NBA 2K16's Face-Scanning Feature Is Still Not Great

Last year, NBA 2K15 implemented a way to scan your face into the game in hopes of enabling you to create ultra-realistic-looking versions of 2K players in the game. Unfortunately, the potential of this feature was greatly overshadowed by the shortcomings, as monsters created by the game began popping up all over the Internet. With another year of this technology under the belt of Visual Concepts, however, we hoped that this feature would be greatly improved this year...or at the very least let us create humans instead of abominations.

I spent a chunk of today coercing several members of the Game Informer team to sit in front of an Xbox One Kinect in hopes of seeing a better version of last year's debacle of a feature. I set up a makeshift studio in the empty desk next to mine and turned all of the lights on to create an ideal environment for face-scanning. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough. Check out how various Game Informer editors (and even one intern) fared when they scanned their faces into NBA 2K16.

Jeff Cork

Cork was one of the editors who brainstormed this idea with me in the first place, so it's only fitting that we kick things off with him. Thanks to his massive beard, it took us several tries to get the scan to actually accept him as a valid scan – something that gave me hope since it wasn't just accepted any old scan. After several botched attempts, we finally got NBA 2K16 to accept Cork's face-scan. The initial scan looks like Cork, but what did the in-game render look like?

Yikes. Alright, so what I'm guessing happened here is that the game couldn't see where Jeff's actual chin ends, so it just gave him no chin whatsoever. I decided to go clean it up by adding eyebrows, facial hair, and hair as close to what Cork sports in real life and see if it makes a difference.

I'd say this looks more like Tim Schafer than Jeff Cork, but at least the giant beard covers up the Jeff Cork render's lack of chin. Alright, on to the next editor!

Kim Wallace

NBA 2K16 does not feature any female players, so that might lead you to believe that Kim Wallace's face wouldn't scan into the game particularly well. You would be correct. I had high hopes for Kim's scan since she obviously doesn't have the impossible-to-miss facial hair of Jeff Cork, but at the end of the day, it meant absolutely nothing. Check out the "cleaned up" version of Kim Wallace's face scan below.

Home run, 2K16!

Jeff Marchiafava

The GI editor with the best last name is up next. Jeff M. may have a good deal of facial hair, but other than that, he should be an easy scan for NBA 2K16. Unfortunately for poor Jeff M., who stands at 5'7", his dreams of being in the NBA are just as farfetched in 2K16 as they are in real life.

Yeesh. Well, maybe if we clean it up a little, it will start looking a bit more like Jeff.

Nailed it.

Matthew Kato

Kato ends up reviewing a lot of our sports games, so naturally, I wanted to get him into this experiment. Kato also has going for him the fact that he's completely clean-shaven and doesn't have his hair hanging in his face. Let's see how his face-scan turned out...

Looks like NBA 2K16 might be on to something! It's not 100% Kato, but at least it isn't an unrecognizable monstrosity like some of the other scans.

On the next page, we make more GI team members sit in front of NBA 2K16.

Marcus Stewart

One of the current interns here at Game Informer, Marcus heard the commotion being raised by the editors as we scanned in our faces and wanted to see how his face looked in-game. Though his initial scan looked startlingly like Kato's, the cleaned up version isn't too bad I suppose.

Okay. Maybe it's still pretty rough.

Matt Miller

Matt Miller is not someone who knows much about sports or sports video games, so we definitely wanted to make sure he reserved his spot on the Game Informer 2K16 roster. He's another editor in the office who doesn't have any facial hair, and has really short hair that doesn't obstruct his face. Should be a really easy scan for 2K16, right?

Wrong. Whoa! What happened here? Not only is his forehead enormous, but he looks like he's twice his age. Maybe if we try and clean up the scan manually?

I got nothing.

Benjamin Reeves

With a babyface like Reeves placed in front of the Kinect, it's all but assured that he gets at least a decent scan, right? This should be the face-scan equivalent of the home run derby.

While not absolutely horrid, this still looks very little like the Ben Reeves we all know and love.

Brian Shea

It wouldn't be fair for me to do this story without subjecting myself to the torture of seeing my face horribly transcribed. In fact, it was my misadventures in face-scanning at home that inspired this piece in the first place. I sat myself in front of the Kinect and awaited my results.

I swear I didn't do anything different for my scan!