It’s amazing to think that, given the company's reputation with gamers today, EA was once the home of the E.A. Sports ‘Big’ series of games.
As per the ‘Big’ branding music is an important part of the package, and starting up this game sees you immediately smacked in the face with some of the most obnoxious hip hop known to man - and this is coming from someone who’s a big fan of the genre.
'Big', for those out of the loop, was basically a sub-label of E.A. Sports that focused less on trying to accurately recreate a given sport and more on taking the aspects of each activity that made it entertaining and exaggerating them in the name of OTT style and fun.
A lot of these games had official licenses and, unrecognisably from the EA we know today, were possessed of an almost reverential respect for each game’s history; these games, from the most soulless corporation in gaming, had heart.
Over the 8 years it was going, Big released 21 games with installments based on Basketball, Football (Soccer), American Football, Wrestling, Motocross, Rallying, Skidooing, and, most famously of all, Skiing/Snowboarding (with the SSX series).
I’ve played 14 of them, and they are all various kinds of amazing fun.
Five of the games comprised the ‘NBA Street’ series. Volumes one, two, and three were put out on sixth generation consoles, Homecourt was the fifth in the franchise and was an early generation seven release. Fun fact: It was the first game of that generation to be native 1080p resolution.
But back when ‘NBA Street Vol.3’ was being released onto home consoles, ‘NBA Street Showdown’ was released for the PSP.
I picked it up cheap from eBay last year in the name of completionism and it turns out the box and manual of my copy are both in Chinese!
Luckily, the game itself is identical to the US version.
De La Soul’s classic ‘Me, Myself, and I’ is the soundtrack’s only real saving grace, although the Beastie Boys’ ‘Open Letter to the Five Boroughs’ has always been a tune with its heart in the right place, even if the delivery is far from the trio’s best.
Everything else is pretty horrific to start with, but many have been further butchered in the name of keeping a ‘E’ rating - and are only made even worse as a result.
This is all a bit of a shame really as some of the other soundtracks in the ‘Big’ umbrella are outstanding; ‘Fifa Street 2’, in particular, has possibly the best licensed playlist ever to appear on a video game.
Further audio crimes are committed by legendary DJ Bobbito Garcia, although in fairness it isn’t his fault. His entertaining, enthusiastic commentary from the console releases has also been butchered so that it repeats itself enough to be annoying after just a couple of games.
Which just leaves the sound effects to save the day, a task they entirely fail at. The basic sounds are all good and there’s some nice ambient stuff in there, but important audio cues such as the shot clock running down and the ‘Gamebreaker’ charge being full are lost to everything else going on, and are entirely inaudible without headphones.
I guess it’s pretty weird to start the conversation about a game with the audio, but that happened. Let's move on. At least in the case of ‘NBA Street Showdown’ it gets most of the bad stuff out of the way early doors, and I mention here that the loading times are insufferable we can move on to happier themes.
There are a few different modes in the game, ranging from a quick pick-up game to a full campaign with a couple of mini games to fill the gap between.
I’ve spent all my time so far with the Campaign, called ‘King of the Courts’, in which you face off in games with occasionally mixed up rules to ‘own’ various parks across America.
You play this version of the game with a baller you create yourself and start with a very limited set of stats that are increased as you go; it’s always been my favourite mode in this series.
When you hit the court it becomes clear that the limitations of the hardware mean that, despite sharing it’s visual style with Vol.3, the gameplay is very much based on Vol.2 - and this is by no means a bad thing. I think deep down I would have preferred if they’d gone for the less realistic graphical style of Vol.2 as well, but I think I’ll leave that particular nit unpicked.
Volume two was a simpler game, and as well as suiting the PSP’s single-analogue controls, it also suits the nature of portable gaming. I know there are people out there who play RPGs that are dozens of hours long on their GBAs, PSPs, and Vitas, but those people are mental. Handheld gaming is best suited to quick blasts of play and simple interfaces, and this game nails both those things.
It’s as satisfying as ever to posterize the defence with outrageous tricks and gravity defying dunks, but this series has always been king making a huge swat feel as satisfying as the showpiece offensive plays and that's still the case.
Kick-passes remain standard, off the board passes are as cool as ever and bouncing the ball off a defenders head is still a joy.
Team-mate AI isn’t quite on par with the console games, but it’s decent enough and they’re still good and keen to fly up for an alley-oop without any prompting.
Whether it’s just been too long since I played this series I’m not sure, but I found it harder than I remember to win in the early games. Since everything about the game is so familiar the challenge is very welcome, but my memory of the franchise is one of a more gradual difficulty curve.
Nevertheless, as a handheld version of the ‘Big’ brand of basketball this is an excellent effort, I would say it’s the best handheld basketball game I’ve ever played, but as it’s the only handheld basketball game I’ve ever played the point seems a bit moot.
For me this was like seeing an old forgotten favourite, just on a smaller screen.
NBA Street Showdown - It’s basically Street Vol 2.5, and if you know that going in you’ll have a ball (after you’ve turned the music off).
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