I would have liked to hear some more chatter on the court, especially when setting screens and calling out shots. Crowd noise could be a bit louder to bring out the excitement of a given moment but what's there works. The audio also performs well with Kevin Harlan and Kenny Smith hopping into the booth and delivering insightful quips that stand up well against what I heard from the current-gen console versions. The crowd won't impress anyone, but it's important to remember that you're looking at what has become ancient hardware and, overall, NBA 2K9 doesn't look half-bad. The presentation doesn't help either with the fudged out look on some of the characters. That said, there's aliasing that runs rampant on the court and it only gets worse when you take the game online. The player models are recognizable for the big name guys and the aforementioned animations are impressive.
NBA 2K9 PS2 AMAZON PS2
Graphically NBA 2K9 is a solid looking PS2 title. That means that if you picked up NBA 2K8, chances are you're going to want to skip 2K9, despite it being a solid basketball title. All in all the features – from Association to Street, right down to the online – haven't seen enough improvements or refinements. Other features include the standard online and Street modes that don't differentiate from what we're used to seeing from the series. The only other gameplay detractor when it comes to presentation is the camera which has a real issue with keeping with the action on the break, sometimes leaving your point man dribbling off the edge of the screen. Cheerleaders, when on the court, have a horrific blurry filter pasted over them that detracts from the curvaceously jaggy bodies. When in an arena things do look a bit better, but not by much. The menu systems look very outdated and even the color scheme will remind you more of a rainy day than a fun time on the court. In fact, the whole off-the-court presentation in NBA 2K9 is lacking. You'll still find the terribly designed Association 2.0 and the NBA.com integration that makes finding games to play a bit too much of a headache. The feature set that accompanies NBA 2K9 on PlayStation 2 is fairly barebones, but that's to be expected (though not excused) this late in a console's life cycle. Players do up and under moves, realistically collide with each other (though frequently clip through the basket), and pull off some other impressive animations that seem like they were ripped straight from the current-gen renditions which is a good thing.
NBA 2K9 PS2 AMAZON SERIES
Animations were nice and varied, as is standard for the series and I was impressed with the complexities that I saw on some of the interactions. None of that stopped NBA 2K9 from moving quite well, even on the older hardware. This wasn't the case on Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. I'm not saying that it wasn't fun at first, but after awhile I found myself having to turn to the myriad of sliders to adjust the experience to my liking. Even when ratcheting up the difficulty I found it very easy, even on non-break situations, to throw one down on the back-pedaling defense. Players move faster, jump higher and dunks are ridiculously easy from far out distances with players like Ray Allen who's not exactly known for his above the rim game. For whatever reason the game plays more like an arcade game, even with the settings flipped to simulation. NBA 2K9 on the PlayStation 2 takes a slightly different slant to its gameplay than on other systems. It's a fast and reasonably fun basketball title with little to offer to differentiate itself from past years. The latest from the perennial 2K basketball series is among these releases and NBA 2K9 is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Thankfully, at least for the owners of the beleaguered system, this year has plenty to offer.
NBA 2K9 PS2 AMAZON UPGRADE
If you're still playing all your games on Sony's aging system, it's probably time for an upgrade because this time next year the release list is likely to be totally vacant. News flash: the PlayStation 2 is on its last leg.