NBA Playgrounds

If you love NBA Jam / Showtime etc, then go play those as this game sucked.

Its an alright game, but it gets boring really fast if you are alone. The gameplay can get really repetitive so unless you have a friend to constantly play with, I would just stay away and find a different type of game to play that is less repetitive.

I really wanted this to be great, instead its a steaming pile. The game play sucks, but hey they made the menus flashy, that counts for nothing. You could probably win a game if you button mashed the whole time.

It's a pretty nice Arcade Basketball game with awesome graphics (supports 4K resolution). Gameplay is nice, also the stadiums are nice but the AI needs some fixing, acts with a weird way most of the times, but in general the game is enjoyable and worths it's price (got it on sale 50% off). Recommended.

Once the game was released,it was real fun experience and had a lot of potential,even tho shooters were super unbalanced and having Ray Allen meant winning the game,it was still enjoyable.Unfortunately devs just kept ruining the game with every new update being worse than the latter one.Adding the shot meter killed the fun in 3pt shooting.After so much hype during the first days of the game,Game is pretty much empty in EU.

I was really looking forward to this game. Loved NBA Jam, Hangtime and Showtime. However, this game lacks almost everything that made those so good and so fun.

No character creation, very limited roster at the start and you have to play and level up in order to get more players. Controls are awful and badly mapped.
Gameplay is slow and not nearly as fluid as it was on any of the previous games.
In game commentary is dull, nothing compared to those "boom shakalaka" or "that had boom but no so much shakalaka".

All the had to do was take everything good about past version, fine tune a bit and put some online mp, but nop, they took out most of the fun parts.
Definitely gonna ask for a refund. Don't recommend to buy it unless is at 75% discount.

Really reminds me of the good old NBA Jam game. The single player is fun, but can get boring, this game is meant to be played with friends on the couch, autistically schreeching at eachother when you get blocked at the last second.

Pros:
- Looks great!
- Plays great with gamepad
- Sometimes actually challenging in the tournaments
- LEGENDARY PLAYERS!!!!111
- No pay to win, just work through games/tournaments, earn xp, get cards

Cons:
- Pricey, get it at a sale
- Commentary can get a bit lame sometimes
- Music gets repetitive

First glance the game looks like a NBA JAM meets NBA Street with some cartoon characters aka backyard ball made fresh
but glad I got it on sale because it is not very easy to play,

Even after a dozen games I am still bummeed/frsutrated. My biggest let down is that the mecahnics are just trying too hard (which fails) to do what the previous NBA arcade style games made cool.

Looks good, fairly current popular rosters + throwbacks & devs? BUT progressinon based and feels super limited at first play.

Overall cute game but not what I was looking for...

GET THis game and let your life change for the better and let all your friendships and rivalries come to an end.


s/o 2 maddog and saber interactive for putting so much effort in this game, talking 2 the community and doing bug fixes and updates this game is gonna be the norm in the future gg

On the positive side this game is a modern update to classics like NBA Hangtime & NBA Jam Tournament Edition.

However, a few key areas of game play make this quite frustrating to have a "flow" to the game.

Suggestions below can be improved upon and hopefully made better in the next patches.

1) Rebounding. The rebounding/box out is seemingly random or heavily favored to the AI for offensive rebounds. At least 5 times to ten times a game in three minutes both my player and CPU player are standing over a basketball on the ground and cannot pick it up while the AI opponent casually walks over and grabs the ball. This is very frustrating over 3 minutes of play.

2) Cross-over dribbling. While excellent, they wipe out 1/2 or more stamina even on players with a high stamina rating. This would never happen in most arcade games so I hope this can be adjusted to allow for multiple cross overs or an option for unlimited.

3) Fade away jumpers. The difficulty in converting a fade away jump shot is almost impossible. I have played as "legend" Tracy McGrady and his shot bar for success on a fade away jump shot is so small and such a difficult narrow window to press shoot that is becomes almost useless to attempt a fade away.

