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NBA Playgrounds Review

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I’ve always been drawn to the allure of NBA games, despite rarely taking in any of the real-world matches. As my lack of knowledge in terms of the laws of basketball tends to hinder the fun found in many of the realistic titles, the most enjoyment has often been achieved in the arcade variety of the genre – the likes of the NBA Jam series and the adorably wacky Space Jam effort comes to mind.

Now it’s time for developers Saber Interactive to have a bash at delivering an arcade style basketball game for the modern era of gamers with NBA Playgrounds. Having acquired official licenses, offering a whole load of players to unlock and promising both local and online modes, one would expect NBA Playgrounds to be a success, as long as the fun factor is present too. And well, let’s just say the potential is certainly there.

NBA Playgrounds is a two-on-two basketball game where very few rules and regulations apply; the team with the highest score wins, there’s a match time limit and a shot clock timer. Everything else is fair game, meaning you can push and steal till your heart’s content without the fear of fouling or feeling the wrath of a ref. That’s the biggest positive of the game, keeping things simple to allow enjoyment to be had by all.

Even the controls are straightforward, with basically just the pass and shoot buttons to worry about when attacking. Maybe, if you’re feeling extra cocky, you can perform a nifty looking crossover using different directions on the right stick. Despite the simplicity, dunks can still be attempted, as can the alley-oop manoeuvre and fake shots. On the defensive side it’s all about swiping the ball from the opposition or performing a well-timed leap to block a shot. It’s also possible to take out a dunking player mid-air – something which feels very good indeed. Whilst most actions will use up your stamina meter, actually pushing players over comes at a cost to your Lottery Pick meter, and you’ll need to determine whether it’s worth the risk.

Lottery Picks can be absolute game changers. These are earned by good play in both attacking and defensive situations, and once the meter is full, a special power-up will be chosen for you at random from those you’ve already unlocked. These truly add an extra level of excitement. Even a team losing heavily could strive to make a comeback with the help of unlimited stamina, a shot which cannot miss, or possibly double and quadruple point bonuses. My only complaint is that there aren’t enough different ones, but what is present ensures that winning a match is rarely out of reach no matter the scores.

Unlike most sports titles where you’ll choose who to play as from a wide range of readily available teams, NBA Playgrounds wants you to unlock players – all of them. With over 150 players, featuring those who are both currently active and retired, spread across all 30 official NBA teams, you’ll need to open packs in order to amass additional options for your playable roster – a similar method to that found in EA’s Ultimate Team phenomena.

After a few starter packs are given to get you going, the rest are rewarded to you for levelling up and winning games/tournaments. There are five players in each pack, with Gold packs having a higher chance of containing legendary ballers. It’s quite exciting to flip over the cards and find the likes of Patrick Ewing or Carmelo Anthony, but after a relatively short while you begin to get more and more duplicates. The good thing is that more players are set to be thrown into the mix in the future, however at this moment the ability to acquire fresh faces becomes a lesser occurrence rather quickly.

All of the players have different stats for dunking, three-pointers, rebounds etc. and this brings an importance as to who you choose for your team. Should you want to focus more on shooting from beyond the three-point line then you’re unlikely to want to use Shaquille O’Neal whose stats suggest he’s awful at them. Robert Parish of Chicago Bulls meanwhile is a defensive beast capable of throwing two-pointers. The selection of ability stats available to peruse may seem small, but having them gives a slight tactical edge to this generally fun-filled experience. Players can also be levelled up from standard Bronze level to Silver and eventually Gold, garnering a new move for each specific player. What that move is, or how it’s initiated, I still have no idea.

So far, pretty good eh? Well, brace yourself as there are a few negatives.

The first of which pertains to the game modes. On paper it’s easy to assume that with Exhibition, Tournaments and an online side that there’d be a decent amount to do. Unfortunately, as exhibition matches are one-offs, to be played against A.I. or with up to three other players locally, they grow boring very quickly and that then leaves all offline hopes in the hands of the tournament orientated mode. Each tournament consists of four matches, with the first three being three minutes long per match and the final one hitting five minutes in length. It doesn’t take a genius to see that in barely a couple of hours, a decent player could breeze through all six tournaments.

The tournaments are still really enjoyable regardless, especially when the final usually puts you up against a terrific duo. It’s in the Online Match mode where things take a severe nosedive, mainly because a ranked match is your only option and it doesn’t allow the choice to play against friends or specify any settings. Getting a game is a problem too, and even on the few occasions I’ve managed to find opposition, all but one has quit out when losing, rendering the match utterly pointless.

In terms of gameplay, the real drawback comes in the form of the shot release timing as there’s virtually no way to judge when to release the button on a dunk or a standard shot. It’s difficult to get a grip on the height of a jump for certain manoeuvres, leading to some confusing misses. Perform the perfect shot though and it’ll award you with an extra point – happy days!

Visually, the character models are all designed with silliness in mind and each player has an oversized head atop of an athletic body. Everything is geared up towards a cartoony style, which suits the nature of NBA Playgrounds really well. More variety in backdrops is needed though and a small issue I found was the lack of an easy to view scoreboard, meaning you must look out for one incorporated into the themed arena; it isn’t ideal to be searching the background for a score update mid-game.

Overall, NBA Playgrounds lays a pretty decent foundation in being the new arcade basketball game on the block, delivering truly simplistic bouts of fun, allowing every match to turn on a sixpence thanks to the power-ups. Having real players representing each of the NBA teams is a key draw, as is the need to unlock them all, giving us something to work towards. Unfortunately, the game modes present won’t keep you occupied for too long and the online side is utterly disappointing in terms of execution and depth. There are also a few issues in regards to the shooting and distinguishing when best to tee-up for the alley-oop animation.

NBA Playgrounds rids the sport of all the annoying rules, allowing gamers to enjoy the raw and stripped down version of basketball, albeit with a lot of quirkiness thrown in. Given the lack of stuff to do though, and the price tag, I’d be inclined to say hold off for now – especially when Saber Interactive will be adding more players and other tournaments in the near future.

James Birks
James Birks
Been gaming casually since the SNES as a youngster but found my true passion for games on the Playstation 1 (the forbidden word ooo). My addiction grew to its pinnacle with the purchase of an Xbox 360 & Xbox Live Service. A recovering GS hunter that will still play literally any game.
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