NBA Ballers: Chosen One Hands On

NBA Ballers: Chosen One will hit stores this coming Tuesday, just in time for the NBA playoffs. However, as we recently learned at Midway Gamers' Day 2008, Chosen One actually takes place during the offseason in a global tournament intended to break basketball down into its most fundamentally enjoyable element: the matchups. Rather than relying on role-players, substitutions and plays, in Chosen One, you'll choose one or two of your favorite players and, along with your created hoopster, pit them against the very best and brightest of the NBA.

That lends the game the feel of a fighter; it's very personal both in play and plot. It follows a fictional tournament sponsored by an equally imaginary television station that takes place in the offseason to see which player is truly the greatest of them all. Like Mortal Kombat, this will see you take a player through several matches in exotic venues until you've defeated all comers and essentially chosen yourself as the league's most dominant player. Unlike Mortal Kombat, you won't be playing with a preexisting character. Instead, you'll create your very own star from the ground up and pit him against the likes of Shaq, Baron Davis, Dwight Howard, and Kevin Durant.

Even though the game comes out very soon, there are still several tantalizing questions hovering around the nature of this tournament. After all, this is a Midway game, and when this company puts tournaments in its titles, the games tend to include spikes, tortured souls, fatalities, and evil wizards. From what we saw, Chosen One will trade the bile for bling, given that players compete in lavish environments. Indeed, if the aesthetic suggests any one thing, it's cash. Everything looks expensive, and when you're holding a tournament at this level, it probably should.

So there most likely won't be any spikes. And even though lead designer George Gomez swore that you wouldn't be able to unlock Goro, doesn't that just make you wonder what might be in his place? After all, someone has to be the last boss. Could it be Michael Jordan? And if he were to defeat you, would he swallow your soul and gain your abilities? These are important and entertaining questions, and even though you may be woefully in the dark now, you have only a handful of days until you can test your might against the very best that basketball has to offer in NBA Ballers: Chosen One.