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It seems that EA and Sega Sports
are going to dominate the sport game market for the next few
years, and the battle will surely be fierce. Sega's decision to
develop games on multiple platforms could have scared EA, but it
looks like it had the opposite effect: with this title, EA Big
show their determination to create fun games to attract
gamers... And it's about time.
Although NBA Street is, as its name hints, a basketball game, it
is very different from the tired NBA Live series and its
"simulation" gameplay. In this game, you're playing in the
streets and it's not rare to see players jump 12 feet in the air
and pass the ball between their legs before slamming it down
with ferocity. Forget all the basketball games you've played for
the past few years: NBA Street is all about flash! So, has EA
finally decided to start creating original games?
Not exactly. Expressions such as "Boom Shakalaka!" or the
legendary "He's on fire!" wouldn't have looked out of place
here. Do they ring a bell? Yes, this game is basically an NBA
Jam rip-off. But for once, EA spent a lot of time polishing
their baby.
NBA: No Babies Allowed
Any idiot can learn how to play NBA Street in less than ten
minutes (and yes, that's a good thing in case you're wondering).
The arcade mode gives you the opportunity to play a manly 3-on-3
against the best players in the nation: that is to say the NBA's
most popular players, his Airness himself and a few street
legends who appear to have what it takes to play against the
pros. Street rules apply here: no fouls, game ends when a team
reaches 21 -which is when the rim usually breaks-, an inside
basket is worth one point and scoring from downtown will give
you two points.
However, you'd better dunk most of the time if you don't want to
see your opponent send the ball on Uranus. There are a great
variety of slams that you can perform by pressing particular
combinations of buttons (think Tony Hawk's Pro Skater), and
doing the more complicated ones will boost your Turbo meter and
give you trick points.
Another way to earn a lot of these points is to use trick moves:
crossovers, behind the back dribbles and other moves whose main
purpose is to embarrass the brother who's guarding you... The
higher your meter is, the better your team plays. Once it's
totally full, you can use the gamebreaker: if you hit
that shot, its value will double (making your opponent lose 1 or
2 points in the process). So the best players are often the
flashiest, contrary to what usually happens in simulation games.
But remember that your boost meter decreases when you lose the
ball or when your shots get blocked... Who said that pro
athletes didn't need brains?
The gameplay is very intuitive, which makes the game very fun.
Playing against a friend can result in hilarious games and NBA
Street doesn't get old too fast for an arcade game: the high
difficulty of the arcade more probably has something to do with
that. There are new players and courts to unlock in arcade mode,
and you can create your own players, including females for all
you perverts out there!
The controls are perfect and it only takes little practice to
perform crazy moves. But if you have never played a basketball
game before, there's a fun training mode in which Joe "The show"
teaches you the ropes with his annoying voice. The PlayStation 2
controller and its numerous buttons are pretty good for this
kind of game.
This game is very complete and it's hard to imagine what else
the developers could have included, except for one feature: a
4-player mode! It's a shame that EA didn't put in what would
have made this game a must have: alas, you can only work your
skills against one friend.
You got game? Take it to the streets!
NBA Street looks pretty good. Probably not 'Allen-Iverson
crossover' good, but at least 'Jayson-Williams-behind-the-back-dish'
good: there is no problem with the graphics and you can easily
identify the players. The courts are quite original and very
colorful. But even though they contain a lot of animation, they
all look somewhat similar. To be honest, this game doesn't
really look any better than NBA2K1 on Dreamcast.
However, this game really shines and easily beats the
aforementioned title in the animation department. The players
are very realistic and basketball fans will rejoice when they
see how detailed the dunks are. Watching the game is a pleasure,
really, and the moves don't look as stupid as you might think at
first.
The sounds are rather good and add to the hip-hop ambiance: you
can even hear the players talking to each other. Hearing MJ
trash talk his opponents is very funny, and so is the
commentator, but they should have given him more samples because
he gets tiring after a while. The music is pretty cool though,
and it should not bother non-rap fans since you don't hear it
much during the games. Most of it is just catchy beats that
definitely put you in the mood to play ball. Actually, the whole
game has an interesting street feel to it.
Just take the rock and jump out of the gym... Er, I mean
playground! Sounds familiar?
The main problem with NBA Street is that it is not really
something you haven't played before: it's directly inspired by
NBA Jam, which wouldn't be so bad if Midway's hit wasn't so old!
The first versions appeared on SNES and Genesis, and EA didn't
change the concept much. Sure, it's still fun, but chances are
you won't be playing it for months once you've unlocked most of
the extras... There's just so many times you can perform the
same dunks over and over. I guess this is a "flaw" common to all
sports games, but at least one could argue the others are
realistic. Once NBA Street's fun wears off, you'll be left
with... Not much.
Overall, NBA Street is an excellent alternative to sometimes
boring basketball simulations. It's pure fun and flava and is a
good PlayStation 2 arcade game (let's be honest, it's rare). Yet
it is everything but original and gets a bit boring after a
while... So it's a mixed bag, simply put. Basketball fans will
surely feel the desire to master it, and I would recommend to
non-fans to give it a rental at least. Bottom line, EA is
playing big right now, and NBA Street is a noticeable
effort to break the monotony of their endless sport series.
.:. BillyKane |
