NBA Street review (PlayStation 2)

NBA Street has two main modes of play. The circuit mode features a fighting game-like ladder that pits you against each of the NBA teams. After defeating each region of pro teams, you're put up against a boss team led by one of EA's street-ball players. After each win, you're given the chance to add one of the players you defeated to your roster, or you can instead take skill points that can be used to pump up a created player. Your roster starts out pretty strong, as you can put Michael Jordan on your team right off the bat. The game's other mode asks you to achieve certain goals on each of the game's courts. Each court has win-streak and trick-total records. Breaking each record unlocks new items to use for your created players, such as new heads, bodies, and shoes. It also unlocks new cheat codes, which are entered in true NBA Jam fashion at the pregame matchup screen. You can also unlock new teams, including the EA Sports Big team, which features snowboarders from SSX, and 3LW, the urban/pop group responsible for the song "No More (Baby I'ma Do Right)." The 3LW team is pretty funny on the court, as they're all around the five-foot mark and around 90-100 pounds each.

The players in NBA Street look a little choppy when they're running around the court. While the game moves at a nice fast pace, the lack of really solid transition animations hurts the game's otherwise excellent appearance. The outdoor courts all look great. Some have different lighting effects, which create nice-looking shadows on the court. NBA Street also features some solid facial textures, though a little facial animation would have been a nice touch, and it would have brought quite a bit of life to the game's post-dunk close-ups. The game features quite a bit of voice work, some by the actual players themselves. You'll hear quite a bit of trash talking throughout the game, as well as quite a bit of other background speech. The music in NBA Street is really quite amazing. Provided by Ninja Tune, the game's music plays like one continuous mix that fades into and out of various songs. "Dark Lady" by DJ Food is used quite a bit in various forms, as tons of different hip-hop loops are laid under the "Dark Lady" bass line as you progress from game to game. The song also comes on in full force whenever your gamebreaker meter is charged. If it weren't for the game's announcer, the sound would have scored a perfect 10. The announcer, represented by a bald guy with a megaphone who appears before each game in an attempt to hype up the crowd, talks in played-out rap slang, up to and including "bling bling!" Funny at first, the commentary wears out its welcome after a few games, and, luckily, it can be easily silenced--even though the fact that the commentator eventually starts berating you before and after each game if you play on the easy difficulty setting too long is pretty clever.

NBA Street has enough unlockable items and options to make it worthwhile as a single-player game. While two-player games eventually boil down to a frustrating battle of who can shake defenders long enough to unleash a gamebreaker, the two-player mode still manages to be a lot of fun as well. Anyone looking for a fast-action basketball game that isn't afraid to tinker with Midway's stock formula will definitely find a lot to like in NBA Street.