 I was bored one night, I hopped on YouTube, I ended up watching a whole bunch of old my career videos. It hit me like a ton of bricks. 2K22 had the best story mode in 2K history, and it was carried heavily by the surprisingly good RPG. Hey man, y'all new to the channel? Be sure to subscribe! I also started streaming, I'll leave the link at the top of the description of my Twitch, or if y'all don't watch on Twitch, you need a stream clip, stream clip channel, link in the description as well. Okay, so check this out. I know what the cool thing is to like hate the current 2K always. When 2K16 was hot, people hated 2K16, bro. And at the year 2K16, during that year, people didn't like the game. When 2K19 was out, people hated the game. Even when 2K11 was out, people didn't like the fucking game. Reality is, is like over time, people like only remember the good memories of a lot of the games they played. So they'll look back at games like 16 and 19, and they'll be like, wow, that was incredible. But I'm telling y'all right now, I have never in my life, as a person who doesn't even really play too much single player, be hooked on a story the way I was with NBA 2K22, and it's for a very amount of reasons. First of all, let me just say, not the current gen version. I'm talking about the next gen right now. Hey man, I got some big news. I've partnered up with Mobile One and Gen G to take your NBA 2K skills to the next level with the tune up. Look man, there's free giveaways to winning competitions to partake in. If you click the link, 10 lucky winners are winning 75 KVC, and they're giving away a grand prize of an entire PS5. But if you're anything like me and you're a competitor, you're gonna wanna pay attention. They have a 3V3 and 1V1 tournament. They'll have community tournaments, and you have a chance to play with some of your favorite content creators. If you're interested, visit the tuneup.gg to enter and win top link in the description. And it's a huge thank you to Mobile One and Gen G for sponsoring this video. So when I say a great story mode, I don't mean like Metal Gear Solid 4, The Witcher 3, The Last of Us 1. I'm not comparing it to those, right? I'm comparing it to sports titles for the main point. It's difficult to come up with a sports title that has a good story because we're playing basketball. Like how much creativity can you really deploy playing the sport of basketball? You're pretty limited. At the end of the day, Brian, I know I'm gonna be in the NBA. I know I'm probably gonna win my championships on rookie difficulty, and I'm probably gonna make the Hall of Fame in like eight seasons flat. Those are all things I know is gonna happen. And so there are four that can only be so much. Wiggle Room. That being said, I was very hesitant when 2K talked about adding RPG elements. I was like, there's no way they're actually gonna add an RPG that really incentivizes me to wanna play the game. But I would like in 2K22's RPG to like Assassin's Creed Origin. Not as good, but like it kept me in there. In my head, I'm thinking like, bro, I was trying to rack up all these points so I can get my penthouse. And on top of that, you're also grinding for your player at the same time. You're also grinding to level 40. So it was like, you were doing three different grinds at the exact same time. And when you played micro, you were kind of rewarded for all of them. So one, there was reward there. So it incentivized you to continue playing. And it seemed like every few games I was unlocking the next tier, the next tier, I was like, man, I need to get to level 10 in music, level 10 in fashion. The fashion side career was a whiff. The idea was cool, but in reality, I just had to spend a bunch of VC on virtual clothes, take dumb meetings from garbage designers. But the rap side career was surprisingly refreshing. You link up with your buddy, Lil Metal, and you have a rap beef with the real artist, The Game. And you actually go into the booth and you have shows and you promote your shows at radio stations. It actually felt like you was working towards something. So at the end of every my career game, I was like, damn, I don't know what cutscene I'm gonna get. Metal Gear Solid 4 is the best example of a game that felt more like a movie. Now some people hate that, personally me, like there's bad ways to do it, but Metal Gear Solid 4 knocked it out the park. It was like, man, you was watching like 30, 40 minute cutscenes at times and I was in there. Man, you know those ones, bro, when you finish a game, you know the cutscene is about to be juicy. You was waiting for this cutscene, yeah. And having that like end goal of a penthouse, now the penthouse was a let down, like having the zip line was fantastic, true. Especially because there's no other great way to get around the city. But the fact that you can't invite your friends into the penthouse felt like a mess. So like, I'm the only one who could experience it. There's no way to customize it. So I get the same penthouse as everybody else. It felt like the end goal was like, it was great, but then when you got it, it was a huge let down. 2K, please do RPG again, but this time have the reward be something worth getting. I promise you there'll be more hype behind the end of the micro reward than the actual park race. Because we know they fucked up the park race and the legend race this year. But if you just take a step back and you stop comparing 2K to like gaming titles and you compare it to just sports titles, whether it's FIFA, whether it's Madden, it could