I love sports, and growing up I had to have every yearly release for all of the major sports. As I've gotten older I don't buy the games every single year, but every once in a while I have a craving to play a sports game. There's just something about them that other games can't match: the pick-up-and-play nature, the pure 1v1 competitiveness.

I haven't played an NBA game since 2k20, and 2k23 was the firs tone I've played on PS5, so I was excited to see the differences in gameplay. I'm mostly satisfied. The skeleton of the game remains the same of course. The rules of basketball largely haven't changed. Shooting feels good and intuitive, ball handling is smooth, and calling plays is nice and simple. I don't really enjoy the defensive side of the ball; defensive play feels at both times too heavy and floaty, your player has a ton of momentum that seems absent when you've got the ball in your hands.

The game's definitely not shy about pushing microtransactions either. The marquee MyCareer mode almost forces you to buy training points if you don't want to spend hundreds of hours growing your player. That said, the franchise mode is excellent as ever, and has a new feature where you can star tin several different eras and replay NBA history with real historic draft classes. Very cool.

NBA 2k23 is a nice game, especially if you enjoy franchise mode, and at the sale price I got it for ($23). Hopping on and spending a half hour at a time playing a game or two is a great time.

Verdict: Timewaster

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