Bring your A game and your Tekken moves.

What does it say about current NBA stars when the biggest news of the fall sports game season was Michael Jordan's appearance in NBA 2k11? (No really, someone send an email because we have no idea.) When first announced, it seemed plausible (though a little cynical, even for us) that including Jordan was a gimmick to distract from what could have been a mailed-in edition of an annual sports game. But it's far from it. 2k11 is the best basketball game we've seen and one of the best sports games.

This is not NBA Jam. Even though the most unlikely of players can and will throw down vicious, acrobatic dunks, 2k11 is a hardcore basketball simulation. Anyone who walks into the room, picks up a controller and makes a habit of holding down the sprint button and launching threes all day will be eaten alive.

2k11 is going to make you work and it starts with mastery of the IsoMotion controls. Dribbling and shooting effectively is about using moves and combos of moves as quickly as possible. And executing them correctly, at the right moment, is a must. Running offensive plays and looking for an open shot isn't a style of play in this game, it's a necessity. One could argue it doesn't reward enough drive-and-dish play to be reflective of the NBA, but it is, without a doubt, the way a lot of us old-timers learned to play basketball. The defense is stifling from the CPU controlled players, so you have no choice but to master the tools the game gives you. This game takes practice, but at least it pays off.

If there's a complaint about this tough approach, it's that sometimes the CPU defense is just too good at sticking to the guy with the ball. Sometimes one guy can blow right past another - that's what screens and defensive switches are about. But in 2k11 you won't see that often enough. But we'll take that any day over the tendency of other games to constantly reward the turbo-boosting tendencies of the past.

Obviously that doesn't always work both ways. We can't play defense as well as the CPU, and that little box sure knows how to use those ISO moves a lot better than us. That's a long winded way of saying we got smoked by the better players in the league unless we let the CPU handle more of the defense than usual, but that's no fun.

The game looks superb, again. But that leads to one other minor issue. There are just too many stops in the action made in an attempt to make it look like a broadcast. We don't need close ups of players every time the ball goes out of bounds, or every foul, or every substitution. It makes the game take way, way too long. We turned off every feature we could find relating to this, and it's still too much. Put the 'player of the game' ads somewhere else, but don't stop the game so often.

The Association mode works, and that's saying a lot. Trades may be too easy, but in general the player progression makes sense and going a few years deep into a franchise leaves you with a realistic league instead of a few teams loaded with overrated players. It supports up to 30 teams, which is just what the doctor ordered for those who have groups that can get together to play out a season. Playing online works well, even though there's a few too many instances of choppiness.

In all, NBA 2k11 is amazing. It looks great and it offers depth that actually makes the game deeper. In other words, you can't just ignore the strategy of calling offensive plays in favor of jumping over and sprinting past the defense. The moves, the bench, the coaching and all the other little options are there for a reason - because you need them. If you take the time to learn it all you'll be enjoying one of the best sports games of the year. And this year, that's saying a lot.