| Category | Sports-Basketball |
| Players | 1-2 |
| Difficulty | Adjustable |
| Review Date | 8/96 |
| Developer | SCEA |
| Publisher | Sony |
Overall, Sony's first try at basketball is still a sucessful one. It falls short of Faceoff, and is a couple of notches below Gameday, and for very obvious reasons. But one hopeful prospect about this highly touted 'rookie' video game (as with real ones) is the tremendous amount of potential. Minor tweaking and game features would have catapulted this to NBA Live-like heights but instead were the biggest obstacle for this potential masterpiece.
Shootout has all 300+ NBA players, with all the teams, a hidden "All-Star" game, a very smoothly animated Motion Capture Animation scheme that produces beautiful graphics, a real PA announcer, "Season"(if that's what you want to call it), real plays and sets, and the dunks were digitized and recorded a la Latrell Sprewell.
For one thing, this game is a graphical masterpiece, utilizing the Motion Capture Animation beautifully. Sometimes during a game, I have to hit pause, just in pure amazement and allow my astonishment to subside. The dribbling, and shooting motions, and especially the dunks are perfect to a tee. The camera angles are magnificent. Unlike NBA Live '96, where no one camera angle was just right, on Shootout, almost all the angles are perfect, or at the very least, workable. It sets a standard like the one that Virtua Fighter 2 set for fighting games. Unfortunately, this is the only really glowing feature of the game. A lot of minor problems add up to a larger one for Shootout.
To start with, the gameplay is too tight, to the same degree NBA Live's was loose, and it's always better to have too much control than not enough. The character's movements can be choppy at times and awkward when trying to move at an angle. The biggest problem that this game suffers from is that the player's seem to have a 2-3 foot invisible "barrier" around them that can make gameplay a terribly frustrating experience. You have to move around players like they are some kind of royalty, there is no way to get too near them. This can make driving to the hole too much like running an obstacle course, because you can't just dribble by somebody and violate their personal space. Unrealistic double-teaming doesn't help either, because the players recover or switch so fast, it seems as if they're playing a zone defense (which is, by the way illegal the NBA).
Another problem that plagued Shootout was that the gameplay was a little slow. Now even I outgrew the 178-63 thrashings of NBA Live, but faster gamespeed would have at least disguised some of the other underlying problems that the game has. Fast-breaks are more of a challenge than they should be, and only in arcade mode do you a realistic game; simulation mode is just too slow. With it almost impossible to make a downcourt pass without it being picked off, there's no way to start a fast break. All a man has to do is just get one leg along front of you to stop you with his 'barrier'. When the computer is on a fast break you just get along side of them at the wrong angle, and use your own 'barrier'. Because these controls are a bit awkward the best way to get around is to use jump passes.
The gameplay is not that bad but is also in need of a little help. As I said before, the dunks are spectacular, and they have these nice TV-style dunk replay close-ups that let you admire your work (Although the replays are not so nice when the computer is scoring on you). One thing I like is the realistic challenge they tried to input. You can't go to the hole with anyone but with All-Star caliber players. It's good to use plays, and you will shoot a lot of jumpers, and your shooting % is a big factor in determining the outcome of the game. The computer does like to make a good run at the end of the game, but you should keep the computer assist off unless you would like to see Shaq drain 5 consective "clutch" 3-pointers with 1:30 left (or perhaps you're just weak enough to need it ). The way the players move is also kind of awkward because they always swing in their pivot foot while dribbling the ball, before moving to their desired direction. However, if you play your cards right, this can be used for ball fakes, or 'fake passes'. I also like the way they had the players jump in a realistic manner. They don't jump 5 foot off vertical to throw your stuff. They jump a normal, rational height; something which takes a little time to get used to because other games have such unrealistic jumping.
The (get ready for this one...) "pass-the-ball-to-the-closest-man-to-the-basket" (Exhale...) button worked pretty well, except that using it from past 10 feet out was nearly impossible.
