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NBA Street Vol. 2 Review |
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NBA Street Vol. 2
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The original NBA Street, released on PS2 in June 2001 and GameCube in February 2002, was considered by many to be one of the greatest arcade basketball titles ever. It featured fast-paced, easy to learn gameplay, huge dunks, awesome graphics and great controls. What more could you want? EA Bi1g obviously thought “a lot.” For NBA Street Vol. 2, they fixed all of the problems of the first title, improved the graphics and added new modes.
Vol. 2 keeps the three-on-three gameplay of the original along with the NBA teams and street legends. Most of the street legends from the original are back, along with a few new ones. New to Vol. 2, however, is a huge cast of NBA legends. These players, including Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird and Bill Russell, can be unlocked in the Be a Legend or NBA Challenge modes, or you can purchase them with reward points.
I’ll talk about Be a Legend first. Before startingg this mode, you have to create a player. As in the prequel, development points are used to give created players different skill levels. Development points can also be used to purchase new moves. The appearance of your player can be customized by selecting a build (stocky, athletic, etc), a hair style, shoes and outfit.
Once your player is created, you’ll need to select two local players to join your squad. Don’t expect to get any superstars yet, you’ll be lucky to get a player with three out of six skill points in any category at this point in the game. Your first few matches are in the Rec. Center in Harlem. You’ll progress by playing pick-up games and entering tournaments, earning development points for your player along the way. With each win, you are allowedd to select one player from the defeated team to join your own. Around half-way through Be a Legend, your player is given a nickname based on his performance and gameplay style. At the end of this mode, when your character has reached “Legend” status, you play the game of your life against none other than the legendary Julius “Dr. J” Erving and his squad of former NBA stars.
NBA Challenge mode is similar to the “City Circuit” mode. In this mode, you’ll select a team and a region, and then play the current NBA teams in that area before a match against a team of three NBA legends. For each victory in this mode, you receive reward points. You also unlock the NBA legends you defeat.
Reward points received in NBA Challenge or by playing Pick Up games can be spent on the unlockable content in the game. Everything can be unlocked by reaching specific milestones in the game, so you don’t have to unlock anything using reward points. Likewise, if getting twenty steals in a game to get a certain jersey doesn’t sound too appealing to you, you can always play a few Pick Up games and use reward points to purchase the jersey.
The graphics in NBA Street Vol. 2 have been completely revamped. They now have a “cartoony” look, but don’t use cell-shading. Take a look at some of our upcoming XBC screenshots to see what I mean. The character animations are very impressive and there wasn’t a hint of slowdown.
There are a few gameplay changes in Vol. 2. Gamebreakers, which give your team one point and subtract one from the opponent, are back with some major additions. You can now “pocket” a gamebreaker by pressing up on the D-Pad. If you have a pocketed gamebreaker and get another one, you’ll have a “Level 2 Gamebreaker.” These ultimate moves give your team two points and subtract three from the opponents (four if the shot was a two-pointer).
NBA Street Vol. 2 has a new announcer. The original game’s announcer, Joe “The Show,” has been replaced with Bobbito Garcia, “a.k.a. DJ Cucumber Slice.” Bobbito has thousands of lines of dialogue, including many player-specific ones. He has quite a few stupid lines (such as “the speed of that ball that got swatted away should get a speeding ticket” and “that shake should be in the ice cream hall of fame”) but the commentary really does add to the game.
Vol. 2 features a fairly large hip-hop soundtrack, which uses the “EA Trax” system seen in many of Electronic Arts’ other sports titles. Some of the artists can even be unlocked in the game, such as Just Blaze aand Nelly and the St. Lunatics. You can even play as Bobbito Garcia himself. The soundtrack really fitsz with the game, and adds a “rhythmic” feel to the gameplay.
The controls in Vol. 2 are great. One slightly annoying difference, though, is that the block button has been moved from B to Y. I can see why this was done, but veterans of the first Street may get annoyed when they llet shots in because they were instinctively pressing B.
Overall, NBA Street Vol. 2 has enough changes to please fans of the original, but there may not be enough differences for some. If you liked NBA Street, you’ll love Vol. 2, but if the first game didn’t do it for you, I’d recommend renting this one first.
Review By: Travis Brown
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Travis Parrott
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