Think back to the first time you glanced at NBA Jam in awe. Now remember how you would feel seeing the ancient game now. Sadly, that tired, been-there-done-that feeling is exactly what NBA Ballers: Chosen One delivers, only it does not have the excuse of being over a decade old.
As soon as the game gets to the bland menu screen to start the game, you know you are in trouble. When a game can list all its modes across the bottom of the screen in one line, including behind the scenes trinkets and options, you know there is not enough here to keep you busy very long. For actual gameplay, the game offers story mode, a few practice and quick game choices, or Live. It also offers you the chance to create your own 'baller', with the most generic create-a-player systems you will ever have the displeasure to see. What kind of a basketball game allows you to select a specific birthday, but uses numberless sliders for height and weight?
The basis of the story is that you are a player needing to play through an odd off-season program featuring NBA players. The 'show' has six different episodes, each comprised of five 'chapters', serving as levels that offer you a different challenge. It is a loose concept served as a convoluted excuse to put you through the paces in various team and one-on-one basketball related contests. While there are some standard basketball games, they are broken up with other inventive challenges that will test your skills along with your desire to keep playing.
The best of the bunch is probably the, one-versus-one-versus-one, three-player challenge. Anyone who has played 'twenty-one' at their local gym will be familiar with the concept, with each player his own 'team' attempting to score a set number of points. Where the game starts to go wrong is with its oddly implemented set of rules. The game constantly alternates between a razzle-dazzle showcase reminiscent of the And1 streetball tour and a serious basketball simulation. When they attempt to blend the rules, things get frustratingly confusing. In the aforementioned three-player mode, you do not need to clear the ball, after a make or a miss. It makes for a fast-paced, chaotic game.
Yet, despite the seemingly 'anything goes' anarchy-feel of the mode, the game tracks fouls. As awkward as fouls seem, they call them in a mysterious fashion, to boot. The game never blows a whistle nor has the announcer call the foul in question. Instead, the diminutive text under your player's name (too small to read on a 40" HD TV) tracks how many fouls you have committed. Cross the foul limit and the next player you foul gets to shoot a free throw worth three points.
Each successfully passed chapter of the game awards you an increase in your player's statistics, for a nice RPG-ish element to the game. The downside is that the game does not give you any true control over abilities or skills get upgrades at any point. Instead, the game rewards you skill increases in the areas you excelled at in the previous game. Though the lack of control will be a turn-off for some, the game does a solid-job of rewarding you in the areas that you earned it. Still, it would feel a little more authentic if the game bothered to show you post-game stats, which it never does.
The story mode offers a wide variety of challenging situations and variations of game modes, pitting you against increasingly skilled NBA players all the while. Unfortunately, it starts incredibly easy, before cranking the difficulty to eleven in a hurry. If a no-clearing game of three-man twenty-one against Tracy McGrady and Jermaine O'Neal does not sound difficult enough, try overcoming a twenty-point deficit in a full-court game with four-minutes to go; the latter happens early in the second episode.
It would be easy to tolerate the rapid increase in difficulty if the game were not so terrible to play. The basic controls feel decent enough. The game handles the basic shooting, passing, and crossover dribbling in a respectable manner. Post-up moves and fade-away shots are easy enough to perform, though the game seems more interested in the exaggerated above-the-rim style of play. Though the self-thrown alley-oop mechanics feel right (pressing 'Y' to throw the ball towards the rim, then 'B' when you're near it to drill it home), the more involved your moves become, the more the game falls short.
Apparently, the developers have been living under a rock for the last few years, or pay no mind to the world of baseball. They strangely named the boost buttons 'Juice buttons'. Why not include a 'you-versus-the-ref-and-his-bookie' mini-game while they are at it? In addition to their unfortunate name, the game's use of the 'Juice' buttons is awkward. Gamers perform power-shot and power-blocks by holding both triggers down and pressing the appropriate button. It feels clunky, and leads to your holding down both triggers through most of the game pointlessly. When you do trigger one of the events, be prepared to tackle a mind numbingly lame trend in recent gaming.
If there is any genre that should be safe from the terrible trend of 'real time' button-hitting trends, it should be sports-related games. Sadly, 'real time' has crossed over, and now destroying sports games, too. The game's dribbling super moves occur in annoying 'quick time' events, forcing gamers to hit a series of buttons faster than the defender to complete the goofy slow-motion dribbling combo. It feels awkward, and completely pulls you out of the flow of the game. To boot, the game shows you the same event from several different slow-motion angles. Moves that would take half a second in real life take ten to fifteen seconds in the game.
Perhaps more frustrating is the way the scene tends to lie about your positioning. The cut-scene for a steal typically ends with you dribbling well past your defender with a clear shot at the basket. Coming out of that scene, you are thinking dunk. As you move your left stick in the direction of the basket and come out of the scene, you are left with disappointment as your defender is standing right in front of you; guarding you like normal. The cut-scenes are also not varied enough to keep you interested. Once you see one super-steal scene, you have seen the only one for your player. Good luck not falling asleep by the time you have seen it for the fiftieth time. They are nothing short of obnoxious.
The game is a visual disaster in every way. The graphics look pulled from early Original Xbox days, at best. Player models are generic and blocky, to the point your biceps look like clay rectangles. Some players show up in their NBA gear, but others strangely play in either long-sleeve coats or suits. Inexplicably, the game also chooses to zoom the camera in so that the pathetic looking players take up your whole screen. Goody. Not only does the up-close viewpoint give you a clear view of the botched look of the game, but it also makes it hard to tell what is going on half the time.
Chuck D., of Public Enemy fame, serves as the host of the 'show', as well as providing generic in-game commentary, which typically is a smattering of nicknames. Since the game cannot decide if it wants to be an arcade game or sim, when you goal tend an opponent's shot, Chuck D. asks, "You can't goal tend in this! What do you think this is, street?" Oh, if only it were the old EA title.
Most poor Xbox 360 games at least offer gamers easily attained Achievement Points, but NBA Ballers fails even here. The game lacks the easy points, thanks to its quickly ratcheting difficulty and Achievement Point set too reliant on a non-existent Live community. Given the game's poor gameplay and extremely limited Live options (only 1-on-1 modes), it is hard to fault Live gamers for avoiding this one.
NBA Ballers is a scatterbrained game that never decides quite what it is, and at no point resembles anything good. The game is only impressive in just how badly they miss the mark.