be PEZ, fuck, it could be WWE. There is no video game that's dropped a better RPG than 2K22. You need to show me the game, bro, and show me video clips of evidence. You need to show me evidence and videos on why I got you more hooked than the 2K22 story did for me. Bro, I was genuinely surprised, dawg. I was in there, like I was in there for two weeks just grinding. Bro, I never felt that way about a 2K story. Not when Spike Lee directed the shit, not when they told me Idris Elba was gonna be a star, not when they brought back some of the like old time favorites, like, what was his name, that guy who was always beef with? I don't know, bro, ATM, this, that, the third bro, there was nothing they could do to convince me to be excited about my career. I might play it to grind my player. I definitely wasn't excited to do it. In 2K22, bro, it was the first year I was actually genuinely excited to do it. So for as much as they missed with 2K22, and it was plenty, they knocked it out the park with the RPG. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't even great, it was plenty of bugs, it was just really good. I also think that the only good reason for having a city was like the RPG. Like, you know, you travel to this place, you do this thing, you travel to this place, you have this cut scene, you promo this thing, you travel to this place, you do trivia. Like the city felt like, you almost felt like you reached every corner of the city. You had to investigate the whole city. By the time you was complete the story, like you've been everywhere. That's how a good story is really supposed to feel. When it came to like the multiplayer side of things, the city was just a massive inconvenience. It needs to be downsized and there's no real purpose for it. But if you just focus on the single player, I get why 2K made the city the way they did. I feel like they still could have accomplished those things with a smaller and more convenient city, but whatever, who cares? On the same note though, my experience kept getting interrupted by like stupid bugs. And I know it's so easy for you to like think 2K has so much issues with their game that like we're just gonna overlook some of them. But there were certain missions that I just couldn't complete because they were bugged out and I had to wait for updates. There were times where I would play the Kendrick Perkins videos on my phone over and over again and it wouldn't tell me that I completed the mission. And on the eighth attempt, I finally completed it. Man, I was like, damn, it felt like there was just hangs where like even though I'm invested in this story, I literally have to just stop and wait for 2K to update the game because I can't continue with this bug. Or I was owed 50,000 city points or whatever and I can't get them because the actual thing that I completed is glitched and it's not saying I accomplished it. So I was like, that's the most 2K shit ever to like have something finally going for them and still find a way to sabotage it. Luckily, like a few weeks into the launch of the game, they were able to figure out most of those bugs. I don't know if it was all of them, but I stopped receiving people tweet at me saying like this, that, the third went wrong after those updates a few weeks into the game. Bro, keep a wrap side. The side career shit is the best idea 2K's ever had. At first it just felt like, damn 2K, you're doing everything except focusing on the gameplay. But yo, the wrap side career was fire. If 2K has to include side careers to incentivize people to wanna play the game and dive deeper into the RPG, then go for it. It's definitely a unique touch. I mean, hopefully it's engaging and not just go here, do that, go here, do that. I think the wrap or side career was good. And keep in mind, I uploaded videos going through the entire wrap side career and the entire fashion side career because I was just having that much fun on there. It was like, damn, I'm trying to get to level five fashion so I could unlock a new cut scene. I was doing like all these side missions to get my fashion points up, walking on the runway. Like, bro, it's a sports title. Like when you think about that, it's a sports title. What? If I compared it to like all genres, it's like a mid RPG, right? It's not good, gray, the best. But compared to sports titles, it's the best. There was a few misses, 2K. Pay close attention to this. For some reason, for years we've been able to like open up this DJ booth and create beats within 2K. First of all, I feel like it's a random feature to have in a video game, but now that we have it, is there a way we can save them? Bro, sometimes I'll be putting together fire ass beats, but there's no way for me to save them. 2K, there needs to be a studio we can go to, create that beat, save it, layer vocals over it, save the vocals, and then upload that to like some kind of 2K server and some kind of competition. There's a way to get the community involved in something like that. It just felt like I made this beat and only the people around me and my proximity can hear it, and then it disappeared forever. And even when it was fire and the rhythm was great, there was no way for me to save it, lay vocals on it. I know it's a sports title, I'm dragging it yet, but you have a feature where we can create beats, at least allow us to save it. I feel like the only reason they don't let us do that is cause it's gonna take up server space, but that is a fucking lazy reason, Jesus. I also feel like there was a little bit of a myth with the real