aka Amar Cooper 

BUY NOW $36.69          NBA BALLERS

The whole gist of the game is this: The NBA has created a TV network with all sorts of Basketball-themed shows - Cooking with Shaq, Gardening with Stephon Marbury, etc. However, the meat of the network is a reality show with a Rags-to-Riches setting called, you guessed it: NBA Ballers.

You play as a street baller who gets picked up by the network after winning a tournament at Rucker Park in New York City. You play through the Rags-to-Riches (R2R) mode, trying to gain prestige, friends, all kinds of gear and jewelry, and the chance to keep it all if you beat all of the Pro players arrayed before you.

Yes, this is the quest to become a True NBA Baller (cue the cheesy, dramatic music). Also, the arenas you play are no run-of-the-mill street courts - you’re playing half-court basketball on courts that are located within the player’s homes! Locations modeled off of Kevin Garnett’s backyard in the hills of Minnesota, and Tim Duncan’s tropical family estate in the Caribbean are just the tip of the iceberg.

During your quest, you will also be awarded different pieces of estates and mansions, allowing you to build your very own custom mansion to use as a playable level in the game! Talk about bragging rights when you tell your buddy that he can’t beat you in your house, and it really IS your house!

All of the matches you participate in are 1-1 or 1-1-1, with you versus to other players [supposedly] in a free-for-all contest. In this mode, all games are played to 11 pts, and with street rules, you have to win by at least two points.

In the multiplayer modes you can adjust the rules and scoring however you like, but in R2R, it’s always play to 11, and win by two, except for a few matches that will have special rules attached like first to 30, or hold your opponent to less than 8 pts and win the game.

With regards to how this game plays, you don’t necessarily have to be familiar with Midway’s previous offerings like NBA Jam or NBA Showtime, but it does help. If you’ve played a fast-paced arcade style game like this before, it makes it a lot easier to jump in and get your feet wet right off the bat.

The skills that you use as a street baller include lots of special moves, but all of these are based off of attributes that increase the more you use them. That’s right, you have to use the skills and get good at them in order for them to increase in value.

If you want a Slam Dunkin’, Reboundin’ Board Specialist, then you had best take it to the rim every trip down court, and be active on both the offensive and defensive glass in order for that to happen.

When you create your baller, you start off with default values for all of the attributes and can then take a pool of points and spread them around to increase your ballers skill levels. This allows you to create a bit of a personality for your character from the get-go.

Stylin

This is also a game that is all about style - stylish moves, stylish plays and stylish clothes and gear. There are very few outfits that are unlocked from the start, but the more style moves you pull off and the more games you win, the more money you have to buy new outfits. These will be on top of the pieces you get awarded when you obtain pre-determined levels in the game.

You will also be able to use money to unlock new abilities and special moves for your baller, things like an enhanced moveset, better blocking and rebounding, faster turbo regeneration, the ability to pass the ball to a friend in the crowd and get an alley-oop pass from them, etc.

You also have a "Juice House" meter, which monitors how amped or juiced the crowd is that’s watching the game. Once you have this meter full, it allows you the opportunity to pull off one of the nastiest moves in the game: The Juice House Dunk. This dunk is an alley-oop pass to yourself, ending with a slam dunk that is so forceful it breaks the backboard and brings down the house – literally! – ending the game by default. If you want to use this move regularly, you’d better come with lots of all-around skills, because it most certainly is not easy to pull off against the computer.

Upon release earlier this year, this game is by far one of the prettiest games out when it comes to player models. The detail on player faces and with regards to their tattoos and the clothes they wear is amazing. You can see pores, sweat, scars, everything.

Midway wasted no expense on this part of the game and on the locations themselves, which only makes the lack of detail and repetitive motion in the crowd that much more obvious in comparison. You will routinely see several people in the crowd using the exact same animations to cheer on the competition. It’s kind of a minor point, but it bears mentioning, because you will notice it.

The interface and presentation of the game is very polished, using real studio footage and voice-over material to make you feel like it’s a real TV show. The MC for the matches and the play-by-play/color commentator as well is MC Supernatural a relatively well-known rapper from the East Coast who’s known for his freestyling prowess on the mic.

Another minor gripe that I have with the game is that one of the big marketing pushes was the ability to unlock and buy several different types of chains, watches and other jewelry that you could sport on the ball court. Even though I personally think that it’s stupid to play ball with a bunch of chains around your neck, the images that they use for the jewelry have no real-time physics attached to them. The chains don’t sway as you move nor do they move at all. Maybe this is something to look forward to in the inevitable sequel, however it would have been nice to see from the start of this new franchise.

Midway decided to be different in another way for this game, and this is that instead of licensing a number of artists to get music for their soundtrack. They sent out memos to lots of different studios stating that they were looking for new up and coming talent that wanted to be down with the game.

It essentially became almost a volunteer-based outing. They wound up with some really good stuff from artists that you may never have heard of in the past, but will undoubtedly hear from in the near future. In addition, established stars like Phife Dawg (formerly of A Tribe Called Quest), and Jurassic 5 jumped on board the project to add their own touches of flavor to the soundtrack.

The music is all original hip hop and rap made specifically for the game, and definitely nothing harsh – there’s no cursing on any of the songs. This is still a game for everyone to be able to play and enjoy. It helps keep the pace and really gets you in the mood to play some street ball. The sound effects from the crowd, the menu music and the squeaks and grunts while you’re playing all sound realistic, but nothing ground-breaking or miraculous.

This game has all kinds of replay value….you can play through with different types of characters in the R2R mode, there’s also a TV Tournament mode, which allows you to unlock the majority of the NBA players in the game (including past legends like Magic, Dr. J, Jordan, Bird, etc.). The true meat of the multiplayer mode is the versus mode where you play either against the computer or a human opponent (or two) in either a 1-1 or a

1-1-1 matchup. Once you beat the game in R2R, you can use your created "Uber-Baller" in any of the multiplayer modes. The rules are totally flexible and this alone provides for several different types of games to be played. Turn off ball clearing and your defensive specialist can camp out in the paint and get countless rebound-dunk combos. Conversely, make it three-pointers only and watch as your Sharpshooter drop dimes all day long from behind the arc. It’s up to you how you want to play.

Let me say this: since this is an arcade-style basketball game, if you’re a purist and think it has to be simulation only, 5-on-5 then this isn’t your cup ‘o tea. This game is for street balers, casual gamers that don’t know the intricacies of the 5-on-5 game, or anyone who wants to enjoy the evolution of games like NBA Jams. Anyone who wants to live the dream of being a free-wheeling, mad-handled anklebreaker, throwing alley-oops off their opponent’s head and bringing down the house to a massive ovation, needs to play this game. As always, rent before you buy just to make sure if fits your style…but for my money, this game is nothing but fun – I’m already on my second trip through the Rags-to-Riches mode with "Yoshi", the Asian Sensation from the Far East Coast…This game is playable online with the PS2 version, but not with the Xbox, so for true multiplayer lovin’, you gotta get the online and talk trash while embarrassing your opponent on the court of your choice.

Until next time, this is Da Revm signing off. Play responsibly.