NBA Street Showdown Review

In our earlier review of NFL Street 2 Unleashed, we said “we have always taken the 'Street' pro sport franchises with a grain of salt. Like NFL Blitz and NBA Jam before them, they never seemed like they could have the depth of a Madden or NBA Live. We have not been proven wrong. We have learned, however, that these street-ball games can be quite a bit of fun — once the game actually starts.” Well, we somewhat retract that last statement. The meat of the game, King Of The Courts mode, starts off too easy and quickly accelerates to being way too hard.

Once again gameplay on most modes revolves around executing trick moves in order to get points and GameBreaker moves — but this becomes a huge problem, because the controls just flat out aren’t what they should be. They tend to be slow, unresponsive, and somewhat confusing. Also, the AI seems to be able to throw you half way across the court when executing moves, an infuriating problem we haven’t experienced since the original Tecmo Bowl — and if you didn’t play this NES classic, this isn’t a good thing. The load times are also a little a long, but no where near the epic times of the game’s NFL counterpart.

The graphics on the game are OK if not good or great, and we found them to be rather dark. This is obviously part of the “street” packaging, but it can be a problem seeing the ball on certain courts, which obviously takes away from gameplay. The menus are bright, easy to navigate, and clear, and the EA Pocket Trax are a nice addition, if not nearly as well rounded and complete as the tracks found in MVP Baseball or FIFA Soccer.

Overall, the game is fun during multiplayer, and during the Quick Play and Party Play modes, but unfortunately they don’t represent the bulk of this game. The graphics are ok, if not great, and the controls are a little off at best. If you are really jonesing for NBA action other than Sony’s NBA, we recommend you rent this game, not buy.

Review Round-Up:

Gamespot: 7.7 (of 10)
“While the game is currently the best choice for hoops fanatics looking for a portable fix, veterans of the console versions may find themselves a little frustrated with controls that aren’t quite as responsive as they could have been.”

GameSpy: 3.5 (of 5)
“Although NBA Street Showdown is a bit of a letdown, that’s probably due to the fact that most people were expecting the same great experience they had with the console versions.”

1UP: 7.5 (of 10)
“Since the PSP only has two shoulder buttons, almost all the special moves that make the console version of NBA Street so awesome have been relegated to a somewhat complicated control scheme that depends entirely on whether you tap or hold each button. Since it’s hard to know exactly how long to hold your action button for a specific trick, it’s quite easy to end up performing the wrong move altogether.”

IGN: 8.0 (of 10)
“What it misses in terms of scale and features, it makes up for in novel ideas like Shot Blocker, a hot mini-game. If you have a small amount of time to play your PSP, the mini-games here are ideal.”

Aggregate Rating: 7.5 (of 10)