Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

It may sound strange to say this about a game as innocuous as AND 1 Streetball (Xbox, PS2/Ubisoft, Black Ops), but this basketball game was one of my most anticipated titles of the year. The reason for this strange phenomenon is twofold. Firstly, as a gamer who grew up in the NBA Jam era, the thought of monster dunks, no rules and basketballs on fire causes serious heart palpitations. Secondly, with the NFL and MLB in recent years deciding to hand out exclusive licenses to EA and 2K respectively, other publishers are going to have to find unique licenses if they want to release sports games (as Midway did last year with Blitz: The League).

For the unaware, streetball is basketball where the rules are pretty much disregarded and everyone has a cool name, and AND 1 is a shoe company that has its own team. I really wanted to like this game, which is why I’m so devastated by how fatally flawed AND 1 Streetball is. The chaotic and high-flying world of streetball should have been perfect for a videogame, but Black Ops forgot that there still needs to be some basketball to make it work.

Even the control scheme, which uses every button and should have been simplified, is passable. Since streetball is all about showboating and showing off your moves, Black Ops went the Fight Night route and decided to use both analog sticks as a means of pulling off some crazy moves. Learning to pull off these tricks isn’t too difficult, and as with any good arcade-y experience, minimal effort will result in some nice looking results.

Now if only there was a way to stop anybody. I can’t attest to the real AND 1, but I assume there’s at least some defensive play going on. In this game, actually trying to defend the basket is impossible, and the only way to stop the other team from scoring is to ball slap maniacally or time a lucky block. It’s also frustrating that your teammates will never stay on their man, meaning someone will always be open no matter what you do.

The AND 1 mixtape tour, a.k.a. career mode, has a very shallow create-a-player (including the useless EyeToy compatibility), and while there is the usual opportunities to buy new gear and improve your skills, for some unknown reason you have to play games over again if you lose. In any other sports game, you win some and you lose some, but this game forces you to repeat the game until all objectives are met and the match is won. Because of this, there’s no learning curve and the flow of the mixtape tour mode is routinely hindered.

The back of the box says AND 1 Streetball is “all about the moves,” but I never thought the moves would come at the expense of solid gameplay, a workable framerate and a meaningful create-a-player mode. The load times are also some of the worst of the year. Try as I might, for the love of Rafer Alston I can’t enjoy this game, even though I can see fun elements tucked away here. The license works, and creating moves is fun, so hopefully Ubisoft tries again next year.

Double Take

Publisher Take-Two had a bad week. They were subpoenaed by the New York grand jury over the “hot coffee” sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and they were sued by the guy who played Cyrus in 1979 movie The Warriors (Roger Hill) for using his likeness in the game adaptation.

I’m not even going to ask how Bully is coming along.