4) Online play. I agree experience points are useful before online play. However, my first opponent played with a team containing Paul George and blocked my shot 10 times and scored at least five three pointers and was next to unguardable. Even Alonzo Mourning could not block dunks in the paint.

5) Clear outs / steal attempts. Same frustrating challenge as cross-over dribbling. One steal attempt or push attempt should not clear out over 33% of stamina. I understand this is not an unlimited turbo game with unlimited pushing and am not asking for that. I think three push attempts per 100% stamina is not too much to ask here is it? There seems to be overcompensation for foulless games and like the game NBA Showtime: NBA ON NBC on Nintendo 64. At least consider an "arcade" mode and simulation mode if that is the key. I thought this game was more "arcade" but it seems to hold onto a bit too much "simulation" in games.

Considering I have 3 hours of gameplay it very well could be that I need to play another 15-20 hours to get my experience points up to increase stamina but it seems unlikely.

Graphics are pretty nice (GTX 970, 16GB RAM, I7 3.4 GHZ Intel Processor, 1TB HDD).

The player cards are fun and I like the random aspect of obtaining "average" to "legend" players in the player packs.

The Gameplay is fun but i ended up refunding it. The Shop Site says 2v2 and Multiplayer (Online). In reality youre playing a 1v1 (the second of every team is AL and you can switch). That doesnt sound right. You also cant play with or against Friends. The playerbase is really small and i dont know how long they will last. But for someone who wanted to play 2vs2 witha friend against 2 randoms its not worth 20 Euro.

I've enjoyed a good amount of this game considering I wouldn't have put in the hours I did unless I had some degree of enjoyment. However, even with 2 updates there are still some issues

1) FIX THE NETCODE: The first online match I had was laggy so much that I was dunked on when I had the ball. Then Whenever I was going to shoot a 3 pointer, I had the ball stolen from me out of nowhere.

2) Repeat cards on maxed out players: If I take the time to grind out a player that has terrible stats, I don't want to see them come into a player pack because the exp they get is WORTHLESS. There are mobile games that understand duplicates on maxed out characters shouldn't exist and those are free to play.

3) The lottery tickets punish people for winning too much: If I am winning by 9 points, this gives the enemy team something like double points or the mystery stars and on higher difficulty AI, they couldn't be anywhere near it and still win. This disincentivizes me from playing how I want to play and if I am 7 points ahead, then I just am throwing the ball around before they inevitably get a 3 pointer perfect shot. Making it to where that 7 point lead is now a 3 point lead all because I don't want them scoring 20 points from some bogus scoring mechanic. There needs to be a cutoff on it to where it's not becoming a deliberate losing is winning like Mario Kart.

4) Perfect shots make zero sense without any given context: I don't know if it's asking for me to hit the very beginning, center, or the very end. If the game would clarify, that'd be great.

5) The tutorial doesn't cover enough: I don't know when I should be pressing the steal button or when they are open to be stolen from and it results in braindead mashing of it. There isn't anything on blocking shots or when those windows are covered leading me to either shove or steal instead because those don't have as large of recovery.

6) The AI became unforgiving around level 29. I will set the difficulty on easy and have the enemy AI with characters that have 3s and 4s for blocks come out to be able to block every single dunk am

7) Shuffling has no counters: I've had so many AI matches where they just spammed the passing and shuffling towards the basket and that's how they score. Blocking has already been shown as ineffective without any showing as to why it didn't work. The passing spam can't be blocked by the steal button or the y button. Then, shoving becomes useless because they receive it and shuffle, now I have no stamina, they can sprint and dunk and fill lottery meter.

8) Speaking of shoving: Shoving has more times than not only delayed them from scoring. I would shove them and the same player I shoved got the ball back. This means the shove button has more recovery than the person being shoved in a lot of cases. Then what was the point in shoving them?

9) WHY DOES AN OFFLINE MODE LIKE EXHIBITION REQUIRE AN INTERNET CONNECTION? I had a few internet outages yesterday and not being able to play offline is a glaring issue that I don't understand. If they are that concerned with people cheating the card packs then require an internet connection to open them. If you don't want them scumming the exp, then why not turn off exp in offline if they are that concerned?

