Amazon.com: NBA Street: Playstation 2: Video Games

194 Reviews

5 star:		(143)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
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4.6 out of 5 stars (194 customer reviews)

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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Revolutionary, August 6, 2001

By	Vincent S. Yeung (Cambridge, MA United States) - See all my reviews

Remember NBA JAM? Remember how many hours you spent playing it until you were finally sickened by it? Are you thinking that this is just a JAM clone? WRONG!

NBA Street is nothing like before. It is a 3-on-3 street-ball, no rules and clock (except for a shot clock), style game. Like regular street ball, you play up to 21 by ones (2's for long range shots) and you have to win by two, which makes it work like the "deuce" system of other sports. Here I will talk about each aspect of the game.

--Graphics

The graphics are not the best the PS2 has seen, but it certainly is awesome. The animations are really fluid and life-like. There is still some of the "plastic-ish" feel of EA Sports games, but that's not really anything of importance.

--Sound

There's Joe The Show talking mess the whole time, and it doesn't get repetitive like most sports games either. The background music also suits the "Street" playing style a lot

--Control

This is where the game is awesome. There's basically four turbo buttons, which are the four shoulder buttons L1 L2 R1 and R2. Using a combination of the shoulder buttons and the "trick" button will make players do different "tricks," like slip-and-slide where a player rolls down while bouncing the ball. If a "trick" is done properly it can knock the opponent's player down to clear a path. However, not all players can do these advanced tricks. If you have a player with low ball-handling ability (like Shaquille O'Neal), the player will lose the ball easily.

To perform dunks, you use a combination of the turbo buttons with the shoot buttons. There are a variety of dunks you can perform, but you need a good dunk rating to perform the advanced dunks. You get points for doing dunks.

Then there's blocking. While this wasn't important in other b-ball games, in NBA Street, knowing how to block is essential and very fun. With a tall player, you can have lots of fun swatting shots, but it requires timing and skill.

Besides tricks, dunks, and blocks, you also get points for other stuff like steals and picks, and doing combos and alley-oops add even more points. But what are points good for? There is a "Gamebreaker" bar for each team. It fills as you have more trick points. When the gamebreaker meter is filled, you have a limited period of time to shoot or dunk the ball, and if you make it (usually you will since gamebreakers make your shooting and dunking ability much higher), not only do you get your point (or two points for a long shot), you also TAKE OFF the same amount of points from the score of the other team. Gamebreakers are very cool, especially near the end of a match when the score is close, a 2-point gamebreaker can create a 4-point difference.

--Gameplay

There are two modes in NBA Street. First, there is a city circuit mode. In it, you tour through all the NBA teams and 6 "Street Legends." You start out with one NBA team of 5 players and a created player. When you beat an NBA team, you can choose one of their 5 players or you can choose to get points to enhance your created player (note: you only get one created player per user ID). You can increase his/her height, weight, and different skills (2-point, 3-point, dunks, power, blocks, steals, handling, and quickness). At the very end of the circuit you play Michael Jordan, who can be quite a challenge. Then you get to pick a player from a secret team. You can go through the circuit again for created player points and NBA players you didn't get the first time through (for example if you want to get both Shaq and Kobe, then you have to play twice to get them if you didn't start with the Lakers).

The second mode is the "Hold the Court" mode. In it, you play on courts you have unlocked in the city circuit mode and have to get a certain winning streak and total number of trick points in each to clear the court and earn new create player clothes, faces, shoes, and points. You can also play with TWO-PLAYERs on opposing teams in this mode.

A lot of people complain that Street is too easy. This is actually not true. The game sets the default on easy (there's easy, medium, and hard), which is very easy. But once you play on medium or hard, the game is quite challenging. But as you get monster sized players (like 7'11" or 8'), the game becomes less difficult since you have super blockers. This tells you to start fresh with a new ID and starting team and work towards another winning squad!

--Value/Replayability

Playing the circuit alone warrants 30+ games. The Hold the Court mode requires another 40+ games. Finally, there is infinite replayability for two-player mode.

In sum, this is a must-buy. GET NBA-Street NOW!

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NBA STREET vs. NBA 2k1, June 7, 2001

By	Satwant Sarai (Yuba City, Ca United States) - See all my reviews

Bored with the run-of-the-mill hoops game? me, too. That's why you should check out EA's NBA Street, a totally new take on the street game that also happens to be one of the most fun basketball games we've ever played. If you thought NBA 2k1 was cool wait until you see this game. It looks like the game should offer a lot of extra incentive to play it solo. In addition to being able to unlock lots of codes and other secrets, the single player mode has a really cool arrangement where you get to steal a player from the roster of the team you beat and you face a boss-like team after beating a string of regular NBA-based teams. It sounds like a lot of fun and should make playing the game all by your lonesome much more rewarding than it would be without all the cool bonuses. NBA STREET RULESS CHECK IT!!

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A killer basketball game, but with a few jagged edges., November 26, 2001

By	Chad Trotter (Mission Viejo, CA) - See all my reviews

NBA Street is basically what basketball games should be. I hate to be cliche and compare this to NBA Jam, but it's unavoidable; NBA Street is basically NBA Jam on steroids, with less catch-phrases.

The graphics really are awesome... If you're a basketball fan, it will be really easy to recognize players in the game. It looks like they actually spent time on the player models individually... Nice touch.

If you're going to play the game, I highly reccommend going through the tutorial. It's really helpful and informative, and it shows you everything you need to know. A lot of the gameplay is based on using the top shoulder buttons to perform super-dunks, and fancy-pants moves to fake out defenders. It's really fun once you get the hang of it, and it becomes second-nature faster than you can imagine. The whole system really makes it a ton of fun.

But, the game has a few things about it that weren't so great. First off, the load times. Holy CRAP this game loads a lot. It takes a full 5 minutes to get this game loaded, then it loads when you choose a mode, loads your profile, loads the teams, loads the courts, loads the players, etc etc etc. I really think there could have been a way around this, but whatever.

The only other thing about this game is that once you beat the single-player mode, you're basically done with it... There's really no reason to keep playing by yourself. However, this is an excellent party game, so if you've got people to play with, this is a safe bet.

Overall, this is a game for any basketball fan, and anyone that likes a great party game. It's got a few hiccups, but it's definitely worth the money.