Nearly two months ago, EA Big released a basketball game like no other. This game is titled NBA Street Volume 2, and thankfully, this game was released on all three major consoles, therefore allowing Xbox owners to experience what real street basketball is all about. Being a huge basketball fanatic, I was eager to add another basketball game to my growing Xbox collection. I owned NBA Inside Drive 2003, and desperately wanted a street basketball game.
NBA Street Volume 2 surely didn’t disappoint me a bit. This game has more moves, dunks and tricks than I ever dreamed of. There are four different modes of play: Street School, Pick Up Game, NBA Challenge and Be A Legend. When you first start off, the most important place for you to visit will be Street School mode, as that is where you will learn how to play the game, how to dish fancy passes and how to school your opponent by completing mad tricks.
After 'graduating' from street school, you will be rewarded with 1,000 development points that you will need later on in the game.
Pick Up Game is the least intriguing mode, it is just like any old exhibition game in any sports game. Pick a team, pick your opponents team and play. You can play up to four players in this mode, and it is the only mode that supports multiplayer. But wait, before I talk about the other two modes, I will explain what makes NBA Street Volume II so fun, special, and unique.
First of all, instead of the traditional five-on-five team basketball, you play three-on-three basketball. No reserves, therefore no chumps. Just pure stars with a lot of room to do anything. Yes, you heard me right. There are no rules whatsoever in this game, everything goes. No fouls, double dribbling, goaltending, nothing. Just a basketball, six players and mad skills. Another key difference from other games is the fact that there are no quarters. Instead of playing four six minute quarters, for example, you will play until a certain point limit. This number is usually 21, so the first to score 21 points wins. But the usual dunk, lay-up and jumpshot is worth only 1 point now, instead of two, and the three-pointer is now scored as two points. This is a lot like the 1-on-1 mode for NBA 2000 for PC. One of the key aspects of this game is moves and tricks. You are encouraged to perform them. This game introduces many new streetball tricks, including the popular "Off the Heezay". This trick was made popular by Jason Richardson of the Golden State Warriors during the Rookies vs Sophomores game in the NBA All-Star Weekend. What this move consists of is you dribble the ball, then purposely deflect the ball off your defender's forehead right back to yourself. Another move that is used every few seconds in the Kick Pass. Why pass with your hands, when you can utilize your feet? One of my favorites however is called "Be the Oop". This move consists of dribbling the ball, passing it to a teammate, but by holding the right thumbstick, you still control the player who is now without the ball. Turbo past the defense, jump and press the pass button, and you will have the ball right back, and it will usually result in a dunk for you. But to get even more trick points, do a combo. How about a kick pass, followed by a deflection off the forehead of a defender to a teammate, then finished by an alley-oop dunk. All of this is possible and you will get many trick points. Heck, you can even dribble while walking on your hands, if you like. But all of these trick points actually have a purpose. There is a gamebreaker meter. If you fill up this meter by gaining a lot of trick points, you can unleash a gamebreaker. This is a shot, which is used once and usually goes in, will score you a point AND take away a point from your opponent. You can also use a gamebreaker to cancel out your opponent's gamebreaker. If you wish, you can 'store' your gamebreaker and try to fill up yet another meter. If you are successful, you will have a lethal Level 2 gamebreaker. By utilizing it, a normal shot scores you two points and three points are taken away from your opponent. This can make or break a game for you.
NBA Challenge is a mode where you pick an existing NBA team (well, you get the three top players) and will face off against other teams in the NBA and try to be #1. You play teams in your conference, and after a while instead of facing the stars of today, you will play against the NBA legends, and that is how you unlock old-time players. You can against many, many legends, such as Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Jordan of '96 and '85, even Pistol Pete. Each NBA Legend has their own special move, from a special dunk to Bird's quick released perfect jumper. You can also play against street legends. Finally, in this mode and Pick Up Game, you earn reward points, which you spend in the reward shop to develop your player in Be A Legend mode. Reward points are worse than development points.
However the most thorough, deep and extensive mode is the Be A Legend mode. In this mode, you start of by creating a player. Each and every thing about your player (skills, appearance, shoes, height, etc.) costs development points. Your can also purchase moves and abilities. You earn these points in Street School, and then by playing games. The more games you play in Be A Legend mode, then more development points you earn. After creating you player, you pick two teammates, and play ball! You go to various cities including New York (twice), Chicago, LA and others. Here you compete in tournaments, attempt various challenges, unlock things and, slowly, your player will develop into a super star. I could go on about this mode in detail, but it will be more entertaining for you if you find out the secrets and details by yourself.
For me, good graphics are a must for sports games. And NBA Volume II has pretty nice graphics. The NBA players are not exact replicas of their real-life counterparts, but the players are drawn sort of cartoonishly, but it fits well with the gameplay. The different outside street ballparks are indeed exactly like in real life, and basketball fans will immediately recognize Rucker Park in New York. In the background, there are shops, houses, moving cars, people observing the game and some yakking on their cell phones, thereby perfectly depicting city life. There is virtually no slowdown whatsoever. The shooting, dribbling and rebounding looks extremely realistic. One cool thing that I observed is when you perform "Off the Heezay", the defender's forehead will tilt back, as if though the ball really just hit him and he is reacting. This is really realistic.
The sounds and music are pretty good. Bobbito Garcia handles the commentary, and he can get pretty annoying, but he is manageable. All of the music in the background is hip-hop, from Redman and Nelly to some oldies hip-hop that I am not aware of whom the artist is. There is some '70s funk mixed in as well. The in-game sounds are great, from the rim-rattling noise of dunks, to the cell phones of the fans in the background, who cheer occasionally. When you perform a trick or do a nice move, a little sound clip will be played, thereby telling you that you just did something cool. My favorite is the short turntable scratch that you hear after completely faking out and blowing pass a defender. Even the noise made when you utilize a gamebreaker is cool.
Overall, NBA Street Volume 2 is a dream come true for sports fan. Heck, even if you don't like sports, I think you'll enjoy this game. Thank you EA Big for making the game for Xbox after shunning us from the original. The only thing that this game is missing, just like a lot of games, is Live support. Just thinking of playing this game against people worldwide makes me excited. But that is impossible because EA refuses to support Live and work harmoniously with Microsoft, but that is beside the point. However, four modes of play, more than 150 players including NBA players, NBA and Street Legends will be plenty to offer you plenty of action. This is a great game to play with friends and might be the best sports game to come out in 2003, yet.
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