TV Sports Basketball
Reviewed by Inkhands
Basketball is technically my favorite sport to play for
real, while tennis is my favorite to play in terms of video
games. The reason for that being, I have never found a
basketball video game half as interesting as the real thing
for me. Blah. TV Sports Basketball doesn't exactly change my
mind about basketball simulations. A sports game needs to be
fun. It doesn't need options to be fun, but options are very
nice. This game doesn't exactly have any options and it's
not exactly fun, but I suppose it's not the worst basketball
game ever made.
There are a couple of modes in this game, which are
exhibition and league. In exhibition mode you can play with
one or two players and that's fairly standard, because it's
you against the or another player. However, there
is also a teammates mode. It is this mode that's most
interesting, that is if I had someone to play this game
with. In this mode up to five players can play on the same
team. That's fairly nifty if you can find four other people
to play the game with. Of course you all don't have to play
on the same team. Two can be on one team, three on the
other. Or if there's only a total of three players it can be
two on team or one on the other. I think I've made my point.
One through five players can play and they can play on
either team they choose. I also would like to make the
statement that I never tried out that mode, but I'm betting
it's much better than anything else to be found in this game.
The other type of mode is league mode and this is only for
one player. No real teams to be found here. No you have to
contend with teams with names such as Giants, Shadows,
Outlaws, Ninjas, Zombies, and three other similarly named
teams. There is a way to go to the clipboard on the main
options screen and check out how the players on these teams,
(with names like Gunner Garner and Mercury Norris) rank.
Just take a look at how Gunner, Mercury, and company stack
up in such areas as dribbling, passing, shooting, defense,
and a couple other categories. Note the use of the word
'quickness' is used here instead of speed.
So then you're on to the game. Nothing overly impressive
about the way the game is played. In fact the game has some
weak aspects. The most annoying thing would be the half
court view. This also means that when you cross from one
half of the court to the other, you lose control of your
players. They are automatically running and this is your
chance to set up your plays. On offense you have four plays.
On defense you have.... four plays. You hold button I in and
then hit up, down, left, or right to choose the play. A
couple of your defensive plays would be trap or crash. Your
offensive plays are the ever effective pick or post. Then
it's to the other half court and the game is on again.
Well, defending isn't very easy. Your players seem to lack
the ability to move their arms. Other than to shoot from the
bottom of the screen when they were not supposed to or throw
the ball away. The other team has a keen ability of walking
into you and ending up with the basketball. You can try to
pass, but keep in mind that they all aren't safe passes. The
little box above the intended player will be colored. Just
remember green is 'pass you fool, I'm open', red is 'pass
you fool, this guy isn't looking', and black is 'pass you
fool, I want us to lose'.
Shooting requires you to press a button and hold that button
to release. Nothing you shoot will probably actually go
through the net anyway. In fact I played the game and never
really made too many shots. Once you get into that back
court you are locked in there until you mess up. It's likely
you will mess up. I'm not accusing you of anything. It's
just the game isn't designed all that well. So, due to the
fact you can't move from one half to the other, unless under
certain circumstances, there is no back court violation in
this game. The numerous fouls will keep the referees,
announcers, and players busy though.
Shooting foul shots is rather tricky indeed. A little green
arrow moves back and forth over the rim, arising questions
about how it got there. You hit the arrow, but it will not
stop. It doesn't stop when you actually hit the button
though. Not only is it mysterious, but it's rebellious as
well. So this means, you have to actually hit the green
arrow when it's away from the rim. Not when it's actually
there. Of course at times the arrow moves very slowly and
other times it's lightning 'quickness' will dazzle you.
There are no difficulty settings in this game. The game will
keep some stats over your mind-blowing ten week season. Two
divisions and ten weeks. There are some settings that will
change the length of your games in the exhibition mode.
Otherwise in league mode this game feels an hour long. Maybe
it's not an hour, but it certainly seems to be sometimes.
You get a number of timeouts based on how long the periods
in the game are. If you chose three minute quarters then you
get a total of two timeouts. Twelve minute periods will give
you a total of five time outs. The challenge I must say is a
bit high in this game.
The ball hits that rim often and you may hear a clang.
Nowhere nearly as much as the constant boom boom that you
will hear while dribbling. There is a man that will say
'foul' or something. He really isn't a talkative person
though. There is some music on the options screen and it's
the typical 'our team is better than yours and we're going
to win, because our music said so' type of thing. There is
no music during the actual game. Just boom boom boom. Boom
boom. Clang. Boom. That's about it.
This game has some graphics, but nothing particularly
interesting. As I said the view is a half court view. The
players have some dull looking uniforms and they have no
faces. I always liked faceless basketball players. There is
a player breaking through the title screen with a
basketball. There's an announcer with a microphone before
the game with some text accompanying it. The players have
that nice flat look to them, with red, blue, yellow, or
whatever colored uniforms. They flash when they are the one
you are controlling. The background is just some guys
standing by the court with cameras. The court is brown, with
lines, and it really doesn't look like a real basketball
court, but since it's not a real one, that would explain it.
I should say that it just looks bad and that should be
enough. The court is hardwood by the way and brown with red
lines that appear way too often. It's certainly not the most
realistic looking basketball court.
This game actually doesn't have a lot of replay value.
There's the teammates mode, which is useless to me, but if
someone can find about three or four other people to play it
with, then this is certainly a much better game. Never
underestimate the power of multi player mode. Of course, you
could always just go play basketball for real, but what fun
would that be.
The league mode doesn't actually present itself with too
much replay value. It's certainly not much fun to go around
playing as teams named Giants and Outlaws without feeling
like you're in a bad version of West Side Story. This game
is just a little too slow, lacking in options, sometimes
hard to control, not even the slightest bit fun, and plus
the is able to steal much more often than I am.
Overall, this is an average game and the sport of basketball
deserves so much better.
Graphics - 5/10
Sound - 3/10
Control - 4/10
Challenge - 7/10
Appeal - 4/10
Game Play - 5/10
Replay Value - 4/10
Overall: 5 out of 10
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