 2K has been trying to win me over, literally the entire year and I've been incredibly skeptical about a lot of the things that the devs have been saying. And for good reason, it's literally their job to get people excited about the game. And the last thing I want is to get excited about the game and then find out like, you know, the game really isn't shit. So I've been like, I've been reserved for a while now. But some gameplay came out a few days ago, and I just put it this way, ladies and gentlemen, it is very hard at this point for me to contain said excitement. You win! Just drop the game already. I'm tired of playing 18. There's already a default level of excitement because anything that's not NBA 2K 18 is exactly what I want right now. Just bring back 16 or something, man, or just drop 19 today. Do it now. Anyway, iPod King Carter was the one who I seen upload the gameplay, although I don't think the footage was his. It was the first one I saw. There was some things that I've seen in this gameplay that one Mike Wong talked about on Twitter, but two caught me by surprise a little bit. So let's take a look. So first off, the text and the designs look entirely different. It has like a little sleek vibe to it. All right, I don't care because I'm not gonna play my team or play now, but looks good. There's something different about the way that this game looks. I don't know if it's contrast or maybe they increase the saturation a little bit, but the colors just pop more. So this is the first offensive possession of the game. Stephen Curry is going to bring it off the inbound drive left, no overpowered blow by, but he makes the contested layup and it only, if you pay attention, it shows the coverage was lightly contested. So a lot of people were sending me tweets freaking out. They did the same to Mike Wong and this should be obvious if you played 2K, but for some people, apparently it wasn't. They're playing on rookie difficulty. Jesus, guys, why y'all jump into conclusions so quick? I criticize 2K a lot for a lot of valid reasons, I think, but there's some people that sometimes they be tweeting me and I'm like, yo, relax, but there's an explanation for it. Jesus, man. So Mike Wong verified on Twitter as well. He said the guy that was playing was obviously playing on rookie difficulty and the sliders are different. So even if it's heavily contested, if you're playing on rookie, occasionally they'll tell you the coverage was lightly contested. So there was some key moments in this gameplay I'm going to point out when they arise. And this is the first time we're seeing some post play Durant playing some awful defense LeBron with the fade. We haven't heard anything about a post fade or a fade ace badge returning to 2K. If you guys remember in 2K 15 and 16, fades were incredibly overpowered, which is why in 17 and 18, they've seen huge nerfs. So Stephen Curry's dribble packages look the same as NBA 2K 18. He's getting drive by, horrible defense by Rondo, gets a wide open bucket. The guy playing in this gameplay is ass. He is absolutely horrible. 2K, would it be nice for a change of pace if you guys got someone who's actually good at the game to come out with some gameplay like this? Jesus man, it's like they go right to IGN and IGN, you know those guys, none of those guys can play video games. And then they put them on the sticks and it's like, we don't really learn as much as we could have because this guy is taking horrible shot attempts the whole time. He has no idea how to dribble. He's mistiming all those jump shots and he's playing on rookie difficulty. So we see LeBron in the post again, a hop, DeMarcus Cousin stands his ground, all those animations were in 2K 18, nothing new there, good box out, boring Dremons on the break. So the main thing that I guess I picked up from this gameplay was the changes to rebounding. In the past, rebounding was incredibly linear and very random, which is why I found it really funny when people come out with montages, they would call them snag montages of them just clicking the triangle button and jumping for a rebound. It's random, it's easy, like, but people were doing it. And in this 2K, we know Mike Wang on Twitter has been just going and talking about rebounding. Oh, he just won't stop talking about glass cleaners. And so this is the first time we're seeing footage of a lot of the stuff he's talking about. So literally every tweet from this one right here, all the way up to like this one here was all about rebounding. A message from your friendly neighborhood AI engineer who works on rebounding. This year, only decent rebounders can cover a lot of ground while jumping to make up for trim rebounds that didn't trim. Rim rebounds that didn't go their way. He mentioned things like if you're a guard, you might be better off just trying to sprint to the rebound instead of clicking triangle, because you might just scoop it up and sprint your way to the basket. He also mentioned if you're a guard, it might make more sense for you instead of clicking triangle to just sprint to the ball and then get a running start to a fast break. If you're controlling a short guard with low rebounding, it might be best for him to play like he'd responded in real life, instead of immediately matching the rebound button, keep him on his feet and rush over to the ball once you see where it's headed. As a boxy, you can attempt to shove your boxer towards the rim by pushing your left stick toward the rim or try to swim around him by pushing your stick left or right of the