PS1 Review: NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC (1999)

What an ungainly title. NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC is another in the long line of NBA Jam derivatives, which includes Midway "sequels" like Hangtime (1997) and Hoopz (2001, and quite fun to spell, incidentally). Despite the name change, all three of these games play pretty much the same, although each introduces its own wrinkles to the core design. The NBA Jam formula just works, and for a variety of reasons, but of the tweaks or updates (outside of the annual roster update) offered by the various versions, Showtime happens to be the best of the lot. Everything is about the same as before, only smoother, more polished: you get 2 on 2 ball, most of the rules get relaxed if not removed, physics get exaggerated, and so on. Showtime introduces a foul system, however, which initially seems like an odd fit for the kind of no-holds-barred style of this or previous Jams. Basically, a foul is assessed each time you shove an opponent. Play remains uninterrupted until you earn your fifth foul, at which point your opponent is then allowed to shoot a free throw (worth three points) and retain control of the ball. This introduces a fairly subtle bit of strategy into the otherwise manic gameplay of the series. Foul your opponent for the fifth time late in the game, for instance, and you may find yourself on the wrong side of a six point swing. It's a small change, but at the same time it does quite a lot to change the dynamic of offense and defense, particularly down the stretch. As with all Jam iterations, Showtime can likewise get a bit repetitive if you play it for any significant duration, but in short bursts, and particularly with friends, it's terrific.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the more cosmetic changes of Showtime. There is something wonderfully nostalgic about the old NBA on NBC theme, especially (actually, more likely solely) for those of us who grew up with the peacock's Sunday afternoon matinees. In comparison with its arcade version, or even its Dreamcast and N64 cousins, Showtime for the PS1 clearly loses a bit in the looks department. This is particularly noticeable in the player models which, while understandably polygonal for the time, fail to accurately render most of the players' faces. They all look a bit mangled. However, player animations are almost uniformly excellent. I should also mention the generally terrible roster. This was not a particularly lively time for fans of the association. You're looking at a league post-Jordan, consumed by labor disputes, and pre-LeBron. "Slim pickings" is probably the kindest way to describe the squads available. Thankfully, you can create your own player, and although you can develop that player into a superstar by defeating every team in the league, this is no career mode. It's essentially no different from the game's other main mode, in which you run through every team in the league with only the players made available to you on a particular squad. No career mode, no season mode, nothing else. As a single-player experience, then, Showtime is lacking in longevity. As an isolated, multiplayer experience, Showtime is the best of the bunch.

PS2 Review: NBA Street V3 (2005)

I'm not sure that I anticipated the third installment in the NBA Street series as much as the second. I think what happened was that I enjoyed Vol. 2 so much (and for such a long period) that I had exhausted the novelty of the series and required a quite long cooling off period before I could get into it again. However, the time EA allotted was not time enough for me to recover. Even so, I will not hesitate to say that V3 was an improvement over Vol. 2 (though not nearly as large of an improvement that the latter was over the original). Some of the more notable additions was a control scheme that allowed for a greater variety of moves, the ability to customize one's own home court, and a more in-depth make-a-player. Some things, however, were not as good: no Michael Jordan(s) and Bobbito the commentator sounds like he's talking through a tube.

Another problem, and this might be inherent to EA BIG games, is that in constantly trying to make each game "bigger" than the last, you end up creating something that is too far removed from reality. The greatest example of this is the Gamebreaker. In the NBA Street series, as one does tricks and dunks and so forth, they fill up a Gamebreaker meter and when it is filled they can perform a Gamebreaker. Making a Gamebreaker causes the point value of the shot to be worth more and takes points away from the opposing team. Vol. 2 expanded upon this by allowing the player to pocket one Gamebreaker and achieve the unblockable "Gamebreaker 2". What V3 did was change the Gamebreaker to a dunk sequence where the ball handler jumps 30 feet in the air, does tricks, and can alley-oop it to the next player, and repeat for the whole 3 player team. More tricks will lead to more points, but doing a trick as a player reaches the rim will lead to a botched dunk and lost Gamebreaker. Even though in all the NBA Street games players leaped to ridiculous heights, I feel like in V3 it became so mundane that dunks were no longer as cool. It would be like NBA Jam having crazy dunks all the time. It did have outrageous dunks, but they didn't happen every time down the floor; most dunks were pretty routine which kept the high flying dunks special. That being said, it was kind of cool that after completing the Gamebreaker, the dunking player's signature would appear on screen. But this was only the case for a handful of better known players and felt half-hearted because of it.

It was good to have the roster update. I felt the need to ball with my boy, Kirk (no goggles, though).

All in all, if you're familiar with the other NBA Street games, V3 feels like a good expansion pack and roster update. Being that I played the heck out of Vol. 2, I probably didn't enjoy as much as someone new to the series would. It is a solid game, but didn't capture the feeling one got when first playing the original or upgrading to Vol. 2.