IGN Game Review: NBA 2K27

0:00This is IGN. With summer coming to an end, you're going to be spending more time indoors. Get your home ready and save up to 50% off custom window treatments during the Labor Day mega sale at Blinds.com. From room darkening to light filtering shades, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services, or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Top up to 50% off site-wide plus huge savings on door busters. Right now during the Labor Day mega sale at Blinds.com. Money doesn't grow on threes. This is your IGN review of NBA 2K27 by Nico Fergara. Just like our favorite NBA teams, the NBA 2K series teases enough improvements every year to give us a sliver of hope, a renewed sense of faith that maybe things will be even better than last time. Although that faith was rewarded for NBA 2K26 that hasn't been the case with NBA 2K27,

1:02while the on-court play does feel better thanks to smoother and more responsive defensive movements, some new additions like my career eras and my NBA legacy are the opposite. Instead they act like magnifiers, placing a spotlight on issues that have consistently plagued this series, like an ever growing emphasis on micro transactions and half baked features. That can turn what should be an energizing session of hoops into a tiring exercise and scrutiny. Let's kick things off with the good stuff, the on-court experience. Offense, although it still feels largely the same, has a few new tricks up its sleeve that make it slightly more challenging than last year. For starters, rhythm shooting is much less forgiving than in 2K26 since you'll have to actually hit the green part of your shot meter to make jumpers. Full disclosure, I religiously use the square button to shoot because it's what I've been doing since 2K10. With this change, I've become even more partial to the classic hold and release method since there just doesn't seem to be an incentive to master rhythm shootings more finicky timing

2:06and down-up motion. Of course there may come a point when I'll need to really dig into the latter, but today is not that day. Then there's the new logic-based dunk meter, which instead of only showing up when you perform skilled dunks like in 2K26, now appears whenever you drive to an attempt to shot at the rim. The goal, as always, is to hit the green, but it won't always be that simple because this feature takes the defender's positioning into account. That means even if you get a near-perfect release on your way to a jam, a well-timed contest from a towering, highly rated defender like Zach Edie or Victor Wimbongon, I could turn it into a miss. Okay, it's time to head on over to my career's neck of the woods, with its latest single player journey dramatically titled Fire and Concrete. Like always, this tale follows our recurring hero MP showing his hoops growth and stages from humble high school roots all the way to a career in the pros. Unlike its predecessors though, this one's a doozy, spanning 11 chapters.

3:08The thing I've been most disappointed with is my career eras, a new mode that lets you drop a created player into one of the six significant time periods in the NBA. It's exciting, right? Sure, on paper, but then you realize you can't swap your custom characters between eras, which means having to start fresh with a Paltry 60 overall rating for each one. So if you want to actually compete in these eras, you'll have to either grind out a crazy amount of matches in the city or spend real money to give your characters an immediate boost. I'll be honest, even though my NBA legacy's addition is more than welcome, it's disappointing that I can't choose players from past eras. I would have loved to play as some of my favorite stars from history like Derek Rose or Steve Nash, so I could rewrite their stories, maybe help them win a championship or two. I'm also surprised that it doesn't have a teammate grade feature for when you're playing matches, especially since this is a player locked mode. So although I can see myself enjoying it for a while, the exclusion of these two key

4:13components make it feel incomplete. Just hoping visual concepts buttons this option up in NBA 2K28. NBA 2K27 is a reflection of a budding prospect who couldn't quite put things together. Sure it may displash at first with a smooth on-court experience that's better than in recent years, but it fails to follow that up with anything meaningful. Amiddling my career story doesn't help its case and flawed new modes like my career eras in my NBA legacy only worsen things by highlighting long running problems. It's a tale as old as time, a cliched one that starts with what if only, and right now I'm ready to close the book before I even reach the final chapter. NBA 2K27's IGN score? Six out of ten. Thanks for listening to IGN. My name is Tony Jackson, and for the latest NBA 2K27 updates, visit us at IGN.com.