Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Street Hoops

Written by Adam Woolcott on September 10, 2002

Full Review: Insert generic street slang here. I'm too lazy to come up with my own.

It's almost impossible to start a review of a game like Street Hoops without mentioning the irony of the production cycle that no doubt started with a bunch of white guys getting together in a room trying to figure out the best way to capture urban park pick up games in a video game. But the sad fact of the matter is that that's probably the truth. And I am nothing if not a truth seeker. I'm also always looking for a decent introduction and it fits the bill perfectly.

The other side of a coin of a statement like that is except for a mighty few, game developers are just faceless names listed in the credits of some game. So we game reviewers make statements like that without really knowing for sure. Then you take one look at what Activision has attempted to pass off as "real streetball action" and you realize, I was probably right the first time. I am by no means an expert on the playground basketball life. I am a white boy from the suburbs who's only exposure to streetball is watching White Men Can't Jump on HBO. Streetball to me meant playing a pick up game with a few friends in someone's driveway. Not quite the same thing.

Then you look at the center of Street Hoops: the shops. The entire point of Street Hoops is to outfit your team in the "dopest threads yo" (actual in game quote). Before every game you can take a walk down the street to the Barbershop where anyone can get a fro. Then go next door to the Pawn Shop looking for more jewelry than Mr. T. Then there's the Tattoo Parlor where you can get ink done ("because I'm pretty fly for a white guy"). Then the biggest store, the local Foot Action where your team can dress for success with clothes from "16 hot fashion lines." Finally, you need cash for all these places, luckily the neighborhood Check Cashing Stand doubles as a place where you can bet on your games. Yes the basketball is secondary to playing dress up. I kept trying to figure out the importance of buying this stuff, until I finally accepted it, there is no point to it. Just a way of legitimizing the word "street" in the title and lining Activision's pockets from all the product placement deals.

What should be the real star of the game, the basketball, is very good though. There are four modes when it comes to playing Street Hoops. World Tournament takes your team of ballers around the U.S. challenging other teams to a game of basketball. Lord of the Court reverses it and has those teams come to you in a tournament for your home turf. Pick up games are also available in Half Court (1 on 1, 2 on 2, 3 on 3) and Full Court (3 on 3, 4 on 4, 5 on 5) varieties. There are enough game options to keep anyone busy and one feature I truly liked was that almost all of the game rules were customizable. One of the few things that give off that real pick up game vibe.

All of the on court action will be controlled by Street Hoops' contribution to the basketball world of gaming: Mad Skillz and IN YO FACE buttons. Crossovers and other fancy tricks are all tied to the Mad Skillz button. By holding down R2 and then pressing any of the face buttons will get you breaking away from a defender. As you near the hoop holding down L2 in combination with one of the face buttons activates the IN YO FACE moves. Dunks that would make Stuart Scott hoarse are at your disposal if you can get close enough. Performing enough of these tricks will eventually fill the Skillz Meter which will increase your teams offensive and defensive ability. It's an interesting system that works most of the time. Occasionally your finger will slip from the Mad Skillz button and what should be a crossover will turn out to be a jump shot or a pass into no where.

Of course you won't need a slip of the finger to pass the ball into nowhere. The biggest on court weakness of Street Hoops is it's weak passing system. Holding down L1 brings up direct passing options that work all well and good but performing a regular pass is like playing the lottery. More often than it should the ball will go sailing out of bounds, usually for no reason. It's a bad sign when tension in your game doesn't come from whether or not the last second heave will fall (it never does) but whether a three foot pass will actually make it to the intended teammate.

Less of a problem, but still a problem, is the way playing defense is set up. You will not play defense. You will watch the computer play defense. Blocks, rebounds, steals, all of these things take place when a magic number clicks in the code and the computer lets you. They're random events that you can sometimes force but more often than not you will not be in control of the person snagging that rebound. Like Jam before it, pushing and shoving are the keys to defense.

On the visual portion of things it's a mixed bag. The courts themselves are big and have plenty of detail and personality. The players on the other hand are blocky masses of polygons that only look good when they're performing some insane crossover or a mad dunk. Then they look really good. Otherwise, I've seen better and I've worse. I'm actually most surprised that a game that prides itself on the ability to completely outfit your players in thousands of different combinations of threads, tattoos, and 'dos would have such little detail in the players.

Sound is another mixed bag. Right away you'll notice Big Boy the announcer. Big Boy the announcer is annoying and repetitive and often incoherent. I'm still not sure of the point to having commentary on basketball games that take place on a playground. The inevitable rap soundtrack is also here and while I'm no fan of rap I can't really fault Street Hoops for having a fitting soundtrack. It would be wrong of me to expect anything different; rap IS the soundtrack to streetball. I'm just grateful the music isn't overpowering and takes its place where background music belongs, the background. It's a shame then that the true commentary to any good pick up game, talking trash, is pushed to the background as well. Even when the trash talking frequency is turned all the way up I wasn't impressed. I wanted creativity and I got cliche. Everyone knows the importance of trash talking. Apparently Big Boy must have ate the other voiceover talent so only he was left in the booth.

After playing the game for awhile you'll come to realize the real importance of earning money in Street Hoops: to buy secrets. After unlocking secret courts, players, and Mad Skillz you have to activate them with a hefty payoff. Money is also used to upgrade your Create-a-Baller players by buying them better skills. It's a pretty decent create-a-player feature to begin with but I will never understand why Activision thought "buy a bigger afro" was a better rallying cry than "buy a better jump shot." OK, buy a better afro is pretty funny, but this is a basketball game, not Barbie's Fashion Show. Both of these better uses of the money system are pretty good and should have been given more recognition in the game. Street Hoops also proves to be a neighborhood game with an 8 player option with two multiptaps. I have no clue how you'd fit 8 people around a TV but multiplayer like that is hot (dear god it's spreading into my speech).