This launch title holds up well, but certainly has its holes.
Showdown presents itself sqeaky clean
Showdown boasts clean, easy to use menus. Like all of EAs games your options are laid out for you in an easy to use fashion. I enjoyed the animations between menus, and the stylistic choices they made as well. They all do a good job reflecting the style of the game.
Not exactly 3 point graphics
The graphics in NBA are par. Just par. The developers were able to get away with a trick because of the distance of the camera, but when you see closeups of the characters faces, you see very bland simple models. The courts look good though, and the models move and play fluidly.
Sounds like one hell of a game
Street: Showdown really pulls through in the sound department. All the sounds and effects on the court are in, from dribbling to throwing and catching. The music complemented the game well, but there was no variety. EA has always been known to pack their games with excellent liscensed music. No matter what genre you're into, you can find music in the game to suit your taste. With this though, there was only rap. I was a little disappointed in the commentary though. The same four or five quotes ended up being repeated over and over again. If your three points ahead and both teams keep working their way up score-wise, you'll hear the same "three up" sound bytes over and over again. I would've like to see at least 5-10 more bytes, just to switch it up.
Hoops on the handheld
Street: Showdown is definitely an adictive game. It's easy to pick up, and especially if you're into basketball you can get easily tied down. The game has several different modes. Career Mode, pickup game, and a few mini games (not sure if I'm missing anything, the last time I played this game was a month ago). In career mode, you start on your road to glory with an unskilled team on the street courts. The point is to build up reputation and buy all the courts
available to you. At the same time, you're allowed to purchase new clothes, accessories, and upgrades. Your character can learn new moves too. On paper, the system sounds great and allows endless replay. In action, this doesn't work so well. Variety wise, there is only one caucasian and one asian face to choose from in create a player. This could've very easily been changed to toss in some variety. For instance, Tony Hawk THUG2 offers not only three faces for each race, but a custom face implementer to really spice it up. Having mostly white and asian friends, it was kind of a let down to have more than one team of guys looking all the same.
Let's take a look at the replay
So what kind of replay value does NBA Street have? A good deal, depending how you look at things. If you get into customizing and upgrading your character and team, then you will certainly get your moneys worth. How ever, many of the variations of basketball that you play are quite similar to real basketball, and you'll find yourself eventually getting board. There's only 11 courts to win, so I think you can finish the game in a few weeks to a month.