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NBA 2K19 starts the 20-year celebration party in stores

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Head down to your local store and buy the latest in the franchise, if it suits you.

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NBA 2K19 is available in stores as of today, 2K Games has announced. You can purchase it for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or digitally for PC, at an MSRP of either $59.99 USD or $99.99 USD, depending on how special you want your edition.

Believe it or not, the NBA 2K franchise has now been around for 20 years, which is the event this particular release celebrates. That's a long time and a lot of video basketball, and for many the franchise rests at the top of the (admittedly much smaller than it used to be in the 16/32-bit days) heap.

"NBA 2K19 represents the culmination of over two decades of development and innovation from the development team at Visual Concepts," says Greg Thomas, the company's president. "It's exciting to be at the forefront of sports gaming by evolving the franchise year after year, and we can't wait for our community to experience it for themselves."



As usual, NBA 2K19 features the sort of minor improvements to virtually all aspects of the game that you might expect from an iterative franchise like this one. It's the sheer number of iterations that have come together to produce what I can only assume--based on numerous releases over the last 20 years--is a polished gem for basketball game fans.

One of the game's new features is "Takeover," where you can unlock "special moves and abilities never before seen on the court" and "unleash the power of your full squad." That sounds hostile!

Another mode, which also sounds a bit hostile based just on the name, is "run the neighborhood," wherein players participate in extended streetball matches with their crew. No, this is not Grand Theft Auto. It's basketball.

There's also the MyTEAM option, where players can test their skills in a $250,000 tournament running from October 13, 2018 through February 13, 2019. So if you want to do really well at that, you can give yourself (I presume) a serious advantage by picking up the game sooner rather than later and just playing the heck out of it.

Finally, the MyCAREER mode "returns with an all-new, immersive narrative charting your journey from China to the G League and eventually the NBA." It's the mode where you worry about things like endorsements and popularity and team chemistry. There's also a bit of basketball action. Maybe even a lot of it.

NBA 2K19 is available in a standard edition for the $59.99 USD price referenced above. An anniversary edition is also available, for $99.99 USD, which include 100,000 Virtual Currency, MyTEAM cards, LeBron-themed digital items for MyPLAYER mode, and more. Giannis Antetokounmpo is the cover athlete for the standard edition (they should've splurged and gone for Damian Lillard, if you ask me) and LeBron James is the star on the anniversary edition. He's no Lillard, but then, who is besides Lillard himself? So he'll have to do.

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Staff article by Jason Venter (September 11, 2018)

Jason Venter has been playing games for 30 years, since discovering the Apple IIe version of Mario Bros. in his elementary school days. Now he writes about them, here at HonestGamers and also at other sites that agree to pay him for his words.

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