The NBA 2K11 demo has been released on XBL to my surprise. This game has absolutely snuck up on me this year. It's one of my favorite sports game series of all time though, and I may go as far to say it's one of my favorite video game series' in general. Needless to say I was excited to try out this years product, so here's some points that struck me having played through the single-quarter demo probably a dozen times now. 

Animations

A.I.

Physics 

Presentation 

Other Stuff? 

The NBA 2K11 demo has been released on XBL to my surprise. This game has absolutely snuck up on me this year. It's one of my favorite sports game series of all time though, and I may go as far to say it's one of my favorite video game series' in general. Needless to say I was excited to try out this years product, so here's some points that struck me having played through the single-quarter demo probably a dozen times now. 

Animations

A.I.

Physics 

Presentation 

Other Stuff? 

I might have to get it. I liked 2K10 a lot, but I hadn't played a 2K NBA game in a while, so the extended animations felt really clunky at first.

I haven't played a 2k game in a while... but damn it's really fucking slow to me.

My brother's pretty excited for 2K11, which in turn means I'm pretty excited to get it for free. I played a bunch of 2K10 last year and am pretty curious to see how good the Grizzlies are this year, they're my fall back team when I lose with the Magic.

Also, I'm curious to see what Durant's rating will be when the game is released. Dude's a stud. 

man fuck metal gear. nba 2k is the greatest series of all time

" I haven't played a 2k game in a while... but damn it's really fucking slow to me. "

" man fuck metal gear. nba 2k is the greatest series of all time "

I've bought every game in the NBA 2K series since 2K3, day one and never really had a problem. However, I really regretted buying last years on launch day-- and at all, really. It was un-fucking-playable online, as you would either error out of matchmaking or error out during the actual game. It was terrible, even playing offline it had tons of annoying issues on launch, like whenever you went into the post for whatever reason the game would experience extreme slowdown. 
 
After 2K10, I told myself I would not buy 2K11...  
 
Then they revealed they'd have Micheal Jordan playable. 
 
Then they revealed they'd have classic Bulls teams. 
 
Then I realized that if they have the classic bulls teams, they'd have other classic teams the Bulls played against such as the 1992 Portland Trail Blazers (Danny Ainge!) 
 
That's when I realized I was buying another NBA2K on day one. 

" 1992 Portland Trail Blazers (Danny Ainge!) "  

The animations didnt show too well in the demo I played. There were specific animations that were good, but just general moving around was really weird awkaward and frankly robotic looking to me. idk I havent played a basketball game like that in a llloooonnngggggg time.

The PS3 version looks pretty good as well, though I can't seem to make a shot with artest. 

" The animations didnt show too well in the demo I played. There were specific animations that were good, but just general moving around was really weird awkaward and frankly robotic looking to me. idk I havent played a basketball game like that in a llloooonnngggggg time. "

" The PS3 version looks pretty good as well, though I can't seem to make a shot with artest.  "

Thanks for the impressions and heads-up on the demo. I think I'll download it right now, though I'm still getting a ton of mileage out of NBA 2K10. I'm totally thrilled to learn that there are now shot collisions. That should really make a nice big difference. Also, I had some issues with isomotion in 2K10. Even in the practice mode, there were a few moves in the game that I could never seem to get to work, so I'm glad it's more fluid and smart this time. Hopefully 360 dunks are also less impossible to pull, and I'm really hoping off-the-backboard alley-oops work in this game. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to write a blog on what I want to see in 2K11, so maybe I'll touch on a few of those things here.
 
I'll be honest, when playing 2K10, I totally can't help but exploit the limitations of the AI. I know several tricks to easily steal the ball, and for the most part, I know what my AI opponent will do in just about any situation. While you say the improvements aren't drastic, I hope the AI is generally smarter this time around and that I'm forced to play legitimately. Also, when playing in My Player mode, the AI is freaking dumb as heck sometimes. Like if I pass to my center Andrew Bynum at the 3-point line, he'll shoot it even though he has no chance of making it. I don't want to see my teammates wasting possessions on stupid shots like that. My AI opponents will a lot of times catch the ball in the key and just stand there and dribble until 3 in the key is called. It's lame. Or when you're going for a lay-up and your guys ends up doing an out-of-bounds hook shot that hits the back of the backboard. That's annoying. Oh, and dude, make the guys slow down a little better around the 3-point line. I take way too many shots with my toe on the line, and while I think I'm shooting a 3, it only ends up being a 2. I know that happens in real life, but not THAT much.
 
It's good to know that more power is added to the dunks and I'm not surprised the graphics continue to get more life-like. People act like the changes are minor, but to someone like me who is playing every year, I see a very distinct difference. Even with 2K10, any visitors that come over think it's a real game at first.  I really would like an option to turn off those foot cursors, so I could really try to fool people. Ha, Allen looks like a turtle, huh? I thought he looked fine in 2K10. It's Paul Pierce that looks totally wrong to me.
 