10) Online mode is only against randos: It's 2017, people played NBA Jam with their friends back in 1993 locally and in 2010 there was a game in which you could play with friends online in 2010. This is a game people want to play with friends and some friends are half the country away. Get with the picture.

11) Character Balancing: It isn't a fair game when someone is using 2 legendaries against 2 commons. This is just screaming for people to meta-whore and all you are going to see are the 2 same players over and over again. Have a character level limit which forbids legendaries from going against commons, epics against commons, or legendaries against commons.

All of that being said this game is good. It's a good game to pick up and play for 30 minutes, but after that, it can become repetitive.

lazy review, awesome game!

what I like:
+ the game is easy to pick up and fun to play
+ people who are not into sports games like myself, could enjoy this game
+ getting and opening packs (there's no microtransactions, yet)
+ the caricature style the players have
+ legendary players (not you, Shaq)
+ dunking.. oh the dunking, I could dunk all night long.. it's really fun
+ lottery picks change things up a bit
+ the price is fair to me

nitpicky things that annoy me:
- could be more arcade-y, but this might change in the future with new modes
- no easy and clear way to choose your players on the main menu
- Shaq is making an annoying celebration move almost every time he dunks, it slows down the pace of the game.. why not just make him say BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA and move on with the game?
- timing.. you could say it's skill, but I have no indicator how bad I shot, except the type on the hoop telling me "late" or "early", it's too small if you ask me.
- no friend vs friend mode or local mode as far as I can tell.. yet.

this game is basically an indie game, and it will get more stuff soon.. the devs push updates regularly.

also if one of the dev team reads this, add more legends like Dr. J. and please make the legends not annoying, fix Shaq so he isn't dancing around half of the match!

I bought this game looking for something to play for 2 hours and then be done with it, but little did I expect to get a full day worth of enjoyment. NBA Playgrounds is a switch on those classic NBA Jam & NBA Street games. It is much more fast paced and fluent than those past games. You Start the game with a handful of "Player Packs" in order to get your dynamic duo of a team started. I really enjoy the Pack System in this game because it gave me some incentive to want to level up. I have played past NBA 2K games (2K10-2K17) and I feel as though that 2K can learn something from Saber Interactive. The soundtrack and art style of this game is phenomenal and it only add's to the games zaniness and laid back attitude. NBA Playgrounds doesn't take itself too seriously, which is something I am in love with. Allen Iverson teaming throwing a 20-foot high alley-oop to Demar Derozan while dabbing is something I can highly appreciate and watch all day. There are over 150+ players for you to collect through player packs with NO MICROTRANSACTIONS, yes that means that you will have to actually play the game and gain some knowledge and skill in order to get some of the best players (Take a hint 2K). Some issues I have with the game are the Lottery Pick system and the game's content going forward. I feel as though the Lottery Pick system is a bit too RNG based for this game, I feel as though maybe if it wasn't earned as easy it would be more balanced. As for the long term, I hope they do not mess up the system of which they have already. I do hope they release more packs and tournaments throughout the updates but please DO NOT MAKE THEM BUYABLE. One of my favorite things about this game is how satisfying it is to unlock your favorite character after an hour or so of leveling and I feel as though putting in any sort of microtransactions would solely kill that feeling altogether. All together NBA Playgrounds is a fantastic game with some very minor tweaks. NBA fan or not, this is a definite pickup for anybody looking for some crazy fun.

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**EDIT AFTER WRITING**
I totally forgot about the online portion of this game when writing my initial review, so let me address that here. The online portion is very fun... when it decides to work. I love seeing all of the combinations of players other players put together and it makes for some very interesting games. However most of the time I find myself lagging majorly or losing connection midway through a game. It seems as though multiple people are currently having this problem, so as the game is updated more you can most likely expect this problem to be fixed.

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PROS:
-Very fast and fluent gameplay
-Art Style and Soundtrack are very fitting
-Loads of replay ability
-Tournament Mode
-Pack System
-No Microtransactions
-In-depth Player Information

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CONS:
-Lottery Pick System
-Online Servers
-Longterm?

