Review for NBA Playgrounds. Game for PlayStation Network, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 09/05/2017
In the midst of the NBA playoffs, basketball is the sport of the moment, at least in the United States, while in Europe we mainly wonder if Juventus will finally be able to heal from its final ache on June 3 in Cardiff. The boys of Saber Interactive (Inversion, Quake Champions) have thus chosen an excellent moment to give something to the many fans of the ball in the basket and of the main American professional league, with the release of NBA Playgrounds, last exponent of a genre as delusional as it is fun and loved: arcade basketball games. Brought to the fore in 1993 with NBA Jam (and related millions of sequels), few know that this niche of video games dedicated to 2vs2 basketball, not so fond of gravity and decidedly violent, was born a few years earlier with Arch Rivals, a Midway release that saw the light, among other platforms, on NES and Game Gear.
Today NBA Playgrounds, equipped with all the official licenses of the case, 28 years later brings us back to the parquet to push opponents and set fire to baskets, also marking the debut of the ball in wedges up Nintendo Switch, the console on which we tested the code provided by the developers.
What a pain
The gameplay loop remains the same as in NBA Jam: two basketball players against two, in small pitches with settings ranging from the suburbs of New York to the center of Paris, face off with impossible shots, Space Jam-style dunks and shoves. Just that The thoughtless fun of NBA Jam disappears after a while, due to the frantic stamina and shooting system introduced by the development team, complications that try to offer depth to an arcade, but end up removing it, ruining the final product.
Take for example the stamina, that is the stamina of the player, which should be consumed with every action on the field, whether it is the run or a crossover, making us reflect on every button press or move. We used the conditional, because from this equation - whose introduction we do not understand anyway - attempts to steal the ball are excluded, among other things very effective and important at the highest levels of difficulty. Therefore, every match following the very first ones will be reduced - in defense - to a constant spam of the stolen button.
Dang.
Keep time
The second point is that of shooting mechanics, which are inexplicably linked to the player's timing, moreover, in an unintuitive and inscrutable way. To score more easily (and even take an additional point) you will need to release the button at the highest moment of the shot. So far so good, but the different animations between different basketball players and a background inaccuracy make everything so difficult for us and so easy for the CPU, definitely OP in the most complex tournaments. If the situation is disappointing for jump shots, it becomes terrible in the management of dunks to the basket: how can we identify the highlight of a move with pike twists that would see Newton turning in his grave? With this, therefore, matches boil down to repeated attempts to steal the ball and 3-pointers; really tedious.
And all this, moreover, without necessarily placing too much attention on the frame, which makes it difficult to conceive the depth, resulting in some sensational errors especially in the rebound, as well as on the unbalanced upgrades unlockable in the second half of the game.
Mom, will you buy me the stickers?
NBA Jam: On Fire Edition remains, for a thousand reasons, still a much more convincing choice today It is funny, although NBA Playgrounds is not entirely to be thrown away. First, they really are there many players to choose from: more than 200 current basketball players like Paul Millsap and Kevin Durant and legends of the past like Robinson and Dell Curry. Obviously, in these cases you can always discuss who is missing (where is Marco Belinelli?!?, Editor's note), but it is still a respectable roster. In addition, each player is very careful in terms of technical implementation and animations, which often follow his particular movements on the field, complete with special moves for legends like Magic Johnson.
The aspect in which Saber Interactive has proven to have a perhaps approximate knowledge of NBA basketball is constituted byplayer ratings, that is the characteristics like 3-roll, Dunk, Speed and so on. Many are in fact evidently absurd. Of course, we didn't expect realism from a video game in which you fly meters and bounce off the basket by hitting, but being inundated with triples from Shaquille O'Neal and DeMarcus Cousins is annoying.
On the other hand, the method with which new basketball players are unlocked is nothing short of brilliant: after each leveling up or victory of a tournament we will have to open some real shimmering card sleeves; all without the shadow of microtransactions.
Do the Switch?
Finally, it is impossible not to analyze the specific problems of the Nintendo Switch version of NBA Playgrounds, certainly not the most curated of the lot. First of all, the graphic rendering is not exactly the best, especially when the bowls are still: every player, in fact, seems to have just looked at the cassette of The Ring, showing an unhealthy blur and non-dynamic shadows. The arenas have also been significantly downsized compared to the PS4 and One versions and are noticeable fairly frequent frame-rate drops.
If we add to this that the Switch version at the moment - a patch is planned - is still out of online play, has theHD Rumble badly calibrated (the first time you will take a shot!) and very long uploads, it is difficult to recommend it, if not for portability of course.
NBA Playgrounds is a game that does not do or offers anything really wrong, indeed, at first glance (or game) you might even like it, and a lot. However, a deeper analysis, at higher difficulty levels, demonstrates how Saber Interactive has created a product that is only sufficient due to its lack of depth.
► NBA Playgrounds is a Simulation-Sports game developed by Saber Interactive and published by Mad Dog Games for PlayStation Network, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the game was released on 09/05/2017
