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And 1 Streetball Review
Written by Señor Cha Cha on Friday, March 17, 2006
Those sharp 2D graphics.
The awkward gameplay.
If it wasn't for this damn sports hernia, the Senor would be dunking basketballs in your face as I write this (AS...I...WRITE THIS), but unfortunately, I'll just have to settle for Gameloft's And 1 Streetball. Actually, I refuse to settle for it because it's not really all that good, and you know what, I'm not exactly sure whether I blame Gameloft for this. No matter! I don't like this game!
It's a shame really, because the developers did a wonderful job with And 1's presentation. The hip hop music that blares at the title screen sounds great and the 2D visuals are bright, extremely colorful, and nicely detailed. All of the courts, such as Rival Park, TNT Beach Park, The Dungeon, and Rival Park look outstanding, and the players perform all sorts of cool tricks. Plus, there's a decent amount of content, including Instant Run (the game just picks the court and players for you), Open Run (you select the players, the court, and the game's rules), and the And1 Challenge, where you'll need to beat other teams in order to unlock the game's ten plus players, all of which have been taken from the And1 brand, so expect to see such familiar names as The Professor, Hot Sauce, Helicopter, and Go Get It.
To its credit, Gameloft tried to keep things as simple as possible. In fact, the only buttons that you really need are 0 (shoot, block, rebound), 5 (pass, steal, alley-oop), and *, which is the trick button. And of course, the directional keys move your player about the court, but therein lay the problem. The game's just too slow and moves too awkwardly to be any fun. The players don't have many frames of animation, and tracking down loose balls and catching up to opponents that are gunning down the court is next to impossible, so the game just deteriorates into this slow poke mess that's akin to watching 95 year olds do gymnastics...or play basketball.
And 1 Streetball proves that, at least for now, a cell phone isn't the best platform for basketball games. Gameloft definitely had its heart in the right place, but given the limited technology as well as all of the cramped keys, And 1 isn't fun to play.
