NBA Street: Homecourt [X360]

NBA Street Homecourt's soul deals with the places you play as much as the people playing -- hence the name. It's about building a rep for your 'hood, while at the same time improving your skills. As such, the environments are distinctly modeled in great detail. You've never played on a digital playground like the four-court square of Cloverdale. Venice Beach is another memorable area, and its resemblance to the real place is uncanny. Designing these courts accurately makes a lot more sense than the cold, massive confines of the NBA's teams.

You'll still be building your baller from the ground up, of course. Do you want a quick scorer like Kobe, a bruiser like Brand, or an all-around whiz like Marion? Unlike past games, it's not about making an across-the-board Superman. Your stats go up based on performances: Get a lot of steals in a game, and that ability improves. Of course, you could get lucky and earn a Freak skill that maxes out one attribute. This helps you compete with those NBA (or WNBA) players who have Master skills that make one part of their game totally dominant. Like in the past, this career mode will have you recruiting new players, visiting new courts, and engaging in several types of pick-up games.

Other modes focus on Gamebreakers, trick points, or the bare basics of basketball. Sadly, there's no mode to run through the NBA teams, tournament-style, or one where you could shoot for the most trick points to top a leaderboard. Online play is included too, offering the same choices as single-player, and is a great advantage to Homecourt. After all, as good as the computer is, nothing beats matching wits with another savvy human player. Multiplayer is as good as ever -- if not better, thanks to the riskier choices one can make.

Graphically, Homecourt initially doesn't look that great. You'd think six players on-court instead of 10 would leave lots of room for visual advancements, but apparently not. The reason this isn't the case is to keep everything fluid and fast -- which is respectable. Even still, don't be surprised if you find yourself thinking you're playing an Xbox game once in a while.

On the audio front, Homecourt tries something different. Instead of having a commentator dropping urban slang ad nauseam, you get a barrage of player chatter. The amount of dialogue here is incredible, as they'll talk about the score, the action going on, and just general trash-talking. It's really well done. The music follows an old-school style and acts to complement the game rather than stand out.

It's debatable whether the tweaks EA has made to NBA Street are for better or worse; it really depends on your skill level and what you're into. As a whole, though, NBA Street Homecourt is an excellent arcade-sports title that knows no equal on next-gen consoles. It's more user-friendly than ever, has a killer single-player mode, and its online play will only make you keep it cemented into your Xbox 360 that much longer.