2012 Review of NBA2K9
NBA2K9 was the NBA game that I purchased for my 360, after previously owning NBA Live titles from my days as an avid PS2 player. Enough about my background story however, on to the game.
The gameplay is remarkably good considering the time of the release, although the mechanics are nothing in comparison to more recent NBA2K releases. Most of the time, the game feels extremely fluid and has a solid setup of controls that make the game extremely easy to pick up and play.
The player ratings have changed a ton in more recent releases, as pretty much an average player is a mid 80's rating, while a bad player is in the low 70's or higher 60's. I didn't really like this aspect of the game, because it put some players on tiers where they really had no business in being. I believe that when I first picked up this game, Corey Maggette was somewhere near an 87 or 88 rating, which is far from correct, even in a game from 2009.
Modes like the Association, Playoff mode, and others of the sort are fun to play, although be wary of turning on CPU Trading, as you may get some really messed up deals on that end.
I personally had very little experience in online play, as I played two or three games. From my memory though, the online community was created pretty well. I personally remember facing little to no lag in any of the few online games I played. However, as this game has had three successors, the online community is probably diminished to the point where finding a game would be extremely difficult.
Overall, this is still a very solid NBA game for the 360, and likely for the PS3 as well. Pretty much any problems that are currently associated with this game is just the games age, as the rosters are four years old, and the online community is probably under a couple hundred anymore. However, if you see this game sitting on a clearance shelf for three or four dollars, go ahead and pick it up, especially if you want to get a taste of the 2K series without spending a good deal of cash.