No fadeaway for best sports game of 2017

US sport has been in turmoil this year with politics interfering like never before but in the world of video games one sport in particular has risen above the drama to top spot.

Every September/October comes the latest raft of sporting franchise video game releases.

And each year reviewers pick the bones out of the simulations from the latest FIFA and Pro Evo to NFL, golf, NHL and NBA games to chart their progress.

In truth many of them - aside from aesthetic improvements and enhancements - are essentially the same games at heart.

Which is why NBA 2K18 deserves to stand head and shoulders above all the rest as the best sports game of the year.

This is a game that will have you coming back for more all year long and sets a new benchmark for gameplay and graphics.

Players behave more like their real-life counterparts than ever before and the latest iteration of this long-running franchise is another Jordan-esque leap forward on and off the court.

The only negative I could level at NBA 2K18 is that for me the story elements within MyGM don’t add anything meaningful to the experience.

But the merger of Career into The Neighbourhood mode works well.

NBA 2K18’s superb production values contribute to its unrivalled realism while the pro stick controls make playing truly satisfying like no other sports sim out there.

Microtransactions can be a grind and are unavoidable at times but that is really nitpicking in what is the undisputed gold standard sports game in modern video gaming. And perhaps the biggest plus for UK gamers, you don’t have to be a basketball nut to enjoy it.