NBA Street Homecourt

March 11,2007 - NBA Street Homecourt is the fourth iteration in the NBA Street franchise, a series which overall has been nicely paced from its inception and gotten progressively better. Homecourt is no different as it advances the series to the next-gen consoles. Although it certainly steps it up in a number of areas, changes from previous iterations detract from the overall experience, which is a shame considering how so much of the game shines.

The game’s focal point is making a name for yourself and your Homecourt in the game’s Homecourt Challenge mode. In here, you’ll create a baller to represent your homecourt while you work your way through the ranks, gaining more fame for yourself and your stomping grounds. As you progress, you challenge fictional and real-life NBA players. Playing real players at their homecourts, Cloverdale and the sunny Venice Beach, gives you court access, which allows you to take on challenges available at that venue. Challenges typically involve quick pickup games to a predetermined score such as 11 or 21. You will also come across matches that only allow shots or dunks to count. Once you beat particular players, you will be able to recruit them to your team. The concept behind Homecourt Challenge isn’t anything new; essentially it’s the same as previous Street installments, with a faux concern being placed on your court of origin. Despite the emphasis placed on your created character and homecourt, it seems that a lot of dropped NBA Street V3 features could have worked even better in Homecourt.

The character creation in Homecourt, although quick and easy, is a little too rudimentary and leaves very little to the player to make the baller his own. The appearance of your baller is controlled using a morphing system that combines the appearance of two NBA players and one fictional baller. The game also introduced players from the WNBA for the first time. You use the triangular grid to make your character look more or less like one of the other players on the grid. So for instance, if you use Vince Carter as one of your NBA players, the closer the cursor towards Carter, the larger your character’s jaw will morph. Although this system allows you to quickly get into the game, it leaves so little to one’s imagination. The customization of clothing merely extends to Reward Point enhancing outfits and sneakers. We would also like to note how the only other outfits available to you from the outset, other than the generic “Homecourt” outfit are Sprite inspired getups; how convenient. In the previous installment, players were able to customize their sneakers, tops, bottoms, ankle bands, wristbands, head gear, and more; the character was your own in V3, but not here.

Even if you can deal with the excruciating lack of control over your character’s appearance, it’s almost unforgivable that players were stripped of their control over the appearance of their homecourt. Players who skipped over V3 missed out on perhaps the best installment to date. It wasn’t called Homecourt, but it surely did a better job at making it seem as though that was its title. In V3, players were allowed to customize their court with attendee stands, paints, backboards, stanchions, billboards, and even the appearance of the neighborhood around it. None of that is found in Homecourt, which is a huge disappointment considering its concentration on the player and his court.

Players also lost control over the leveling up of their character. In V3, you were allowed to specify the distribution of your experience points, dubbed Reward Points in Homecourt. This time around, however, the game automatically disperses your reward points depending on the way you play. So if you dunk more, more points will be distributed to your dunking stats. Although control of this has been handed over, it isn’t so much of a bad thing and is perhaps for the best. Having these stats handled by the computer—based on the way one plays—makes the experience that much more streamlined.

Nothing can make up for the fumbles made in Homecourt Challenge, but the newly reworked animation system makes the sting a little more bearable. We have to admit; the animations are extraordinarily fluid and perform flawlessly with the next-gen graphics. The animations come to you full-force in the new Trick Remixer. The Trick Remixer buttons allow you to confuse your opponents and leave them behind, but if you want to take it one step further, you can use the modifier buttons for even more of a spectacle. The modifier can be used while dunking as well in order to mix it up with dunks such as the Sidewinder. The moves all love superb with the new animation system and is definitely the game’s highest point. Nothing looks too choppy and once you get a handle on the game, your tricks will seamlessly segue one into the other to create awe-inspiring combos.

Performing these tricks is necessary to fill your Game Breaker Meter, which returns yet again. Funky handles aren’t the only way to show off your skills on the court. Dunking has always been a mainstay and is brought to the next level in Homecourt. Beyond performing regular—or rather irregular—dunks and alley-oops, players can now use their teammates to catapult themselves towards the rim. Homecourt also introduces the double dunk, which rewards you with two points instead of one, similar to a long range shot. So if you have a lousy jumper, you still have a chance to make your scores count twice as much. The double dunks, however, come with a bit of risk. How long you hold the dunk button when attacking the basket determines what kind of dunk you perform; a basic dunk, a rim hang dunk, or the aforementioned double dunk. The double dunk forces you to release the button at the last possible second; however, there is a meter that helps you determine when to let go.

Some of these things are inherit to other games modes which consist of Game Breaker Battle, Trick Battle, Back to Basics (which takes away trick points and game breakers), Custom Game, and Practice. You can take these modes online as well, where you will find staples such as Leaderboards and Quick Match.

Homecourt has a completely new feel to it as far as its theme. The game takes a trip far from the usual hip-hop theme and boasts a heavy 70’s funk theme; you may end up feeling like Shaft as you walk out onto the court. The soundtrack serves up a healthy track listing with artists like the Pharoahe Monch and Herbaliser, and is perhaps one of the best EA Trax offering ever seen. Although not all the artists are well known, no one detracts from the soulful sounds.

There’s no such thing as a “bad” NBA Street game. Every installment brings something new to the table, and typically builds upon the great offerings from previous installments. Homecourt looks, sounds and plays greatly, but it seems they lost the essence of what made V3 so phenomenal. If Homecourt was a little bit more like…well, Homecourt, it would be more of a highlight. To be entirely honest, if EA gave the player more control over their character and their court, this installment would have been the game it should have been. Instead, it falls slightly within the shadow of its predecessor.

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