rim. The success and speed of your swim attempt depends on many factors, including of course strength, weight, box out skill, hustle rebounder badge, and whether or not you're in takeover. He continued to go on with more and more details about the relationship between the boxer and the boxy, but what we're seeing a lot in this gameplay is examples of even if I'm the better rebounder, if you have me boxed out, there's a good opportunity I can go above you, tip the ball, and then just fight for it and get it back depending on all those factors he just mentioned. So in the past, while Glass Queen his biggest advantage was how overpowered Brick Wall was in 2K17, this year it seems like there might be some real purpose to having a build with rebounding in it. Okay, so this part right here is one of the key moments of this gameplay. Stephen Curry is at the free throw line and he's about to put up his second free throw. He's going to shoot it, he's going to get a green, and you can almost see the shot meter looks elongated. But more importantly, the takeover badge appears. This is the first time we're seeing hints of the takeover badge. And if you've been listening to the drama alerts and following Mike Wong's tweets, you'd know the higher your overall, the better you are as a player, the longer over your takeover lasts. And so for Stephen Curry, what we're going to see is it lasts for about three minutes of gameplay. And it happened two minutes into the game, which is incredibly impressive. Now if you're a shot creator, this next part is going to get you really excited. Stephen Curry, there's a snatch back, he's going to blow left, doesn't get to blow by animation, but the amount of space he covers in that step back is incredibly impressive. If your name is a shot creator, and you're creating all of that space, and I know that's an AI covering him, so he's stuck on him like glue, but users are going to tend to make errors. A shot creator put that shot up and hit. Look at, look at just the space. Jesus. I don't know, man. I might be a little bit bullish on shot creators this year. They could be, if they're not balanced correctly, incredibly overpowered. And that's just, that's a Stephen Curry animation. I can't even imagine what players like Derek Rose might have as their animation for a step back. Stephen Curry, again, doing some Stephen Curry dribble moves, going to pull up in his eye. And this is weird because although it's contested, it's going to say lightly contested and the shot is going to drop. Again, not only is he on takeover, his name is Stephen Curry, but more importantly, this is rookie difficulty. Alright, so watch this play here because this stuff gets me excited and screams skills gap. Kuzma kicks it to Lonzo coming off the screen, misses the shot. In 2K18, 17 and everyone before that, if you're eight foot away from the basket, literally under no circumstances do you miss the shot. Whether you're contested, whether you had a bad release, no matter their situation, you were hitting that shot, which is frustrating. But it seems like in this gameplay, there was a lot of situations, even though it's in rookie difficulty, where those shots missed because it wasn't an ideal situation. They weren't dropping automatically just because of their distance and proximity to the rim. Alright, so this play right here is probably the perfect example and it happened pretty frequently throughout the game of the differences and changes in rebounding this year and it gets me excited. So this guy, keep in mind, you can see this play, he's trash at the game. He's gonna kick it forward to Curry and then he just thinks Curry's a good shooter, so let's just throw it up contested. Ball goes up. Now, you see DeMarcus Cousins over here boxed out. I believe that's Kuzma in front of him boxing him out and look at him. About like seven or eight feet away from the basket. Now, in every other 2K, that would usually put Kuzma in the best position to get the rebound, unless the rebound went incredibly long, Kuzma was safe. But in fact, let's slow it down even more because you guys have to watch this in .25. Ball goes up, DeMarcus Cousins pushes his way all the way to the rim because of strength and now he's almost there. The ball tips in his direction and even though he's boxed out, he fights his way through Kuzma's box to tip the ball and even though he doesn't come down with the rebound, he almost did. So if you're a glass cleaner and you're looking at this, just think, he was in horrible position and almost came away with the rebound. Can you imagine if you're consistently in good position? That's what I'm trying to say. So there's another example of it literally the next place. Stevenson is going to bring up the ball. He's going to put up the shot. It gets tipped by LeBron. He does come up with the rebound against strength, ability to box out, being in good position. And I assume he had a higher rebounding stat than all the people around him. So it's like you actually have to hustle and fight for the rebounds this year. It's an actual live ball. And so although that's what I got most excited about, there was some other things I've seen in the gameplay that we need to check out. All right. So Stephen Curry is bringing the ball up the court. He's going to go left again, like he's been doing literally all games. Snatchback again. No overpower with Snatchbacks this year. Thank God, no overpowered blowbys this year. And so in previous years, while Stephen Curry might have just blown by him, this year is not