NBA Street Vol. 2

"The Greatest Rental of All Time!"

Hello and welcome to my unbiased review of NBA Street Vol.2. As some of you might not know the first NBA Street was released in Summer 2001 by EA Big to rave reviews. It took all the outrageousness of NBA Hangtime and NBA Jam and combined it with great graphics, hip hop music, and new and improved features, such as, Create-a-Player, 3-on-3 action, insane dribbling moves, and creative new dunks. Well what Street did for Jam, Vol. 2 does for Street.

Graphics 9/10

Well first things first. The graphics in Street are unlike any other game. They are extremely detailed (reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid 2) but have a slightly cartoony look so Kobe doesn't look exactly like Kobe and T-Mac doesn't exactly look like T-Mac. The courts are gorgeous! Perfected to minutest detail every court looks like the real one. Mosswood has even the little restroom behind it and Uptown is probably the most beautiful of all the courts. Even the fans are realistic, although they do tend to do the same motions over and over again their faces are more detailed than alot of main characters in other PS2 games.

Sound 10/10

The one main complaint about the first Street was the announcer, a fictitious Harlem dog called ''Joe the Show''. He had an irritating voice, boring jokes, didn't always say the right thing according to the situation (i.e. saying the defense was horrible after both teams had back-to-back blocks), and repeated the same lines over and over and over and over again. Well in Vol. 2 no more. EA Big replaced ''Joe the bore'' with Bobbito Garcia. Bobbito is a real announcer with all the flare of Streetball. His wisecracks are hilarious (i.e That shake was so smooth it ought to be in Ice Cream Hall of Fame) and has hundreds of different lines that blend perfectly with what's actually happening during the game. The music is as you would expect mainly rap and hip-hop featuring songs by Nelly, Nate Dogg and Just Blaze, but it isn't too harsh so even rap haters can play the game and not be annoyed by the music.

Gameplay 10/10
This is as good as it gets. In the first Street the main mode was an NBA challenge where you picked a real NBA team, added your Created Baller, and played all the other teams in a region and after beating all the teams in a region you played a fictitious Streetballing team you moved on to the next region, finally beating all the NBA teams and thus completing the game. While that mode is still here in Vol. 2 except you play NBA Legends instead of Street teams and its not the main dog anymore. Instead EABig added ''Be a Legend'' mode. First you create a baller, then you are placed on a new street team with 4 other mediocre players. Slowly but surely you make your way across America starting in New York, playing pick-up games, honing your skills and playing against other street teams while picking up better players on the way and improving your created player. Finally you wind your way back to New York playing against and old rival from the first Street although I'm not going to spoil it here. And Street school gives you a good basic understanding of the controls.

Controls 10/10
Flawless, absolutely flawless. While players of the original NBA Street will find the controls virtually untouched let me explain it for the newcomers. On offense Circle is to shoot and dunk, X is to pass, and Square is to execute dribbling moves. Dribbling moves are conducted by holding down any variation of the ''Turbo'' buttons which are all the shoulder buttons (R1,R2,L1,L2) and pressing Square. Depending on what buttons you held down your character will do a certain move. Same with dunks except you press Circle instead of Square. With these you can pull off extreme combos. Your players have rankings in Shots,Power,Dunks,Handles,Blocks,Steals, and Rebounds. So Shaq isn't going to be doing any advanced dribbling moves and Earl Boykins isn't going to pull of any outrageous dunks. On Defense Triangle is to block,(because Goaltending isn't called you can limit teams to 1 or 2 points with a good big man under the hoop) Square is to steal, X is to change players and O doesn't do anything. Gamebreakers are the coup de grace of Nba Street Vol.2. After accumulating a certain amount of trick points you will obtain a Lv. 1 Gamebreaker. To pull one of these babies off get the ball and hold down any 2 turbos and press O. The shot will give you one or two points and take away a point from your opponent. In the original Street this was all you could get but in Vol. 2 you can obtain the ultimate Lv.2 Gamebreaker which can't be blocked and gives 2 points to you and takes away 3 points from you enemy. To get one of these merely press Select once you have a Lv. 1 Gamebreaker and fill up the bar once again.

Now I'll tell you about the new features Vol. 2 has added. On offense now you can do 2 new moves Off the Heezay,(your player bounces the ball of your opponents head)and Back 2 Papa, (in which your player throws the ball off the backboard back to himself). Off the Heezay is executed by standing still in front of a defender and holding down R1 and L1 and pressing X, Back 2 Papa is the same thing except instead of standing still you need to be moving towards the basket. Also you can call picks by holding down the right analog stick, and you can Kick pass by holding down the left analog stick and pressing X. On defense you can now ''Trick Counter'' to pull one of these off you must hold down L1 and R1 and press Square just as your opponent starts a trick move.

Replay Value 7/10

This is why I called it the greatest RENTAL of all time. While Vol.2 is great for the first couple of days you can complete all of the modes within a weeks and there is only a certain amount of times you can fly through the air 15 feet above the ground before it gets boring.

Rent or Buy
Definitely rent. Even if you love this game most likely you will beat it during the rental.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/19/03, Updated 05/19/03