Reviews

HoopWorld Review

By Ron Burke

Posted on September 1, 2010

Basketball is one of the few sports where fantasy can feel real. Football and baseball are too regimented for supermen to really take reign. Soccer has its own arcane rules and not enough scoring for larger-than-life theatrics. However, basketball, with its emphasis on scoring, speed and power can make men seem like superheroes.

That

HoopWorld promises to be another fun-loving, rip-roaring basketball romp with over-the-top moves and powerups. Think NBA Jam plus 80

The teams and courts are very over the top. You have a team of Amazon warrior girls, a team of bikers, and other crazy, non-typical basketball teams. They all play very similar, but the variety is still pretty cool. Rather than spending time on a typical hardwood basketball court, you’ll be playing in nearby volcanoes and jungles, with additional courts unlocked as you play. Everything looks great, animates well, and doesn’t distract from the overall game.

In a rarity for a Wii game, they also have online leaderboards. Playing through the survival mode will get you ranked on the leaderboard, which adds more fun to the game and gives you a reason to keep playing. The music and sound is solid, if unremarkable. It seems like the developers, Virtual Toys, did a lot of things right. Pardon the pun, but this game should be a slam-dunk, right?

What very nearly derails HoopWorld is the control scheme. For some crazy reason, the developers decided that you could only play with the Wiimote and Nunchuk and grafted some crazy motion controls onto it. For example, to shoot, you swing both controllers up. You

Now, for the life of me, I can

It

Ron Burke

Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief | [email protected]

Ron Burke is the Editor in Chief for Gaming Trend. Currently living in Fort Worth, Texas, Ron is an old-school gamer who enjoys CRPGs, action/adventure, platformers, music games, and has recently gotten into tabletop gaming.

Ron is also a fourth degree black belt, with a Master's rank in Matsumura Seito Shōrin-ryū, Moo Duk Kwan Tang Soo Do, Universal Tang Soo Do Alliance, and International Tang Soo Do Federation. He also holds ranks in several other styles in his search to be a well-rounded fighter.

Ron has been married to Gaming Trend Editor, Laura Burke, for 28 years. They have three dogs - Pazuzu (Irish Terrier), Atë, and Calliope (both Australian Kelpie/Pit Bull mixes), and an Axolotl named Dagon!