Pros: Graphics, fast paced fun
Cons: One player mode, can't really shoot the rock
The bottom line: Give it a spin and at least for a short time, you'll have fun.
When the original NBA Street debuted for the PS2, I was immediately a fan. It was like a new wave version of one of my favorite arcade games of all time, NBA Jam. It utilized a street ball theme and played at an insane speed with the cool factor raised up several notches. With NBA Street Volume 2, EA Big kept a great premise and improved on it at every level, even bringing the retro craze into the video game mix. You could play with Dr. J sporting his ABA afro and there were three versions of GOAT himself, Michael Jordan. With Volume 3, something went array. I've even read articles with one of the designers who said that they tried to put a bunch of things in the third version, but forgot about the fun factor. And that plagued it dearly. It simply wasn't fun. With the fourth version, Homecourt, they brought back the fun and took steps to bring the game back to it's original focus, which is taking a cool sport like basketball and giving it a fun, street flavor.

EA and Midway have an interesting deal where they get to flip flop making street based games. Midway has their NBA Ballers game which was very fun on it's own right. So you get a little bit more development time that way than you would if you were making an update of your series every year. For EA, it was necessary. Actually, the fact that they have to release new games for their sports series of games like Madden, NBA Live, and NHL every year probably keeps them from being able to reinvent themselves as necessary. Here, EA was able to go back to the drawing board and rinse their mouth to rid themselves of Volume 3's bad breath.

They didn't necessarily reinvent the wheel though. I don't think they had to. The game is definitely refreshed and with the superb graphics that really shine in 1080p, it's an awesome face lift. But the game feels similar, maybe even dumbed down a bit. I think that part of what plagued Volume 3 is that they tried to be too intricate with the controls. That works with a simulation based game where the player wants to learn every nook and cranny. But not so much in an arcade game where you want to be able to start up and go immediately. The controls are very simple. You have different buttons for shooting and passing. The ability to dunk is simply based on your player's dunk rating. You can dive by pressing R2 and L2 together and your right analog helps you with alley oops. You have two trick buttons that help your gamebreaker meeter increase which help you get to gamebreaker mode more quickly.

The key in winning in Street has always been the gamebreaker. The gamebreaker allows you to score points for yourself and subtract points for the other team. There have been different versions of the gamebreaker in other volumes, and even one in which you could double up on your gamebreaker. With this year's version, getting into gamebreaker mode isn't as necessary as it has been in the past. That's because of two things. First, there's a new dunk that can net you two points and it's very easy to do. You simply hold on to your dunk until the last second and your player will throw down twice in one dunk, giving you more than just one point. Also, if you have a strong defender and the opposing team has a weak ball handler, you can steal at will. And if your main ball hawker is a good shooter, even better, because you can just pop the open three pointer (which only counts for 2 in a game of street ball). But one of the problems with offense in this game is that the shooters are simply not as good because more often than not, outside shots are blocked because there's no goal tending. You can block shots all day long simply by hanging out by the bucket and jumping when someone shoots. And you don't have to have a high block rating to do this. So someone like Steve Nash isn't half the ball player that someone like Allen Iverson is. It's far easier to simply dunk over people in this game, than it is to have any sort of perimeter game.

The longevity factor of most games like this are based on both the one player mode and now, the online mode. In this case, the one player mode is just substantial enough to where you don't regret buying the game, but not good enough to warrant investing many hours into the mode. The idea behind the mode is emphasizing the street ball aspect of homecourt. When you grow up playing hoops, you usually have one specific place that you call home. Here, with Carmelo Anthony as the focus, you get schooled on the importance of never losing on your homecourt. Your player is created by morphing two famous NBA faces together and you can lean heavier toward one or the other, or make your player a mix of both completely. It's not complex at all, but is also not even as good as the earlier renditions of the same create a player mode. I understand the idea behind it, but it seems as an excuse to not do something complex or creative.

After you've created your baller, you grab two teammates with the goal being to win games and continue to grow your player. You can unlock gear, shoes, and by winning on someone else's homecourt, their court. You can unlock different types of teams to play against as well. And while I enjoy the one player mode, there's still the feeling that there's something missing. Being able to do something else, in more of an RPG way would probably increase the playability. Being able to add a second player to the mix, so that you can team up and play together during the story mode would also be a good addition. But it can get very repetitive as it is and that's never a good thing for one player mode.

Online, I've noticed that it's not as smooth, and while I expected it, I didn't expect it to be as herky jerky as it was. And I'm not sure if this means anything, but I was playing online at a time when there weren't many folks playing. You can play ranked or unranked and even look for folks who like to play the game exactly like you do. I'm not a veteran of online play, but if the game ran just as crisply online as it did off, I think I'd probably play a few games.

As a two player (or more) game, it's very fun. I play with both of my kids and it's fun to simply go out and dunk on them. But in this day and age of video game technology, there has to be more. As it is, I'm enjoying the game and better yet, it's a much better pick up at $30, which is what you can find it at now if you shop hard, than it is at $60 when it originally came out. It's about a 3.5 star game and even though it's flawed, it's still a good time.