Superscape's Swerve engine is getting a lot of play on Verizon V Cast. While this 3D technology can look impressive, it's not always coupled with stellar gameplay. Swerve Basketball is just such a case. The game's player models look decent and animate pretty well (albeit very slowly), but the stilted two-on-two action isn't quite up to par.
Swerve Basketball lets you play as any of all 29 NBA teams in either exhibition or season mode. The rosters consist of only two players, however. You can "edit" your teams, but this just entails changing the player names. As a result, you'll have to content yourself with the existing player models.
In the game, you control only one of the players fully. The other is artificial intelligence-operated, but you can force him to give up the ball. On offense, you can perform spin moves, pass, or shoot. On defense, you can attempt to steal the ball or jump up to block a shot. There's no steal-attempt animation, though, so it's impossible to tell whether or not you were close. It's too bad the AI can't switch control to one player or the other depending on who has control of the ball, because it's especially frustrating to be unable to control your AI assistant when, on defense, you find yourself miles away from the ball. Most games default your control to the closer defender. Additionally, there are no selectable plays.
As mentioned, Swerve Basketball's player models resemble actual humans, and they generally look fine. The court, on the other hand, is an eyesore. In lieu of an actual texture, the game paints the floorboards a single shade of muddy brown. The crowd is immobile and looks more like the pied, pixelated image of a broken television screen than a stadium full of people.
Swerve's audio is decent. A hip-hoppish beat plays over the splash screen, and although there's no in-game music, realistic sound effects accompany every on-court action. It's good to see the V Cast handsets' larger storage capacity put to use.
Swerve Basketball is a passable game of hoops, but its slow-moving gameplay is too limited for lasting enjoyment. If you play a game of two-on-two basketball, you'd hope that both players would be fully functional. Unfortunately, this isn't the case here.
