Basketbrawl

"A poor man's Arch Rivals..."

In the grand tradition of games such as Arch Rivals, you have this little basketball game that really puts the emphasis on the fighting rather than it does the overall game of hoops. There isn’t a story line behind this and the games are rather short, but if you’re a fan of the old Arch Rivals game, then you may find that this one is worthy of appearing in your Lynx handheld! Giving you a few selectable picks from a group of players, you must strategically select your character and play through the game while picking up weapons, brawling and hoping that you score more points than your opponent does. The most redeeming quality that the game has to offer is the fact that you have a multiplayer option between two people and that can definitely increase the fun by ten.

However, if you’re looking for a pure basketball game that features some cool visuals, awesome sound and tight control as well as an interactive player selection, then you need to look elsewhere because this game just doesn’t have it. Through the use of limited players and limited courts to play on, you’ll find that if you’re not fighting through the crowds of people and not fighting against your opponent, there really isn’t too much else to the game. Another redeeming quality that the game has to offer though, is that you can go through and play with a password feature that allows you to pick up where you left off. Again, if you’re a basketball purist, then you’re not going to find too much here in this title that is worth anything but a quick grin and some frustrating action!

The game play isn’t all that in depth, but rather a game of being able to avoid your opponent and make it to the basket and then make the shot without completely screwing up. However, you’ll find that the game really doesn’t have much else to it and you’ve got a limited amount of players that you can choose from. The rules of the game is that you have no rules and that is where the frantic game play comes into focus in which you have a ton of fights happening at just about every turn. If you get too close to the crowd, you’ll find that the crowd will turn on you and start attacking without mercy, leaving you with no real hope of actually making any sort of score!

The different power ups that you find throughout the game are also important in your goal to be the king of the game. Through the use of these power ups, you’ll have things that can be thrown, swung and driven into your opponent, giving you the right of way to the basket. However, the poor aiming and the even harder to handle control makes this more of a challenge than an enjoyable jaunt down the blacktop. With the stiff directional pad that the Lynx has to offer, there is very little here that you’ll find forgiving and it can cost you the game because you can’t defend against the attacks on you, nor the basket!

Visually, the game seems to be lacking quite a few things in the detailing and design department. While the stages that you play on are well designed, the overall quality of the game seems to be less than stellar with several points of choppy and misaligned animation. When you come into the fighting part of the game, it looks more like the characters are trying to push each other over rather than stomping a mud hole in each others butts! If you add this into the fact that you can’t tell which player is which and even the different characters all looking the same, you’ll find that there is some definite room for improvement on all levels. Playing through a game like this makes you almost wonder what in the hell they were thinking when they finally got down to the animation of the game and adding in all of the effects.

The only real audio that you’ll hear in the game comes with the title music which is actually exceptionally catchy. However, the moment that ends, the rest of the extremely dull and lackluster audio begins from the moment you step on the court till the time you turn the game off because your ears are bleeding! The sound effects are also presented in a bad way, in which you’ll find that everything you hear has a tinny quality to them that just doesn’t seem to match them to the game play. From the near unnoticeable thuds and crunches to the whistles that are blown, you may find that if you’ve got a walkman while playing, it is worth listening to that than it actually is listening to this.

Basketbrawl is a game that you have to take for what it is, regardless of the problems with the game play, the sounds and the visuals. Attempting to create the same fan base and bring back some nostalgic feeling that you may have found with Arch Rivals, there is very little here that will impress you, let alone make you spend any money to buy it off of a web site! With sparse control and some very boring if not repetitive game play, you may find yourself throwing this one in the bottom of your closet unless you’ve got a friend who is willing to link up with you for some brawling.

Again, for those of you who collect Lynx games, you may want to leave this one alone until you’ve collected everything else. Those of you who are looking to keep a good tab on the Lynx games and want to see what this one is all about, you may be able to find it on E-Bay for a reasonable price if not dirt cheap. However, if you’re a basketball purist, and you’ve got some NBA games under your belt as well as a liking for those games, then you might as well stay away. Basketbrawl is one of those games that seems to have been knocked out somewhere on the mid-court line and then trampled on in the mad dash for some NBA Jam!

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 01/17/02, Updated 01/17/02