Year released: 2001 (Playstation 2), 2002 (Gamecube)

Number of Players: 2 (all platforms released on)

The first of the next generation arcade basketball games, with dozens of tricks, dunks, and shots available. No free throws, out of bounds, technicals, or flagrant fouls, just fast-paced basketball.

Graphics: Lots of detail. the spectators standing on the side are acutally 3 dimentional and not just sprites. The tricks don't smoothly flow into one another, though.

Control: With a button for passing/switching, a button for shooting/blocking, and the rest for tricks, you don't need to think about it much. The shoulder buttons are used as turbo buttons, which can activate different tricks.

Sound: There aren't that many beats to play to, and the announer, Joe "The Show", gets sort of annoying after a little. You can hear the shouts from the players on the court, which is cool. When you're playing two-player, Joe sometimes says funny stuff to the losing team.

Gameplay: It has everything you need. This is probably the best arcade basketball game out there, meaning it's not very realistic, especially as far as the extremely high jumps go. I like this game alot, but if you want something more realistic, it'd be better to get something like NBA 2K3.

Challenge: When it's set on easy mode, it's way to easy. You can win 21 to 14 even. But the computer will get tougher when you set it on higher difficulty levels, which is why it's best to play against a friend. It's easy to get to the basket because you can just plow people out of the way by doing certain tricks.

Bottom Line: For an arcade basketball game, it's probably the best you'll find. I've had this game for almost a year and I still haven't found the button combinations for all the tricks and dunks, meaning there's a lot there. I recommend getting this game if you can.

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