so easy. So you have to find creative ways, whether it's through setting screens, running plays, or maybe just breaking his ankles if you're a good at ISO. So he drives left and obviously this is a turnover waiting to happen. He looks like he's about to bump into somebody and he does. That's how it should be. If you're dribbling into people, you should be punished. And the people that came back from the event said that they were getting a lot more bump steals, etc. And I know in real life, it's not really realistic to get steals with your knee or to get steals with your elbow or whatever. But this is a video game where it's impossible to replicate real life. And so in knowing that in that context, we have to understand if we're not punishing people for bad dribbling, there's going to be a lot of clipping and running into each other. And it's just not going to be fun. It's going to be incredibly cheesy. Okay, this play was fun. Hart brings the ball in, gets bumped by Stephen Curry, picks up his dribble, passes inside. Good contest. Misses the shot. They're out on the break. Bell kicks it. That's Iggy. And then again, you see what I'm telling you? It wasn't a good release. I don't care if it's rookie. First of all, he's a garbage player. You should have easily went up for a dunk or a layup. He didn't do that. He also missed the release. And so if you do all of those things wrong, you shouldn't then be rewarded with the bucket. It makes me happy to know that there's a little bit of a skills gap to it this year. That on top of the fact that it might have just been his mid range rating, right? If he doesn't have a good moving mid range, that might also be why he missed the shot. So no surprise, they have those very pointless time wasting interviews with players at the end of the first and third quarter. This should give you hope if you're a post scorer. Bell gets the ball down low, is muscling his man, literally shoves him out the way to go up. Listen, if I'm bullish about any two builds in this year's game, it's post scorers and glass cleaners. If I was to choose a big man, I don't even know what I'd do because both of those builds look incredibly useful this year. Ladies and gentlemen, don't make bad passes because it will get picked off. All right, this play here is pretty funny. Sean Livingston is going to bring the ball up. We skip forward a decent amount. It's a horrible pass and you're going to see Draymond Green can't actually control it because he immediately runs into a Laker player. I believe that's Rondo. And so he fumbles with the ball and eventually Sean Livingston gets it back and they reset the play. I love it. It actually feels like a ball this year. Look at the animation. So don't force your big man to be in horrible situations by making bad passes that lead them right into defenders. That's for you point guards. Some more post play here. LeBron on Durant is going to do a post spin on the baseline and get perfect positioning. Even though it looks like Durant played it well, LeBron gets the bucket. Okay. This part for me as a shooter was, I don't even know if it's interesting. It's more funny and I don't really know what it means exactly, but okay, we got to actually slow this one down. All right, we got our guy Sean Livingston with the ball. He's bringing it up. We see Clay Thompson follow him. He's going to the left wing. He gets the ball and Clay Thompson is going to go up for a shot right here. Did you see what I saw? Clay Thompson's shot meter just pulled up for a pump fake. Do you know how fast your fucking release has to be for your shot meter to show up for a pump fake? I don't want to say anything just yet, but I might, I might just fall for the trap. All right, let's watch this back. Clay Thompson gets the ball. His shot meter pulls up. So basically you couldn't even get a very early relief with Clay Thompson if you wanted because it's just going to be a pump fake. That's how fast his release is. Now, in just some context for those of you who didn't know, Clay Thompson and Kevin Love, in my opinion, had the best release in NBA 2K16. I don't know if 2K wasn't happy with it or whatever the reason was, but in 17 and 18, those releases were just like, they were I in 17, especially Clay Thompson at a decent base, but it was nothing like it was in 2K16. Let me find out Clay Thompson has the fastest release in the game so fast that shot meters pull up on pump fakes. It's going to be the first release I test out comes 2K19. All right, that's all there was to the gameplay. This is five on five, right? So it's not entirely representative of what we could expect to see from Playground or the Pro-Amp. The sliders are going to be different on top of that what we've seen was on rookie difficulty. That being said, there's a lot that I've seen in this that would lead me to believe the NBA 2K19 is going to be a much better product than 2K18. Now, I'm going to be going to New York in a couple of days, and it's going to be the first time I play NBA 2K19. So it'll be my first time getting hands-on experience. Hopefully, I can record some footage and bring it back. We'll see how things go. I'm excited for it. If you guys enjoyed the video, drop a like, subscribe to the channel. I'm going to announce the archetype that I'm choosing, at least the first one I decide to choose for NBA 2K19 really soon. Let me know if you guys want to see that. I'm going to catch you guys in the next one, free lose around the corner, and I'm starting to get excited, ladies and gentlemen. I'm out. Peace.