estate, right? Because you start off in an apartment, you upgrade to another apartment, then eventually, if you complete the story, you get a penthouse, right? But for some reason, like, every time they allowed you to pick the home, they gave you one or two locations, but it was the same home. I'm not saying like 2K needs to have 50 different home ideas or nothing like that, but just having a few, like, right? Like a few different floor layouts, 2K, you can model a few different floor layout apartments, right? Or allow us to customize it the way we did in the past with the MyCourt where we can put our different backboards on the net that should be in our home, right? What the fuck? Put a net back in there. We can invite our friends and shit, please. We just have a little bit more variety in the real estate cause I would get a mission and it would be like purchase your studio or your fashion depot or whatever. And I'd be like, yo, we get a chance to purchase real estate. I'll go to the first place, tour it. I'll go to the second place, tour it. And the tour is just looking at it from the outside. They don't really show you a floor plan or what it's gonna look like on the inside ever. It's basically just pick the location you'd rather have it. And that's basically what it is. Which is fine. At least they give us an option instead of just giving us a house. Am I asking for too much? Potentially, I don't know. This is 2K at the end of the day. But for me, it would've just, it would've made it so that when you gave us the option to pick a place to fucking live or have a studio, it would've felt like it had some meaning or some like emphasis behind it. I wish 2K was able to do what they did offline for online. It felt like offline this year was great. Like, I enjoy myself. But then there's not much replay value once you do it. Like, you might answer differently next time or go in a different direction. But for the most part, you experience the offline 2K 22 story. There's not much else to experience beyond that. So you go online. Online is really supposed to get the replay value and that's not what I argue 2K 22 just missed. 2K just didn't incentivize people online the way they did offline to want to grind and continue playing. Like, the level 40 rewards in the season, at first, sounds like a good idea, especially if they can deliver. But man, when the legend reward is a parrot, yo, what? Imagine sinking in hundreds of hours into your life to receive a virtual parrot. Like, it should feel more grand than that, right? The level 40 reward of a tiger was better than the parrot, man. It seems like sports titles are getting more and more consolidated. Like, two decades ago, man, Activision would come out with a basketball game and then EA had their simulation basketball games with NBA Live and they had their arcade basketball games with NBA Street and 2K was competing with 2K. Bro, it was like every indie games, boom, boom. Like, there was like 10 options if you want to play basketball games. Nowadays, bro, you playing 2K, you not really playing much of anything at all. The occasional indie game will pop up on Steam and generate a little bit of steam. See what I did there? For a little bit, but then it's like, it gets packed up pretty quickly. It feels like now that there's like so few sports titles, we're kind of relying on each iteration to be good. And while EA's rumor to have a basketball game coming out, we have no clue what the fuck that's gonna look like or when it's gonna come out for the time being, 2K is literally all we got. And while I'm an online guy, now I much rather appreciate 2K Optimizer online gameplay so that I could have a very fun, very enjoyable time with very replayable game modes. 2K for this year had a good offline story and just like a bad online experience. Who would've thought? Like, what the fuck, man, what? Man, we've had 2K stories in the past. Bro, I dropped a video on this channel reacting to the craziest moments in 2K micro history and it blew up because it's like there's so much things that have happened in my career. There's people who've died in micro stories just for the story, bro. I'll leave that link at the end of the video if you guys want to watch it. But in all those attempts, it just never felt like anything but a cheap story that you've stitched together to market the game. 2K22 did it. For the first time ever, the stories are fun. The grind was enjoyable. Who would've thought, man, who would've thought? 2K, hopefully not only do you re-deliver in 2K23 with another good story, but you find a way to polish the experience so it's not splattered with bugs. Where you can do a lot of new stuff is in the side careers and the reality is, man, Damien Lillard, he likes to rap. Carl Antony Towns, he loves to stream on Twitch. Like these NBA players have passions outside of basketball for the first time in probably a long time. They're showing it. I would love 2K to experiment with some form of skill tree just to see what that looks like offline. Not for online, but for off. Come on, bro, come on, bro. Let me know how y'all feel about the story mode in the comment section down below. If you want to watch the video I was talking about where 2K, I reacted to all the craziest moments in 2K micro history from jump to all the way now, go ahead, click this video. If y'all want to watch the rapper side career, which I had a fantastic time on, click this video right here. Otherwise, man, I appreciate y'all for watching. I'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.