As is true with many sports based games, the selection of game modes is limited. Homecourt Challenge is your basic career mode where you will create a custom player and pick your Homecourt. Unlike other EA branded games, you don’t have much freedom in creating your player’s appearance. You’ll then pick two teammates from the players at the court, and battle your way to the top building up your skills along the way and unlocking new courts and gear. You can change your teammates to get the perfect mix before most games.
Also available are a Pick Up Game, Gamebreaker, Trick Battles, or a stripped down Back to Basics mode that does not include trick points or Gamebreakers. You also have the ability to create a custom game style. While it may sound like a lot of options, all the modes play more or less the same and there are no mini games to be found. Four players are supported on one console, or 2 players can go head to head on Xbox Live. The online leaderboards allow you to filter by nation so if you want to find out who the best baller is in all of Ireland, a few buttons presses will show you.
Complimenting the over-the-top dunks and ankle snapping tricks are some pretty impressive graphics. The animations are smooth and there are a decent variety of dunks and tricks to be seen. The player models could use a little polish though, especially the faces. The courts and their surroundings look great, many of which are set in a neighborhood, so you will not only see people walking around the court, you’ll also see people milling around up the street deep into the background. The lighting and shadow effects add a bit of realism to the presentation and many gamers will also appreciate the fact that NBA Street Homecourt is the first Xbox 360 game to support 1080p. The manual is a little vague in saying that “1080i or 1080p resolutions will result in the best possible visual experience, and will slightly impact the performance of the game.” I understand this to mean that graphics will look best, but you might see some frame rate issues. Unfortunately, I can’t verify for you how the game runs at 1080p, but I can tell you the game looks great and there are no frame rate issues at other resolutions. My belief is the game will still be flawless at 1080p, and any slowdown will be hard to detect, but again, I’m not able to personally verify this (hopefully someone with more discretionary income than me will post feedback about 1080 resolution at the end of this article, or in the forums).
The only real complaint I have about the visuals is Homecourt’s use of some sort of lighting filter. It gives the game a unique look, but I would prefer a natural filter to make the colors pop. EA Big’s use of a filter effect makes the on screen colors look a little dull and boring instead of bright and vibrant.
