Basketball isn’t one of my favorite sports to watch, sometimes I think it is a little boring to see men running around all sweaty with a rubber ball trying to make it in a small hole more times then the other team. Though sometimes it gets interesting, I guess it is sort of like Nascar you know when you are watching a Nascar race it is really boring until somebody actually starts to catch fire or flip over, well in basketball it gets really boring until somebody slams one over his defenders head or makes his defender fall on his face. Anyways what I am saying is before I start this review I want people to realize that I am not a big basketball fan...But this game kept me entertained.

    The general idea for this game, to me anyways, is to create a baller then make a team with current NBA stars such as Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, and Michael Jordan, and play against NBA teams to win RP (Reward Points) to unlock secret jerseys and moves. This mode is called the NBA challenge, you go through every single NBA team with the team you created trying to beat them. There is another mode that I found very interesting which was “Become a Legend” mode. In this mode you take your created baller and take him through the USA playing at well known courts trying to beat street legends like Stretch, Whitewater, and others while getting your created Superstar up to par with other NBA stats. I got about half way through this and my created baller was maxed out in his stats. Then there is just the basic “arcade” mode if you would say that you just pick a team to play and the game starts. After you beat the team in the arcade mode you get more RP to try and unlock everything in the game.

    The fun factor in this game was more than I though it would be. It kept me playing for at least 3 days straight, trying to unlock everything I could while getting my created baller into a legend. Also being able to fake out your defender was very fun as well, I love seeing my defender fall on his butt as I pass him to fake out one of his teammates, then slam it in the whole for 20,000 trick points. Getting trick points is essential in games, especially in the Become a Legend mode where all the trick points you earn go towards the created baller’s stats. Also the trick points add up into going towards the Game-breaker bar that is on top of your screen. Once you get this bar filled you can perform a Game-breaker move which gives you a huge amount of trick points as well as giving your team two points while taking one point away from your opponent. Also once you get your game-breaker filled you can press Select and it stores it away while you build up for another game-breaker...once you get enough trick points for another game-breaker you can perform a Game-breaker level 2 which gives you at least 200,000 trick points and gives your team 3 points and takes 2 points away from you opponent. Is that cool or what?

    Game play is pretty simple as well, you have a shoot button, pass button, and trick button on offense. The trick button lets you perform Allen Iverson like tricks with the ball so you can fake out your defender and earn those trick points. There are four turbo buttons as well, you can simultaneously press them to do certain levels of tricks, and dunks, as well as alley-oops. It also makes you run a little bit faster and jump a little higher. On defense you have the basic steal, jump/block, and trick counter buttons. These controls took one game to get used too and I was stealing and dunking every few seconds.

    The graphics on this game are eye candy, very smooth and very slick. I never had any problems with slow down during a game and they didn’t look bumpy or jagged on the edges. The facial expressions could of used a little bit more work and the create a baller mode could of gave you more options on gear and how your baller looks, but overall the graphics were excellent. The sound in the game was pretty good as well, especially for you rap lovers out there. The only problem with the sound in this game was the announcer. He would say certain stuff over and over during a game, though the first time you hear it some of the stuff is funny but after like the 200th time he said certain things he really started to get on my nerves.

    Playing this game multiple times after beating it would be a waste of time in my opinion. Especially if you were able to unlock everything the first time. Only die-hard street ballers would play this game multiple times to become the best street legend in the game. Though there are plenty of goods to unlock during the game I am sure people will be able to unlock them the first go around and have no reason to play the game a second time. But for those who do, I wish you luck and hope that you enjoy the game as much as you did the first time, because I know I would seriously get burned out of the game. I did after the first 3 days.

    Overall the game is a slam dunk, the graphics are solid, the sound is great, and it has easy controls for you to juke your defender down to the ground. The game is really fun for the first few days you play it, but after that you will see yourself getting less and less interested in it and burned out of game-breakers and trick combos. I recommend this for renting and not for you to own, unless you are a big NBA or street baller fan. Good luck in trying to unlock everything, and trying to get your baller to a legend, because it was tough for me baby! See ya on the courts.