much better.  Plus the variation of jumpshots is amazing.  I saw LeBron take probably 3 different set shots, from square ups to leaning back/fade-aways.  Momentum shots are seemless.  I turboed up the court with Barea and launched a 30 foot buzzer beater (missed).  But this year he didn’t have to set his feet, he just pulled up with his momentum pushing him forward and fired it.  Looked very natural.  Same with any shots off the dribble.  Dirk’s fadeaways look great.  I also noticed when defenders close out hard your player doesn’t just fall all the time, he’ll lean back and back pedal.  Looks very realistic.
• On the same note, those high arching corner jumpshots are nearly gone.  I did see one from CPU Wade fading out of bounds.  Aside from that the arc looked natural when I would take corner J’s.
• Collisions are much improved, much less canned.  You can see when DWade attacks the basket and is bumped that he’s forced to adjust his shot in a realistic manner rather than a canned two-man animation from years past.  There does still seem to be a fair bit of bumping on the perimeter, though, especially when trying to play defense.
• CPU ran dang near everything through LeBron and Wade.  When they had mismatches they’d attack.  When they went to the rack they’d look to kick it to the open guy.
• Recovery speed is much, much slower meaning it takes longer to close out on shooters after rotating to help.  Same with jumping on pump fakes.
• Post game is a little easier in my opinion, though it’s much deeper.  I was able to pull off some nice fakes and moves without having to use modifiers like last year.  Using “Y” to post is going to take some getting used to.  The control in the post is great, though, as you’re not confined to working with your back to the basket once you post.  You can face up again (with your dribble even), spin around again, lean, etc.
• Post D feels more rewarding as well.  I was able to successfully strip Joel Anthony once by timing his move and also able to D Chris Bosh’s fakes by being patient and reacting to his shot.
• Shot blocking is improved as well.  I got a chase down with Rudy Fernandez on Mario Chalmers because he actually went for the ball.  Chalmers looked at the ref afterwards complaining for a foul call.
• I fouled LeBron on a dunk and he threw it really hard off the front of the rim.  It bounced about 3 feet straight up in the air.  Looked very realistic, you could see the power behind it.
• Animations/transitions are very, very smooth.  The game looks and feels very fluid and very natural.
• Presentation is top notch from what I could see.  There’s a little intro “mix” highlighting the top 2 players.  It was LeBron and Dirk every time but the mix was different every time which was good to see.  They also have little video ad overlays in the corner like TV shows do.  Really neat.