This game is fun and I enjoy it but you can't really play with friends because there is no invite option and the matchmaking is random so it's challenging for you to find them. This game would be 100x better if there were different modes such as 4v4s with 2 people on each team or 1v1s and custom lobbies where you could invite friends. I still would recommend this game to others due to the fact of how smooth and fun the game is.

Great game.
What needs to be better:
1. Play with your friend against two different players(4 players on 2x2 with a new ranking, specificied to this category).
2. An option to invite friend and play online against him. Since you can't invite nobody, it's just random row.
3. Regulate the match up online, sometimes it's laggy, we prefer to play against a better/worst player than one from a different region.

Pros:
- Fun, addictive, NBA Jam-esqe gameplay
- (at least right now) They aren't pushing card packs as microtransactions
- Multiple play modes both online and against CPUs
Cons:
- Card packs get further apart each level, and you can get duplicate cards so dont expect to play as your favorite NBA player right away.
- Worst tutorial ever. The tutorial really does not teach you how to play, it tells you the controls but you have to get a feel for shooting on your own.
- Always online. You cant play this game at all if you arent connected to the internet.
- Optimization on PC isn't /great/, It works, it plays, it doesnt seem to drop frames, but the game has crashed so many times for me. Also the volume settings straight up dont work.
Overall:
I would recommend this game to people who liked NBA Jam and don't mind spending a LOT of time to unlock the players you actually want to use, but if you just want to jump in and play a casual game this might not be what you are looking for. The game looks easy enough, but the shot timings and mechanics take time to master, so it can be a bit frustrating at first. All in all, this game is fun, and if you consider yourself an NBA fan you'll probably have fun with this game, and its only $20.

NO MICROTRANSACTIONS!!!!! There is no in-game currency, no way to buy packs. This is a huge relief knowing that some kiddo using dad's credit card to buy VC to boost their team/player and become over-powered will never exist in this game.

So far this game is great! I never got to play the original NBA Jam but I did play the NBA Jam on Fire Edition a while back and I loved it.

I can say for sure that if you liked either of those versions of NBA Jam that you will not be disappointed by NBA Playgrounds. There are tons of cards to unlock, an individual player level system, and (my favorite) the tournament mode where you go to different locations around the world to play 4 games against AI teams.

Also this entire review is based off of me playing with a controller, so I do not know how the keyboard controls hold up.

I will definitely update this review when I have more hours into this game because I feel like I could be playing this for a good amount of time!

Make sure you have a game controller if possible, playing on the keyboard is really tough! This is not backyard basketball where that game was mouse driven.

I'm glad I had a logitech gamepad, things works awesome for this game. If you have a keyboard, you might have to reconfigure your keys.

It's NBA Jam light! I like that it is 3D-ish, so you have better view of steals and blocks. Dunk timing is hard, but after 1 or 2 hours you'll get the hang of it.

I have not played online yet, but the AI is decent, so solo play is fun.

It's an arcade game, and I can see myself playing this after a long day of work for ridiculous dunks.

Note you do not get all the players, you unwrap them as you play. You'll get two/three legendary players, and then some current players.

The game is fantastic, only gripe is not telling you what the "perfect dunk" is.. or perfect shot is for that matter. A mix on NBA JAM and Street which hits the feels being a former NBA Showtime tournament player. How is it a mix? Look down below

NBA JAM:

-obvious 2v2 gameplay
-High flying dunks
- Shoving as an option

NBA Street: Actually gearing off into​ NBA Street HOMECOURT territory, the timing of your shots/dunks factor in of you getting extra points much like the double dunk mechanic.

-Gamebreaker-esque meter.


Arcade gaming is back. Time for the NullDC emulator to be on the shelf a little bit.

EDIT: For perfect shots/dunks, looks like the peak of jumps. Isn't common either so far. Will update if anything happens.

EDIT P2: Online is pretty solid. And you get points even when people rage quit (Street fighter 5 take notes) xD