Basketball

"A little off, but still pretty fun."

Of sports games made for the Atari 2600, in my opinion, Basketball is probably the best one. In this game, you can play by yourself against a computer, or with another person. However only the multiplayer mode seems to be worth playing.

There are only two modes of game play loaded onto this cartridge: one player or two players. In this game, every game is one on one, and not five on five like a normal basketball game. Each game is four minutes long. Every time you score you get two points, there are no three point shots or foul shots. There are no fouls or a referee. Basically it's a no rules game of basketball, even though there aren't many rules that can be broken the way this game is designed. A player can steal the ball simply by moving their character into it or by blocking a shot.

The game itself isn't very accurate to a normal game of basketball, and the physics aren't great either. The ball moves at a constant speed no matter what happens. You can score even if the ball goes through the bottom of the net, and the only way you can miss is if you overthrow or under throw the ball. It's obvious that this is not a very realistic rendition of a classic game of basketball, but it's still fun nonetheless.

Graphics
Not that good, yet not terrible either. Your characters look kind of silly, and aren't well animated, and the coloring isn't very good either. Everything is very bland. The ball is a plain square, not even a crappy looking circle, and the net looks like a T turned on its side. The graphics don't take away from the game play, but I felt they could have been better.

Sound
There isn't much sound in this game to talk about. The only sound comes from the basketball hitting the floor, which is just a little buzz, and when you score a basket, a beep. Once again, these don't take away from the game play, but they definitely could have been better.

Controls
I don't have much to complain about the controls. I thought they were pretty well done and easy to master, but unfortunately you can't do things like jump and shoot at the same time, or jump and move at the same time.

Replay Value
If you have another person to play this game with, both of you will probably get a kick out of this game and have fun playing it. However, if you are the only one who will be playing this game, you won't get as much use out of it. The artificial intelligence in the computer character is not very good. On offense, the computer seems to do pretty well, but on defense, sometimes he will play good defense, and other times, he will just run into a corner and stay there for a while. Playing against the computer is not very challenging, and after a short amount of time, not that fun.

Final Words
As far as sports games go for the Atari 2600, this one wasn't bad. I have seen much worse, but this one isn't near perfection. Though the physics are off and it doesn't much resemble a real basketball game, the multiplayer option is pretty fun, but for a single player, this game doesn't offer much. This game is nothing to shout about.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/06