Have you ever wanted something so bad you obsessed over it? EA’s NBA Street Homecourt tries to capture that feeling of eating, drinking, and breathing the drive to be the best player past and present. You are an unknown street baller. Every ounce of your body wants to be the best, be somebody. Other before you have risen to the challenge and either failed or succeeded. The path to stardom isn’t easy. You’ll have to face many challenges and opponents to get the respect you deserve. For the time being, forget all that. Pass the rock, it is time to play.

I’d Like Two Helpings of Style Please
The very first thing you will notice about Homecourt is something that EA games always excel in, style. You have to hand it to the team behind the game, they got the feel of street basketball down. The menus are extra slick, players feel natural, and the basketball courts look gorgeous in a raw and gritty way. The graphical embellishes like the cursors for the menus and the red and blue filter when you enter Gamebreaker mode add a level of interest to the game that is lacking in other basketball titles.
While the style is top notch, the overall graphics seem bland. The character models look nice, the animations are smooth, and the 1080p visuals don’t hurt but there is one distinct problem. That problem is the monochromatic brown tint that plagues the entire game.

Every court, player, slab of pavement, basketball, hoop, net, you get the picture is covered with a brown hue that looks unnatural. This could be the cause to the graphics looking a little lack luster. Sometimes there is such a thing as too much style.

Remix That Trick
The backbone of Homecourt’s gameplay requires you to dribble and dunk with flare. When you have the ball in your possession, you can make a break for it down the court or you can try and fake out your opponents with flashy moves to leave them in dizzy with your ball wizardry. This is where your player skills come into play. If you are not a good handler, you are more prone to getting the ball stolen. There are a handful of skills in all involving passing, shooting, dunking, and more.

You will have to level these skills when you create your own baller, otherwise you’ll end up the benchwarmer. All the fancy moves come at a price, Homecourt’s control scheme a little more difficult than your average basketball simulation game. Still, the controls work well and there are button prompts when you can perform extra cool actions, like stepping on your teammates back to execute a spectacle of Michael Jordan proportions.

Gamebreaker Doesn’t Break The Game
Do enough fancy maneuvers and you are granted the “Gamebreaker.” When the Gamebreaker meter is filled to the brim, you head to the center court and hit Triangle. From there you try and fill the meter up once again and once you reach certain increments, you can be awarded more than 2 points. It might sound like easy points but you are not invincible. Just as you can score all those points, the opposing team can steal the ball and your Gamebreaker. This element makes the risk versus reward actually risky, unlike past Street games where it seemed you were invincible.