NBA 2K10 [PSP]

While 2K Sports has had a commanding grip on basketball for years on consoles, it has largely avoided bringing its acclaimed style of play to portable systems. Whether it felt that the experience would be diluted or wouldn't carry over well, there's been nothing to see on the PSP or other handhelds, meaning that if you needed a basketball fix, you had to rely on a rival company for your enjoyment. For the tenth anniversary of the franchise, however, 2K decided to step out of its comfort zone and release NBA 2K10 for the PSP, a ported version of the PS2 version of the game. Unfortunately, the game itself is poorly done, with gameplay that feels extremely skewed and unrealistic, has tons of lag and slowdown, as well as horrible presentation and sound values.

Just like the PS2 version of the game, the PSP rendition of NBA 2K10 is a fast-paced basketball game instead of a simulation style title. However, unlike the PS2 version, it skews much more towards an arcade game than ever before. A large amount of this can easily be blamed on the turbo feature, which can be used without any penalty whatsoever, without a drain on skills. As a result, playing with the default five minute quarters, it's possible to sprint up and down the court for the entire game without burning out a player within your starting lineup. In fact, during some matchups, I intentionally left my entire starting lineup on the court and they remained as fresh as they were at tipoff, tearing up and down the court.

Not only was this blatantly unrealistic, but plays were practically useless, as I could essentially run around the basket until the defender provided a lane, at which point anyone on my team could immediately take it to the hoop and slam the ball home. For example, playing with the Hornets, I was able to get Chris Paul to perform tomahawk jams and 360 dunks that would make Kobe and LeBron jealous. However, players that aren't necessarily three-point shooters were able to sink shots from downtown or farther away without a problem. Whether it was the extra boost of turbo adrenaline that helped guide the ball into the basket wasn't obvious, but I do know that both Nate and I managed to go back and forth scoring at will. That begs the question: Why run a play if you can instantly score within a few seconds of getting the ball?

The PSP version manages to hold onto the same kinds of gameplay fixes that the PS2 version has, so errant passes or players running out of bounds aren't really found within this game. Intercepting a pass can happen, but that's if you telegraph who you're passing it to or try to toss down the length of the court to an open man. The game still overlooks a lot of backcourt calls, which is annoying, but eventually inconsequential considering that you can easily convert once you have the ball in your hands. There isn't lockdown defense, but moving your player close to another player puts pressure on your opponent, deflecting their movement to one side or forcing them into a turnover. Player animations do look pretty good, especially if you wind up throwing it down at the rim. However, it's still plagued with the 2K problem of pro players missing easy layups and put back shots, which doesn't make a lot of sense when you see some players hitting the bottom of the rim as they go up while others constantly bounce shots off of it. The PSP game also has some serious slowdown, particularly if you're playing a multiplayer game (which is ad hoc only, by the way). Both Nate and I experienced large amounts of stutter and even some frame rate drops that completely hampered our ability to play coherent offense or defense together, and that was with both of us sitting next to each other during the match up.

Fortunately, the PSP version of 2K10 attempts to approximate the current gen versions of the game with its larger, easy to navigate presentation. This makes it much better when you are trying to manipulate the options of the game or are trying to set up matches. That helps when you're trying to play season, playoffs and tournament games, or explore the street mode. Unfortunately, in-game menus for plays (should you choose to run one) and for the entire Association mode are horrible, with cramped text and poor layout for each organizational option. It features new drills for players as well as ambitions for each athlete, but is clunky to navigate and poorly help you explore the functions you need for your organization.

The presentation is particularly poor; in fact, with the exception of the on-court action, 2K10 doesn't look particularly good. The crowd looks like a set of flat 2D blobs within the stands that don't react to anything on the court (with the minor exception of someone going to the free throw line – there's extremely tame distraction animation during these sequences), and while player animations and dunks aren't bad, the characters themselves only slightly resemble their real life counterparts. But what is really surprising is the poor sound quality. With only a few scattered comments by Kevin Harlan and infrequent chime-ins by Clark Kellogg, you're essentially playing a quiet game, even if you have the commentary turned up. The ambient crowd noise is really just a murmur of whistles and a hushed roar which doesn't change, even if the home team rallies from a deficit or performs an incredible play. That's just pathetic.

Closing Comments
2K Sports stayed away from the portable sports arena, and with a showing like this, it's easy to see why: the port over to the PSP isn't particularly good. The turbo completely destroys any realistic or believable gameplay, the presentation is non-existent and some game issues, coupled with menu confusion and slowdown turns the title into a muddied, mediocre mess. You may want basketball on the go, but this isn't the game you want for that experience.

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