The distance between “highly recruited high school basketball star with the world at your fingertips” and “couch surfing at your cousin’s run-down Brooklyn apartment” is inches, not miles.
That’s Lesson No. 1 in “NBA 2K27” as the “2K” franchise continues to sit near the top of the sports gaming mountain with its 28th annual installment, released Sept. 4 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Windows.
As usual, the focus of the game starts and ends with the MyPlayer/MyCareer modes, in which you choose a build path and start a story-line that feels like a movie mashup of “He Got Game” and “White Men Can’t Jump.”
You’re still playing as “MP,” the default name used for the cinematic cuts in the single-game storyline (and yes, that’s for a female character as well). You’re also still facing real-life obstacles in pursuit of stardom. Without spoiling the plot, “MP” starts off as a standout high school player, throwing you right into a game to show off your skills. It’s hard not to drop 30 points on the competition, which is the purpose here.
After that dominance, a booster hands you the keys to his $200,000 sports car and, just like that, life changes. No full ride to Duke, no instant stardom. Instead, it’s a fast-forward to two years after your car accident, when you’re lying around on your free-loading cousin Cam’s musty couch, trying to refocus on your dream of making the NBA with New York’s famous playground Rucker Park as the launching point.
Succeed there and you get a G-League contract. Slay the G-League and you get drafted to the NBA. That best sums up the “Fire & Concrete” storyline as you also build your player up for “The City,” the online-only environment introduced in “NBA 2K21.”
Warning: As with previous “2K” installments, beware of the microtransactions, in which Virtual Currency — purchased with real money — can be used to advance characters more quickly. Even if you’re successful in the storyline, your player will have an 80ish overall ranking out of a possible 97. For this review, there were already gamers playing online with rankings in the mid-to-high 90s — while trash-talking, of course — because they spent real cash on boosts and talents.
One great addition is a MyPlayer mode in which you can drop your player into five historical eras: Magic vs. Bird (1984), Michael Jordan (1991), Kobe (2003), LeBron (2010) and Steph Curry (2016). What’s great about these eras is how authentic they look and feels. Start off in ’84 and the locker rooms, broadcast styles and scoreboards match the looks and sounds of the ’80s.
That’s why “NBA 2K” always works — the details. They show up again in the other popular mode, MyNBA, in which you have full general-manager control over your NBA or WNBA front office, trades, the draft and the fortunes of your organization.
However, watch out, Bulls fans: Rookie forward Caleb Wilson plays better than his disrespectful 77 ranking, especially on defense, but the Bulls don’t have a great roster overall. You’ll spend a good amount of time looking for trades.
As for the gameplay itself, serious changes were made on defense. They’re an improvement but need a tweaking.
Has “NBA 2K27” made wholesale changes overall? No. It feels more like subtle tinkering that still moves the series forward. That’s why it gets a solid B-plus.
Either way, “2K” remains the standard, Cam’s stinky couch and all.