NBA 2K13 is a video game with sportive content produced by Visual Concepts in collaboration with 2K Sports. The game belongs to the NBA series from 2 K Sports and it represents a version of the well-known basketball tournament from North America. The game is available for Microsoft Widows, Android, iOS and for the consoles Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP). The game was launched on December 27th 2012 and has both single player and multiplayer options, being produced by the rap artist Jay Z.
Significant improvements were brought in NBA 2K13 in order to make this game the best of the series. First of all, the player can now dribble better, which helps a lot in the offensive phase of the game. The basketball simulator kept the game mode My Player which is now called My Career, in which new options have been integrated: the player has access to more activities outside the sportive circuit, like publicity contracts, players’ contracts negotiations, using the Twitter social media platform and even having a speech for the team prior to entering the field. The player can also choose what habits the players have and what rituals they perform prior to entering the field. The player can also talk to the manager after the end of a game and can even choose to create his own clothing objects that the players of the team shall promote.
Albeit NBA 2K13 does not have a historical game mode, most of the teams from the anterior game are back in the circuit and amongst the additions in this department we should mention the Celebrities’ Team, which has in its composition people like Sean Kingston, Bow Wow, Justin Bieber and Wale amongst others. Among the new options of the game, there is My Team, the game mode in which every player can build his own team with which he can then reach – if he tries hard enough –the edges of glory. The player has a high degree of versatility that he uses in customizing the players and his team. In the menu of the game mode My Career, the player also has a virtual shop from which he can chose the equipment, the clothing and the accessories of his players, while afterwards he can play in Xbox Live against other real players with his own team.
Amongst the new features that were introduced in NBA 2K13, we mention the virtual money that the player can use in order to buy skill points, abilities, players, new fields or new staff members. In the game mode My Career Blacktop, a new option of the game gives the player the possibility of showing his dexterity in a competition against other players from the online environment.
The video game NBA 2K13 enjoys a phenomenal success amongst the specialized critics and has 88 points out of 100 on Metacritic. Many known video games critics consider that this game might be one of the best sports video games, if not the best indeed. Amongst the strong points of the game, we mention the new control mode and the realism of both the scenes and the field graphics.
In order to play NBA 2K13 on your computer, you need a few minimum requirements: Microsoft Windows, Pentium 4 with a 2.4 GHz processor or better, 512 MB of dedicated RAM memory (although 1G GB of RAM memory is recommended), 11 GB of free space on the hard drive and a Direct X 9.0c video and audio card. This basketball simulator has a price of roughly 30 Euros at this point.
