by norm stovall normstovall@gmail.com
For PS3 also on Xbox 360
NBA Street Homecourt is a hell of a drug. I say that because the last few times I played it, I felt like a crackhead who couldn’t get enough. Typically, although I like to watch basketball, I don’t play too many sports games, so I was a little hesitant to give this game a try. Once I did, however, I was hooked. With gameplay almost as easy to learn as yesteryears’ NBA Jam, new players will have no problem picking this game up.
Street-style basketball isn’t typically a complicated sport to understand, and naturally, neither is this video game. Your goal is to score points and make your opponent look bad while doing so. You’ll do this by performing tricks while dribbling, bouncing the ball off their heads and dunking the ball repeatedly. And by repeatedly I mean dunking the ball, catching the rebound mid-air while clinging to the rim, and then dunking again. If it sounds ridiculous to you, that’s because it is. The gameplay is completely over-the-top, and can be maddeningly frustrating and exciting at the same time, especially when someone scores a double or triple dunk near the end of a close game. Online multiplayer is an added bonus, which plays smoothly enough, and the graphics are, of course, amazing. The only real complaint I had with the game is that there weren’t more gameplay modes, which I guess I can look for in the sequel. Not a deal breaker, though, by any means. NBA Street Homecourt is great just the way it is.
For Nintendo DS
Most of the Nintendo DS games currently in my rotation tend to consist of simple, pick-up-and-play puzzlers that take only a few minutes to play (Brain Age, Tetris, Meteos, etc.). So, when I got my hands on Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja, I expected to get bored with it in a few minutes and give it a ho-hum review, as the RPG genre doesn’t exactly fit my play style. That didn’t happen – instead I actually liked it. With an entertaining and humorous storyline, this RPG starts off in a countryside that happens to be disrupted by your character (Izuna) shamelessly bothering the gods and generally bugging the heck out of them, making things bad for everyone around. Your goal is to guide Izuna through various dungeons, collecting weapons and items, and progress through the story by interacting with various other characters. The gameplay is fun and breaks from the typical turn-based RPG dungeon-crawling formula. You can collect and upgrade weapons; adjusting them so they won’t break is a fun skill to learn and master. If you are looking for a simple-to-play and entertaining RPG for your Nintendo DS, pick this one up. It’s a good break from all those brain exercises you are probably doing.
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