Tribal Basketball Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

Rip up the courts.

There have been a few basketball games although not as many street ones. This latest offering sees you competing against fellow street players for a chance to increase your rep and get a hold of some bling.

I have to say there isn't too much in the game. There are two modes, quick play and challenge mode. In challenge mode you take your player around the courts taking on the opposition. As you win, you unlock more items to customise your player. I think you also unlock the other players and courts, but I'm not too sure, as it didn't take me too long to complete.

The reason for this is that the game is a bit easy. It's one on one street ball with a time limit. Your opponents and you all have skill moves, which you do by double tapping a direction. This increases a skill bar and allows you to do triple dunks. Yes, triple dunks. The game has normal dunks, standard shots from outside the D (hold the button down until the red target circle becomes green) and when your bar is full, press the dunk button again just after your first dunk and you can do a second. And then a third, but no more than three.

Doing these skill moves however, depletes your blue stamina bar. But the game does have an equalisation system where if your opponent dunks, your skill bar increases a bit. There don't seem to be any special dunks in the game, depending on what direction you are going in and how close you are to the hole, holding 5 will automatically do a dunk.

Defending is easy too, follow your opponent around, and when he stops to either shoot or dunk, keep tapping 5 to get the ball from him. This is the area where the game makes itself very easy. As long as you can get near your opponent, dispossessing him is a cinch (now who came up with that word?). You knock them over in the process allowing you time to dunk at your leisure.

And just to make things even easier, when you move to the right of the court, just outside the D, you usually get a free shot as for some reason the AI guards the net!! So as long as you perfect your 2 point technique, it's another easy score. For these reasons it didn't take me too long to go through the game. Which only left quick play mode.

Now the game isn't bad itself, the graphics are reasonable, if not by any means stunning, and sound is ok. The actual animations on some of the skill moves aren't bad either, although this is clearly a mid level 2D game. Controls are easy to get used to so that's good. It's the customisations for each player which could be improved. They aren't great to begin with (4 areas to customise and 3 customisations each, but for some you can barely see the difference) and also aren't reflected when you actually play! Errmm....so what was the point then?

The other thing that was a bit strange was the saving of the game. It seems when you continue you start from the start, until I noticed that you have to pause the game and then save it manually. Then go into the challenge mode and start a game and then load your saved game. Slightly confusing. Overall, if you like basketball games and fancy playing one for a quick fix, this may be something you can check out, but if not, there are certainly better games out there.