Spartan Reviews: NBA 2K13 Dishes Out Good Basketball

Reviews in 300 words or less...

Back when wearing John Stockton shorts didn’t get you locked up in fashion jail, I fancied myself as a promising basketball player. Then my little brother had a growth spurt so I decided to drop the ball and pick up embroidery. Actually, I was only kidding about that last part — though needlework certainly sounded more appealing than being endlessly boxed out by your suddenly ogre-sized sibling.

These days, I live my hoops dream vicariously through video games. As far as virtual basketball goes, the NBA 2K series is the alpha dog. With NBA 2K11 and 2K12 easily counting among the best sports games ever, NBA 2K13 had some huge size 22 shoes to fill. The good news is that gameplay-wise, NBA 2K13 continues the tradition. The game introduces some new wrinkles including JAY Z tunes, mapping new ball handling controls to the right stick and shots requiring additional button input. There’s also a plethora of offensive moves to master, which further add to the game’s realism and polish. In fact, there’s so much to do that newcomers will likely be overwhelmed, especially with the absence of a tutorial mode. There’s also a career mode that allows you to create a player and guide him from pre-draft greenhorn to stellar baller. I decided to create “JLicious Hidalgo” a player who is 100 percent just like me -- except taller, more athletic and just a smidgen better looking.  

Admittedly, the lack of past “Jordan/NBA Greatest” challenges is a bummer. Overall, though, NBA 2K13 is on the money.

Cost: $20-$60; PSP, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC
2K Sports NBA 2K13

'Lego Pirates' Connects With Families, Lego Fans

The Lego video game franchise gets another block in its ever growing Lego pile as Lego Pirates of the Carribean swings into most video game platforms.

Swashbuckling is the name of the game this time around as swordplay replaces the wizardry from the last Lego video game installment (i.e. Lego Harry Potter). Lego Pirates reaps the benefits from being the latest installment in the series, showing a nice amount of polish in the gameplay. Neat features include a treasure-finding ability via Jack Sparrow’s compass plus the ability to switch more quickly to your character of choice via a character wheel. Cut scenes should earn laughs from the kiddies. Jack also eerily sounds like Jack, despite being limited to the typical Lego grunting sounds.

Like past Lego games, though, platforming can still be frustrating at times. It’s still easy to fall off ledges and miss jumps, robbing you of some of your precious booty. While the retention of coop play is nice, the lack of online coop is a bummer, especially if you happen to be a certain cool, video-gaming uncle who happens to have a niece who just adores the Lego video game franchise but lives hundreds of miles away.

Even with the new Pirates angle, the Lego game franchise might be getting repetitive for some players. But if you still can’t get enough of Lego gaming then you’ll love Lego Pirates. Families looking for a fun game both young and old can enjoy will especially like this one.

Cost: $29.99-$49.99; PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, DS, 3DS, PSP

Lego Pirates Site

*This review originally appeared in the Reno Gazette-Journal Sunday Tech page.