NBA 2K12 Big 3

2K sports just unveiled the cover athlete for the upcoming NBA 2K12 and much to my surprise, they went old school again with a trio covers of MJ, Magic and Bird. Up until now, I had secretly hoped that 2K sports will changed their mind about doing another NBA 2K release this year with the looming uncertainty of NBA season lockout yet to be resolved. My copy of NBA 2K11 is just barely six months old and pretty soon the online servers will be taken offline or abandoned in favour of the new version. Worse the Legend mode will be further expanded to now include Magic and Bird's championship era even though they already made brief appearance in NBA 2K11. I suspect like the Jordan Challenge which featured different era of MJ career, the Legend mode will now feature different renders of Magic and Bird so you don't have to bear with the horribly rendered moustached Bird from the 63 point MJ playoff game anymore.

Lost among the hype of NBA 2K new big 3 cover is the pre-order dlc of classic NBA teams like Webber's Kings and Mullin's Warriors.

(Double) Nickel's Back

When I first started watching NBA games, I realised there were NBA players and there was Michael Jordan. He had already ascend to NBA immortality by winning his first 3-peat of championship rings and was just in the midst of his incredible comeback. After that, he became the roadblock that prevented some of my favourite players from earning their own rings, not exactly how most NBA fans will remember him by but that was sort of how I identified him.

MJ made another comeback to the virtual court when NBA 2K11 featured him on the cover with some of his most memorable moments captured on the Jordan challenge mode. I wasn't exactly jumping to play the challenge mode when I got the game a couple of months ago, the only game that really stood out to me was the double-nickel game. Something about wearing that number 45 jersey and then scoring 55 points on Madison Square Garden just 4 games after making a comeback seems really special to me. It wasn't until after a brief spell of NBA 07 when I felt the urge to relive some of MJ's greatest games. Sure Kobe 81-point game in NBA 07 was fun but it wasn't exactly challenging with the lack of defense and simple AI logic in fact, my best score was enough to make Wilt Chamberlain sweat (97 points). I suspect scoring 50-points in NBA2K11 won't be easy even with MJ as my previous best was only 44-points with Ray Allen, thanks to some lucky 3s.

I suppose that's the beauty of NBA2K11, one week I could be totally absorbed with playing my favourite team on Association mode, another week I'm looking for live challenge online and now I'm totally wrapped in the Jordan challenge mode.