NBA Street Vol. 2

"Step Onto the Court: It Defies the Laws of Physics and Sports Games!"

Now I don’t really consider myself that much a fan of sports games. More of an RPG/FPS person at heart, I have a natural disinclination towards the aforementioned genre. To tell you the truth, you could probably go so far as to say that I hate sports games. Yes, that’s as simple as I can possibly put it.

That being said, I find it incredibly odd that I was barely able to put my controller the minute after I began playing NBA Street 2. I thought to myself, “Well, there must be some sort of explanation for my strange and utter fascination with the game. Further inspection led to the answers.

The truth is that NBA Street isn’t your average and conventional sports game. Oh, it’s basketball alright, but you take away the referees and the organization, you take away the rules and the boundaries, you take away all the boring crap that would put an insomniac to sleep, and you’ve got yourself one hell of a basketball video game. You’ve got yourself NBA Street 2.

The bare essentials: put the big orange ball into the basket attached to the backboard. Out of bounds? No way. Personal foul? What the hell you smokin'? That’s right; you’ve only got one real objective in the game and that’s to embarrass your opponent as much as humanly possible while getting that ball through that net. Fake em’ out, make em’ fall, smack the ball into their face—just do whatever it takes to get that ball into the basket with no personal regards to your opponents’ emotional feelings. Remember, it’s only a video game. You won’t get shot or beat up if you make the opposing players look like little pansies.

So here’s how the game works: 3 on 3, loser takes the ball out. Game’s set at 21. 2 pointers and 3 pointers, with no foul shots. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Well, you’re really going to have to rely on some tricky moves to get you to the top of the game. Yes, most of the moves you’ll see in NBA Street 2 would be officially deemed illegal by an NBA ref. But that’s just the thing—you’re not playing by the rules anyway. You’re sitting your ass down playing b-ball on the television. Exercise is meaningless, and so are rules. Only the strong and quick (or you can just button mash, if that’s how you game) will survive in this jungle.

The players on your 3 man team will never get tired, even after running back and forth on the courts and showing off their moves. Some examples of these fancy tricks include “kick ball”, which, as the name implies, is just a ball pass created by kicking the ball off the backboard. “Off da heezay” (please forgive my spelling) is a relatively pointless move that bounces the ball off a defender’s head and back to your player. Fun, but doesn’t really do much but piss people off and delay the game. But I guess that’s the whole point of Street 2 though—making your opponent look like an idiot is highly recommended.

The game thus encourages you to perform your tricks. You get points for each trick that you do, and the cooler the better of course. You get even more points for combining all of them into great play. In fact, you can theoretically tire out your opponent in real life before you even score a single basket, simply by passing the ball around and doing tricks. Now how’s that for fun?

Anyway, the points aren’t all pointless. (Joke). Game-breaker is the game’s motivating factor for the player to score all of the trick points. After filling up your game-breaker meter, you have the option of shooting your game-breaker shot or storing it up for a level 2 game-breaker shot. Either way you do it though, the game-breaker shot is a super fancy automated and animated shot that will almost always go into the basket—adding points to your goal of 21 and subtracting from your opponents. Just make sure that you don’t try to get a game-breaker from downtown. Putting aside the fact that there’s no such thing as a game-breaker shot in real life; wasting a game-breaker by shooting one across the court would just be ignorant.

That’s basically what the entire game is all about; don’t get your ball stolen and beat the opponent to 21. There are a variety of modes for you to practice and play with at your complete disposal. However, playing a real life friend is the most fulfilling and entertaining NBA Street 2 experience. That’s what the second controller slot is there for, after all. NBA Street 2 is also great if you’re out of shape and don’t feel like hitting the courts for real. The game-play has a surprising amount of depth for a sports game, even though it might seem simple at first glance. Mastering all the moves to utilize in any given situation could take a long time in and of itself. But hey, what greater feeling is there than seeing Shaq or Yao Ming, our favorite NBA giants, fall flat on their asses after you’ve majestically soared 10 feet off the ground and dunked an alley-oop pass thrown to you all the way from half-court? None that I can think of!

Here’s the jist of it: NBA Street 2 is fun. You can go hours on end without getting tired of it, simply because you’re going to learn something new and experiment with new things. Grab a friend and forget hours on end, the game will keep you occupied for as long as you want it to.

And what better way to complement the game than to add licensed hip-hop for background music, use real announcers that really make you part of the game, and use silly and hilarious (but practical) sound effects? The answer: great visuals. The subtle cel-shading gives the game a unique appearance that looks as beautiful as it plays. Everything is visibly clear, clean, and crisp.

The audio and visual effects, combined with the deep and entertaining game-play, make NBA Street 2 a complete pleasure and delight to play.

Yet there’s a certain point when running around doing tricks and shooting/dunking baskets will eventually get tiresome, tedious, and boring. NBA Street 2 does an excellent job at keeping the game interesting, but unfortunately, sports games are plagued with the omnipresent “sports game redundancy syndrome” (SGRS). But don’t worry, it’ll be awhile after you buy it before this game ever ends up on a shelf collecting dust. And you can always take it out again if you have guests over. So no worries there.

Maybe sports games should learn a thing or two from the NBA Street franchise. I suppose that sports games are, for the most part, specifically geared towards the money of sports fans. However, the fact that NBA Street 2 managed to pique my curiosity and keep my interest up is beyond amazing. I, a non sports fan, was kept greatly entertained by a sports game—NBA Street 2 is, as such, a mark of video game engineering genius. It’s most certainly a highly recommended purchase and keeper.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/04