Also, I hope this game isn't as glitchy as 2K10, and that they're not so lazy with certain aspects. There's certain areas that are straight up unfinished in 2K10. There's even a few areas in My Player mode where stuff that's supposed to be there is just flat-out missing. Also, the game had a lot of game-freezing glitches and such, and sometimes things really seem to spaz out.
 
I also want more customization in terms of creating new teams and players. That's something I've been getting really into over the last several months with the game, and it's greatly extended the game's replay value for me. However, there's a lot of room for more stuff. I thought the 3-point contest was ruined in 2K10, and was disappointed to see that the Sprite Slam Dunk contest didn't seem to change at all. Keep pushing with this stuff, guys. 
 
I'd really like to see a series mode introduced. My brother and I play regularly, and while playing one game is nice, we like to make a 7-game playoff series out of the matchups. It'd be cool if you could do that, and your stats and injuries and such would carry on throughout the series. You can do an entire playoff bracket to imitate this, but that can be pretty huge and time-consuming to set up. 
 
Oh, and for the love of God, fix the G Moments. At the end of each game, you can look up the highlights, known as the G-moments. For the most part, it'll get a lot of the good dunks, but way too many great plays and things get overlooked.
 
One last thing for now... Any objections to the addition of flagrant fouls? You know you wanna just body slam dudes sometimes, even if it will get you ejected. Technical fouls should be in the game. Off the ball fouls too. They're trying to make it as real as possible, so why not?  Okay... I can see how off the ball fouls could be incredibly annoying, but dude, there's usually not many fouls in each game to begin with. Maybe that'll change with the new shot collision mechanic. Still, I imagine they feel technical fouls would only encourage more violent real-life behavior in basketball, so I don't expect to see them make an appearance.
 
For last year's game, I was really hoping they'd add some Olympic stuff to the game. I know they'd have to get the rights and everything, and it's not technically NBA, but it would be nice. I'm not asking for all the teams. Heck, 8 or so would be great, with the trapezoid key courts and everything (though, from what I understand, those are on their way out). Okay, I guess I'm dreaming with this part, but whatever.
 
The presentation aspect really could use an overhaul, so I'm glad that's being addressed. The commentary, for the most part, was excellent in the last game, so I expect the same to carry over here. Though, the commentators would often have a hard time keeping up with the action, so maybe they've improved that.
 
Okay, I'm really stopping now. Oh, and dude. Your Blazers are going DOWN!

   I'll be honest, when playing 2K10, I totally can't help but exploit the limitations of the AI. I know several tricks to easily steal the ball, and for the most part, I know what my AI opponent will do in just about any situation. While you say the improvements aren't drastic, I hope the AI is generally smarter this time around and that I'm forced to play legitimately.

  Ha, Allen looks like a turtle, huh? I thought he looked fine in 2K10. It's Paul Pierce that looks totally wrong to me.     

 Also, I hope this game isn't as glitchy as 2K10, and that they're not so lazy with certain aspects. There's certain areas that are straight up unfinished in 2K10. There's even a few areas in My Player mode where stuff that's supposed to be there is just flat-out missing. Also, the game had a lot of game-freezing glitches and such, and sometimes things really seem to spaz out.     

 I also want more customization in terms of creating new teams and players. That's something I've been getting really into over the last several months with the game, and it's greatly extended the game's replay value for me. However, there's a lot of room for more stuff. I thought the 3-point contest was ruined in 2K10, and was disappointed to see that the Sprite Slam Dunk contest didn't seem to change at all. Keep pushing with this stuff, guys.      

 One last thing for now... Any objections to the addition of flagrant fouls? You know you wanna just body slam dudes sometimes, even if it will get you ejected. Technical fouls should be in the game. Off the ball fouls too. They're trying to make it as real as possible, so why not?  Okay... I can see how off the ball fouls could be incredibly annoying, but dude, there's usually not many fouls in each game to begin with. Maybe that'll change with the new shot collision mechanic. Still, I imagine they feel technical fouls would only encourage more violent real-life behavior in basketball, so I don't expect to see them make an appearance.    

 For last year's game, I was really hoping they'd add some Olympic stuff to the game. I know they'd have to get the rights and everything, and it's not technically NBA, but it would be nice. I'm not asking for all the teams. Heck, 8 or so would be great, with the trapezoid key courts and everything (though, from what I understand, those are on their way out). Okay, I guess I'm dreaming with this part, but whatever.    

 Okay, I'm really stopping now. Oh, and dude. Your Blazers are going DOWN!    

