SH00G
Published
The game generally runs, but has some issues. Note that some of these may be due to my own setup - I'm still tweaking things. Regardless, the issues I noticed were some minor screen tearing during gameplay and a strange underpower on the default throw strength and height. On my previous Windows machine, cranking the throw strength and height settings all the way up meant I could chuck 70 yard bombs easily. Now with those same settings I struggle to throw the ball ten yards. The game is playable without this, of course, but the precision of a crisp throw is required to beat some of the later levels.
Update from my prior review: after digging around about the throw strength issue, I found a developer recommendation to launch the configuration tool (shows up as a menu option when you click to play the game) and set the social viewer window to as small a resolution as possible. Apparently the physics of the throw strength are very closely related to the framerate you get in the game (and therefore in the social window) so reducing the output quality helps improve any stuttering or slowdowns. Applying this fix made the game run silky smooth and I no longer have issues with the throw strength.
Game is completely unplayable.
Menus and gameplay run at a snail's pace with lots of stuttering making the game completely unplayable.
If offline play is your jam, this game will run mostly fine for you.
Broadcast audio is entirely missing. I can hear on-court sounds and crowd noise but all commentator dialogue is muted.
Occasional input lag but this is likely due to my specs and not the game itself.
The game has crashed probably 5 times or so in the ~12 hours of play time I have. I have only played season mode so not sure if there is something specific therein that causes the crash. Progress is not saved when a crash occurs which is very frustrating.
I mean it's a 2k game...I was itching for a new basketball game as the last 2k I owned was 2k14 which does not work with Proton. The game performs well and looks nice but is otherwise what you'd expect from 2k: a cringy main storyline and questionable increase in value compared to the previous iteration. For me it was a huge upgrade (since the last one I owned was from 2013) and so far I have had lots of fun with season mode.
You may need to reduce graphics settings a bit. I bumped all mine down to medium and it ran like a dream. Certain guns (particularly those with scopes) seem to lag the game a bit for some reason. Also tested on Proton 4.2 and it does NOT work on that version.
With i3wm the game does not like to switch tabs when running in fullscreen mode.
Some strange lagging occurs on certain levels with lots of moving pegs. A restart of the game fixed the problem which leads me to believe there may have been a memory leak somewhere. I have not noticed the issue again.
The game is not launching with DXVK anymore after an update.
I have tried using older versions of Proton, as well as switching to Experimental, but not to avail. I have done lots of researchThe only way to get the game to launch is by setting PROTON_USE_WINED3D11=1 %command%, which makes the game unplayable due to missing textures.
Game loads into a black screen on launch and completely hangs my system requiring a hard restart. Loads perfectly on Proton 4.2.9.
Update from previous review: game no longer works.
The first time I ran the game after installing it ran like a dream. I played all the way through the first chapter of the game with no stability issues (the only thing wrong was slight crackling/popping in the cutscene audio which others have pointed out). I had no special launch options set or tweaks in any way. I ran the game on Proton 5.13-4 but cannot get it to launch using this or any previous Proton version since then. Very frustrating considering it worked out of the box from the beginning but is now broken due to the launcher.
Alt-Tabbing is generally not advisable; the game hangs when you do so.
Game has crashed maybe five times in my 17 hours of gameplay. I have noticed it tends to do so immediately after finishing a construction (frequently after placing conveyor belts), but this might just be a coincidence. I would advise saving the game immediately after placing down a particularly large number of constructions just in case. The autosave usually ensures you don't lose too much progress either way.
Game causes graphics card to freeze shortly after EULA.
This game used to run perfectly on an older version of Proton. After not playing it for a couple of months and returning, it requires me to accept the EULA again and asks me to register. As I have no interest in online play I opted to skip registration which causes my graphics card to freeze and forces a reboot. I use i3wm and am unable to switch workspaces or kill the program when this happens.
The game stutters and slows to a crawl after about an hour of playing to the point of requiring me to completely close it out and re-open. It almost feels like a memory leak of some kind.
The game launches and runs fine if you can get past the dogshit Origin launcher. The Origin logo will pop up and it will say "Connecting to Origin" with no further indication of progress. I don't know if it's because I'm using i3 on my machine, but all the windows behind the Origin logo show up as transparent (I can move them to different workspaces, but they never materialize for me). It took me a long time to realize the best way to get the game to launch is to spam the escape key until the Origin logo goes away. The game launches and runs quickly thereafter, but it usually takes me 2-3 minutes to get into the game after pressing play in Steam.
Game launches but never fully loads
Game window opens and displays the "connecting to server" prompt, but never loads. After alt-tabbing away from the window the program freezes and has to be killed.
