Fouled out

by ERIK LEIJON

Long ago, as a young gamer with no disposable income of my own, getting a new game required weeks of convincing my parents that—insert overly hyped title here—equated to my generation’s moon landing.

Okay, so Turok 2, Rogue Squadron, Forsaken, Donkey Kong Country 2 and 3, Black & White and the entire American McGee catalogue seem like money wasted in hindsight, but sure enough I would play attentively for hours—attempting to prove to myself, and my parents, that Daikatana was everything John Romero had promised and more.

NBA Ballers: Chosen One (PS3, X360/Midway) especially hits home, as someone who spent an entire summer on fire, dropping tre’s with sharpshooting Mark Turmell on NBA Jam. I oh, so want to love Chosen One.

Similar to 2006’s And 1: Streetball, Chosen One feels like an opportunity squandered since the basic play mechanics are there for some furious, unrealistic basketball action.

Starring the NBA’s most recognizable faces, players can perform anything from small jukes to unleashing their inner Globetrotter with breakdancing special moves. Playing either one-on-one, two-on-two or a three-man free-for-all, Ballers plays like any regular basketball game, except with more street-oriented rules. Feel free to aggressively strip your opponent of the ball, because it takes a lot to receive a foul and even when your character gets fouled out, the punishment is hardly severe.

Because Ballers emphasizes one-on-one skills, holding the trigger or bumper buttons along with the face buttons in various combinations will result in some cool moves, from monster jams to bouncing the ball off a guard’s cranium. As visually impressive as the moves are, they’re all done automatically and the super moves are performed in a cutscene, so even a highly-skilled player never feels fully in control of their actions.

It doesn’t help that the game plays at a horrific, unchangeable, default camera angle that drastically reduces the field of vision for the far side of the court and messes with depth perception. Grabbing loose balls and rebounding is tougher than it should be as a result.

The game is light on options and modes, and the main story mode (starring your custom created character) doesn’t deviate enough from the normal matches. To progress the story, there are mock sportcentre news updates starring Public Enemy’s Chuck D. It may not be as awkward as seeing Ice Cube in a family comedy, but watching Chuck D interview an obviously cue-card dependant Al Horford via split-screen is up there as far as regrettable moments featuring bad-ass rappers. The story missions are frustrating because your AI partner inexplicably misses most of his lay-ups, putting you at a major disadvantage.

When it comes to sports video games, realism is overrated. The Chosen One could have ushered in a new era of fast-paced arcade sports games similar to the great ones of the ’90s. Sadly, there are no basketballs on fire, or a boisterous announcer shouting “baby onions.” Chosen One cover boy Dwight Howard wore a Superman cape during this year’s NBA All-Star dunk contest—and that’s wilder than anything seen here.

Street soccer

The streets have an entirely different meaning to Ronaldo, but in this case, FIFA Street 3 (PS3, X360/EA, EA Canada) is the NBA Ballers equivalent for soccer. There are some cool gamebreaker moves and the colour palette is impressive, but Street still resembles reality too much to be a veritable arcade game, without the options and team selection of the sim-oriented FIFA series.

In both cases, if developers are going to provide less options for their fictional sports games, then it’s imperative they add more pizzazz and over-the-top fun. Simply putting athletes in street clothes isn’t enough.