Graphically, NBA Hoopz looks a little better than the arcade version of NBA Showtime. The animation is nice and fluid, especially on the dunks. However, that doesn't mean it's flawless. There are a few graphical glitches here and there, the most noticeable being some occasionally messy polygons showing up in the players' neck areas. Thankfully, this usually happens only during the end-of-quarter close-up and in replays, so it doesn't mar the gameplay whatsoever. The textures used for player faces are pretty good, though it appears that the more popular players--cover athlete Shaquille O'Neal, for instance--were modeled and textured with significantly more care than the rest of the NBA.
Hoopz has some pretty good in-game and menu-screen music, consisting mostly of instrumental hip-hop tracks. The rest of the game's sound doesn't fare nearly as well. A few new announcer phrases have been added since last year's Showtime, but the announcer still repeats himself way too much, especially when you're moving the ball around a lot. The sound effects are pretty nice, though taking the ball to the hole on huge dunks doesn't quite have the "oomph" that it should. Also, the default sound mixing is awful, making the music too loud and making the announcer sound like he's trapped in an echo chamber.
NBA Showtime fans may enjoy Hoopz, but the game would have benefited from an honest-to-goodness arcade mode and a speed setting, if not faster overall gameplay. Still, as the only arcade-style b-ball game on the PS2, it definitely fills a niche. Check it out if you're looking for something a little less sim-oriented than NBA Live or NBA ShootOut.
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