Backyard Basketball 2004

What do the Super-Soaky Scrubs, the Gluttonous Ball Hogs, the Hectic Hackers, the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers all have in common?

If you said they are all teams that Karl Malone played for, you may be right - in some strange way - but that wasn’t the answer being sought. All these teams are part of the latest edition of Backyard Basketball.

Atari and Solworks have teamed up for the latest version of the Backyard Basketball title. The game is an arcade romp featuring the standard Backyard gang and some of the pro NBA players as kids. There are also the logos of all 30 NBA teams represented here.

The game has a nice options package. You can jump right into a game in quickplay (CPU picks the teams and the court), play a pick-up game (you play a single game and set the parameters), take on the challenge of a season, or indulge in some of the mini games such as Horse, Around the World, or Hot Shot.

As you play, you will earn goodies and awards and there is an area where you can check out what you have accrued.

The game is basically three-on-three basketball played by little kids. That some of these kids will grow up to be NBA players is incidental. They have skills, but some of the Backyard kids (those who appear in all the titles) are just as talented. The game has arcade power-ups that pop up on the court and players can take advantage of the boosts in their game, turning the basketball into a Mexican jumping bean, or hitting a portal that vanishes them from one location and pops them up under the opposing hoop.

Hot baskets are instantly replayed from several angles to allow players to delight in the high-flying dunking antics.

Sunny Day and Barry DeJay do the commentary and this portion of the game has been done better in the past history of the title. The jokes are old and there are miscues along the way. Wrong teams are identified in post-game comments, and at times the commentary fails to come close to what is happening on the court.

Graphically the game is average. The three-dimensional look is solid, but some elements take on a decided two-dimensional look. Take a three-dimensional Barry DeJay and slap a two-dimensional bad cartoon mouth on him for the animation. That does not work. The game animations sport a lot of repetition, though there are some cool moments. Seeing a player drive the lane, flip the ball well up over the hoop, do a flip en route to grabbing in and slamming it home likes nice.

The control elements have been kept simple and easy to use.

Backyard Basketball is not the kind of game that is a viable arcade jaunt up the imaginative courts of the Backyard Basketball Association. This game is light entertainment, but if you have someone in your family that loves to play a little video hoops, while a soft diversion, better to look elsewhere.

This game is rated for Everyone.

Gameplay: 7
The controls seemed sluggish at times and the fixed sideline camera can be a little tough on depth perception when trying to steal a basketball. The gameplay transition was smooth though, and the quarters moved well.

Graphics: 7
The three-dimensional look works well in this game. The courts are well designed also. The animation is repetitive, and the game blends some two dimensional elements into the game for arcade powerups. The game is solid graphically.

Sound: 6.5
Sometimes the clever and cute banter just doesn’t work, and there are vocal miscues all over the place. Perhaps someone saying "I can’t believe it! We won?!?" in the second quarter harkens to a childlike innocence, but to hear it repeated every 4 minutes is annoying. The announcers declaring that the Grizzlies have soundly beaten the Grizzlies, when they were playing the Rim Rattlers is another error.

Difficulty: Easy
The game is somewhat easy to learn and play. But the games themselves stumble with sluggish control elements.

Concept: 6.8
Aside from some new players here, there is little new in this edition.

Multiplayer: 7.5
This game will support up to four players and is much more entertaining than the single-player experience.

Overall: 6.8
This is a rehash, and while fine, it does not stand out. There are several miscues along the way, all of which results in a turnover, speaking in basketball terms. If you are looking for a basketball title suitable for younger players, this may be it. If you are looking for a basketball title that fairly represents the game, on either a realism or arcade level, pass on this.