I know exactly what you mean here. I've already messed around with a couple tricks and it seems to be a lot smarter in certain places. For example, if you pressure the PG on the inbounds pass in 2K10, they'll pass the ball to the SG instead, which makes sense. What made no sense at all is that they would akmost always attempt to pass the ball back to the PG before they cross the half-court line, even if I'm really pressuring, which lead to me getting like 8 easy steals a game. As far as I can tell, that's been fixed, or is at least much improved.

i still ran into the problem where your AI teammates leave you on an island without you calling an iso. in the demo i called a pick n roll, Bynum came out started to roll, and when i passed him the ball he animated towards the perimeter and caught it outside. next thing i know my team leaves him alone and stack up on the opposite side. 
 
2k10 left such a bad taste in my mouth by how many glitches and bugs it had that im waiting till a few reviews come out before i buy.

 However, I think one of the biggest problems here is that getting steals in other ways is not very easy, and too often results in fouls being called, so it's like it forced me to try to find a better way.      

 You ever play Pikmin? Okay, you know how when you pass to a teammate in 2K10, you can hold a direction and make that player move that way when he catches the ball? It's a great way to set up plays, and a feature I love. Well, I'd like to see that carry over onto defense. If you played Pikmin, you might recall that you could use the c-stick to move your whole group of Pikmin. It wasn't like they'd move a long distance, though, think of them as being like on a ball-and-chain. You'd hold the c-stick left, and they'd move to the left of you, but still near you, they'd never really leave your side, but you could still move them around to all different sides of you. I wish they would implement something like that in 2K10. Let'a face it. On defense, the right stick is pointless. It may look cool to hold your hands up, but from what I've read, it's only cosmetic and has no effect on the gameplay or blocking shots or anything. I also really doubt there are people that use the shot stick to steal, unless it has some advantage that I'm unaware of. Regardless, I wish I could use the stick as a means to moving my guards around more on the court. Like dude, if I need some tight defense inside, don't force me to quickly switch to a 2-3 zone and hope they get a stop. Let me use the stick to move over a teammate to help, while not forcing me to lose control of the main guy I'm defending with.  You know what I mean? Calling double-teams isn't bad, but it can be slow to react, and it doesn't always bring over the teammate you want to help. I think something like that could work nicely. I think it'd also be more fluid to get guys going back to people left open on the perimeter.      

 Oh, and another thing. It's lame when you got a big trying to shoot inside and there's 3 bodies there, but you can only jump with 1 guy at a time. You usually can't count on your AI teammates to help out much in this situation, so it'd be cool if they could find a way to let you defend with more than 1 guy. Maybe you can with the dual player control, but I think that's just for offense. Honestly, I'm not really sure. It's a feature I don't ever use. Maybe you'll know if that's already possible.     

 Ha, and yeah, eating babies is a perfect past-time for that injury-prone, old-man-lookin' BENCHWARMER!    

" i still ran into the problem where your AI teammates leave you on an island without you calling an iso. in the demo i called a pick n roll, Bynum came out started to roll, and when i passed him the ball he animated towards the perimeter and caught it outside. next thing i know my team leaves him alone and stack up on the opposite side.   2k10 left such a bad taste in my mouth by how many glitches and bugs it had that im waiting till a few reviews come out before i buy. "

I'm not sure if you've played the demo by now or not, but this seems to be even more of an issue in 2K11. I totally understand why they do it though. Being able to get too many steals by just reaching would ruin the game. But yeah, I think I've gotten maybe one steal so far by reaching. Other than that it's been all fouls. 
 
On a somewhat similar note, taking charges seems to be literally impossible in 2K11. I'm very saddened to not have taken even one charge so far despite many attempts. A lot of them were legitimate charge situations down in the key, although I will admit that I tried a few times to take some douche charges at midcourt. :P 

 Speaking of unfair, ever notice how often the opposing team will call a time-out EXACTLY the moment you're able to steal the ball or they're going to have a turn-over? It happens all the time and it's so annoying. The AI can be pretty cheap in ways like that, but at the same time, they do things that would never happen in real life and work to your advantage to be more fair. For instance, if you fall down after a play or fall behind after a missed steal attempt and are running across the court to try to get back to your man, they can have a guy wide-open for a three and instead of shooting, they'll wait or call a time-out. I don't like to see that. No team is ever going to be like "Wait! Man down! Let's wait until he catches up and can defend me before I continue. We gotta keep the game fair, guys!"     

 Oh yeah, and about the review scores... well, you know how that goes. They gotta hurry up and play through games to get the reviews out, so they probably didn't play through any of the modes that extensively, and are mainly just looking at what's on the surface. Guys like me and you have had some serious playtime with the game, so we know it in-and-out. If I had a week or less to write a review on the game, I probably wouldn't have had enough playing time to see or figure out most of these issues.    

Found a pretty rad video showing some moves and how to execute them. Check it: