font size="-2">Genre: Sports
Developer: 989 Studios
Publisher: Sony
# of Players: 1-8 offline
Online Support: No
Supports: Analog Control, Vibration, Memory Card
ERSB: Everyone
Also On: none
Introduction
989 Studios is a team on the rebound. After sitting atop the electronic sports world in the Playstations’s early years, 989 Sports has been downhill ever since. A lack of consistency and evolution of their games coupled with the improvement of main competitor EA’s sports franchises as well as the emergence of Sega Sports spelled doom for 989.
The Playstation 2 was no different for them. They brought out one mediocre offering after another, with userbase and expectations shrinking with each release. After what seems like an eternity of Acclaim-like determination to release a product without a care of its quality, 989 is starting to get back on track. Their football franchise, GameDay, is getting the best reviews it has received in a long time. Soccer 2002 is a new 989 franchise and it also got great reviews. Basketball has always pretty much been 989’s worst sport, and after playing this game, I gotta say not much has changed.
Presentation
Aside from a nice intro video, which all basketball games seem to have nowadays, nothing stands out about 989’s presentation here. The controls are bad, with buttons placed in lame positions and no real way to change it effectively. The menus are not good either, slow and confusing.
The game is loaded with features though. You get the usual quick game, season, playoffs, etc. The game breaks from the mold a little by offering a Career Mode, where you go through the career of an NBA player. Other nice features include completely customizable rosters, auto CPU traded during the season, a create a dunk feature, 8 player games and the deepest create a player option around.
Take a look at NBA2K3 or NBA Live 2003 to see good presentation.
Graphics
Wow. What went wrong here. It seems 989 put good effort into the crowds and just forgot about the players. Honestly, this game looks like it could have been done on the PSX. The player models are jagged and look completely unrealistic. The faces are so poorly done you hope 989 just didn’t bother to do them because if they did you’d feel sorry for them.
What’s even worse than the player models are the games animations. They are painfully slow. The steal button is basically useless because if you’re going against a guy like Iverson or Nash, they will be long gone by the time your hand reaches out for a swat at the ball. It seems like every single animation is that way, from rebounding to shooting. There are a few good animations though. Faking out in one direction will cause your opponent to jerk out that way as well, and sometimes they just might slip and fall down. That’s about it though.
I mentioned it seems 989 put all the effort into the crowds. Even they are above average at best. While they pale in comparison to NBA2K3s crowds, they get the job done. Other things like player introductions and replays look nice as well, but you’ll want to cover your eyes once the ball is in play.
Sound
Like the graphics, the sound excels in some areas and falls flat on its face in others. There is an absolute lack of sound effects in this game, aside from the squeak of shoes and the thud of the ball on the rim. The crowd again seems to be where 989 focused, because they don’t sound too bad at all.
The commentary is dull and repetitive. You get to hear Bill Walton’s zany jokes and references, but there are no positives here pertaining to actual gameplay. The announcers were given far too little to say, because before you’re a few games into the season you’ve heard all there is to here.
Gameplay
Well, here’s the games chance to redeem itself. Too bad it pretty much falls flat on it’s face here. The game might boast a pretty realistic engine, but the gameplay is too slow and sluggish to take advantage. Lets cover the good first.
Strategy plays a big part in this game, more so than probably either of the other basketball titles. You’ve got to pick a play and hit the open man to be consistent. Simply pushing the ball up court and dishing to Shaq or Jordan isn’t going to cut it. The free throw system is excellent, not too easy and not too hard.
Now it’s time for the bad stuff. Man this game is slow. Rebounding proves to be futile because the game moves so slow and the jumping animation seems to happen in slow motion. Most rebounds will be collected by scooping the ball up from the ground. Also, the player models are completely irrelevant to physics. Shaq should absolutely dominate a little guy in the paint but he simply doesn’t. Another thing, the CPU shoots an unreal percentage. I played a game against the Spurs, and Danny Perry had a shooting percentage around 86%, even with double coverage on him. He simply did not miss a shot. Wide open baskets are missed far too often for the human team. They can be 3 pointers or simple shots from inside the paint. They do not fall.
The game seems to run in slow-mo all day. Teams like Dallas or Sacramento should fly up and down the court but they don’t because the game isn’t fast enough. It forces you to basically play a team a different way then they are made to play. On defense, the game is an absolute chore. Steals are near impossible to come by, and blocked shots are almost as hard. Unless you’re the CPU of course. Sorry 989 but Shaq is never going to be blocked by Allen Iverson. It simply isn’t going to happen. The slow pace of the game and weak animations carries over into players getting their own rebounds half the time and blocked shots rolling along the court for a few seconds before someone stumbles over and picks it up.
The game does have a decent amount of features and modes, but most are cookie cutter at best. The career mode is ok on paper but when the game is not that good and not very fun to play, going through game after game becomes tiresome. It allows you to play in the summer leagues and NBDL but that novelty wears off soon and you’re left with a boring game. The create a dunk is actually quite deep but it takes far too long to make something that’s so quick and seen so rarely.
There are simply too many holes in the gameplay to say 989 put as much effort into rebuilding this game as they did GameDay.
Conclusion
With two much better basketball franchises out there, gamers have absolutely no reason to pick up Shootout 2003. As a Sony published game you’d think it could atleast look like a bad PS2 game rather than a pretty good PSX game. With some more speed in the gameplay, I could overlook the piss-poor graphics but all the realism and features in the world doesn’t make up for the sluggishness of this title. Maybe next year.
The Good
+ Gameplay is pretty strategic
+ Commentary is good for awhile
+ Career mode is pretty inovative
+ Good selection of modes and features
+ Only $39.99
+ 8 player support
The Bad
- There are two FAR better titles out this year
- Gameplay is too sluggish to resemble basketball
- Graphics belong in a PSX game, not a PS2 game
- Animations are so slow they’re all useless
- No online play while Live 2003 and NBA2K3 have it
The Stupid
? The fact that this title was released early only so it could be the first out of the gate. The gameplay, graphics and mostly the rosters show it.