A few more annoying things remain about gameplay, such as the fact that your center is always the last one downcourt and you may accidentally pass it to him as he runs down the court, and only a select few centers on the game can hit 3's. Another thing is the control in defense. This is what makes that 'barrier' problem really stick out. At times someone can can get in front of you, usually causing you to stop moving with their 'barrier'. Then before you know it (it takes a split second to realize), and can pass or move, they reach in and steal the ball. The only positive side to this is that you can also do this to the computer. There is also this annoying habit that the announcer has of yelling "STEAL!" every time you touch the ball on defense, steal or not, which not only statistically counts as a steal, but throws off your timing.
I give Sony credit for trying, but the whole dunk button thing didn't work out. It was really the cause of a lot of confusion when on offense. The dunk button was supposed to let you dunk, or layup from long range. Only, there is a catch - try not getting an offensive foul assigned to you 60% of the time you try to dunk. It makes going to the hole an exercise in futility at first. This can be mastered and learned over time, but the learning curve is frustratingly steep for beginners and novices. They also should have criteria for dunking, because to see 6'0" Tim Hardaway swoop down the baseline, and throw down nastily on 7'6" Shawn Bradley is, well. . .yeah, I think you get the picture.
Ratings were somethings that this game sorely lacked, because using the stats as a measuring stick were too abstract. For example, does Joe Smith's 36% 3-point percentage in just over 25 attempts make him a better 3-point shooter than Latrell Sprewell's 27% on over 200 attempts? Does Chris Carr's 59% 3-point percentage make him a better 3-point shooter than reigning champ Detlef Schrempf's 52%? And what does points per game have to do with scoring? Not shooting percentage, because that's a whole other statistical catagory. Not speed. I mean, I've used Cedric Ceballos and his 23 ppg and his speed doesn't compare to Elliot Perry's 9 ppg. It might be for clutch shooting and offensive awareness (yeah, right). It is probably not much more than confidence a builder in whoever your player is. There is no reason why, when I played against the computer-controlled Sacremento Kings, Olden Polynice and his 10 ppg should outscore All-Star Mitch Richmond and his 23 ppg, 45-10. It's pretty much like that with all the centers though, because they are the focus of the computer offense.
The editorial features of the game might have given Shootout to overcome a few of it's problems and come a lot closerd to "All-Star" status. But, again it was not meant to be. To start (and perhaps finish) with, is the fact that there are NO STATS! What the hell is wrong when a Sega Genesis or even Game Gear can carry 30 Categories of stats for 800 some-odd players and a 32-bit system doesn't?? How would you programmers like it if the paper stopped giving stats for every team? ( well...uhh you guys probably wouldn't care...but,uhh...) What if you couldn't get any stats for how well your games were selling (or not selling in this case)? People were touting Sony Sports as the 3-sport champion, but I knew there had to be a catch. C'mon Sony, I mean is there some overriding moral principle that makes Stat-tracking obsolete? Do you have a point to prove? Or did you just get lazy? We didn't play seasons just to go 82-0 anymore. It's old. Like disco and techno-funk. Or like last weeks' sports page.
Tecmo Super Bowl insured that there would be a new world where stats would coincide with gameplay in peace and harmony. Okay, that may be stretching it, but bottomline, hear me for the last time Sony Sport, Virgin, etc.: NO GAME IS GOOD ENOUGH TO MAKE A TRUE SPORTS FAN OVERLOOK STATS-TRACKING. What would Madden or World Series and especially Hardball be without it? But that's enough I'll save it for another article, for another day. (But, man it felt good to finally get that off my chest--whew!).
What disappointed me most about this game was not how bad it was (or wasn't), but how good it could've been. Smooth graphics alone can't make a good game. But with NBA Live'97 on the horizon, I can be patient, and wait for the '97 and '98 versions when this game should really blossom.
Shootout comes off as a more of a display of Playstaion's graphical capabilities than anything else. There are just too many problems, adding up to a big fat. . .
Revolution Report Card |
C+ |
|
-Excellent Graphics -No Stats -Controls Need Tweaking -Nice Realism |