NBA Playgrounds (NS) - Review

by Evan Norris, posted 13 hours ago / 5,216 Views

With games like NBA Jam and NBA Street currently on ice, the market is open to a new arcade basketball game. Enter NBA Playgrounds, a title that draws inspiration from the wacky, over-the-top sensibilities of arcade sports games gone by and adds some flourishes and gameplay oddities of its own, resulting in a game more complex and less approachable than its ancestors.

Like NBA Jam before it, NBA Playgrounds is a 2-vs-2 side-scrolling basketball game with exaggerated physics and caricatures of NBA superstars. The NBA rule-book doesn't apply here, nor do Newton's laws of motion. Players will somersault around the game's playground courts, perform gravity-defying leaps, and score up to five points in a single basket. Anyone expecting a realistic basketball simulation will leave wanting. 

隨著NBA JAM 和NBA STREET類型遊戲的間歇期，一款新型接籃球遊戲開啟了新的市場。 進入NBA PLAYGROUNDS(這個名稱靈感來自於過去奇異、誇張的運動街機感，以及自身的多樣和奇異的遊玩特性，並且和遊戲方式和他的前輩相比更為複雜，操作更不易接近)。

如同先前的NBA JAM， NBA PLAYGROUND 是一款二對二橫軸模式的籃球比賽，有著誇大的物理定律和Q版的NBA超級巨星。NBA的規則書和牛頓的運動定律完全不適用。球員可以在整個籃球場翻筋斗，進行違反重力定律的跳躍，並且能夠一球得五分。誰要是想來場真實的籃球模擬，那可門都沒有。

Playgrounds is not a mere recreation of NBA Jam, however. Thanks to a few gameplay quirks, the new game is more strategic but also less accessible than the seminal sports title. Playgrounds features two bars, a stamina bar and a lottery bar, that grant a strategic give-and-take to the on-court action.

Using turbo, pushing, and performing crossovers will drain the stamina bar, forcing players on each side to decide when to conserve stamina and when to go for broke. At the same time, performing special moves like dunks, alley-oops, blocks, and steals will fill the game's lottery bar. When the bar is full, your team will earn a randomized, extraordinary advantage, including but not limited to speed boosts, 12" jump boost (jump a foot higher for dunks), 2x 3-pointer, and lightning ball (next shot is unblockable).

然而Playground 不僅僅是NBA JAM的重製。 幸虧一些遊戲策略的轉變，這款新的遊戲更具策略性同時也比其他開創性的運動遊戲更難上手。Playgrounds的特色在於兩條能量條，一條體力和一條能量兩者協調在場上的動作。使用加速、推進和過人會消耗能量條，迫使一邊的球員決定使用或是保存能量的時機。 同時，使用特殊動作，像是灌籃、空中接力、火鍋或是抄截都會填滿玩家的樂透條。當樂透條滿了的時候，你的隊伍就可以獲得一個隨機的、令人驚奇的優勢，包含速度無限提升、12跳躍強化(一腳跳過籃框灌籃)，三分球或是閃電球兩球(下一個投籃不被蓋鍋)。

All this adds up to a basketball experience more strategic and cerebral than Midway's basketball classics. That's the good news. The bad news is that the game is less accessible than old-school titles like NBA Jam and Hangtime. This holds true especially with Playground's fussy shooting mechanics. Players must press and release the shoot button with precision timing; otherwise the shot will land too early or too late and net zero points. It's a system surprisingly finicky for an arcade pick-up-and-play title, and made more frustrating by different shooting animations for each player.

Since Playgrounds has so many moving parts, a practice mode would have been a huge bonus. Unfortunately, the game has none; only a brief, perfunctory tutorial that leaves many questions unanswered. 

加入以上幾點，讓籃球經驗比MIDWAY籃球經典多了更多策略和思考。這是個好消息。壞消息則是遊戲比一些經典遊戲像是NBA JAM 和HANGTIME來得更難上手。這是真的，尤其是PLAYGROUND令人發毛的投籃技巧。玩家必須要按住然後精準地釋放投籃鍵；否則，這球可能放得太早或是太晚然後得不到分數。令人訝異的是，這款遊戲過分注意街機撿起來玩的遊戲名稱，讓人挫折於不同球員的不同投籃動畫。由於PLAYGROUNDS有許多動作，練習模式會是個很好的加分。不幸的是，這款遊戲沒有，只有簡單的、敷衍的教學，徒留玩家許多問題待解。

In the absence of a robust tutorial and a practice mode, players will need to submit to a process of trial and error. The upside is that you'll be rewarded for doing so with experience points (XP). After finishing matches, a player's profile will earn experience points, as will individual basketball stars. With enough XP, stars will gain new moves — although the nature of each new move is unclear. As players jump ranks within their profile, they'll unlock new card decks, which fill out the game's impressively deep roster.

Card decks arrive with randomized superstars from the past and present, including Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Shaquille O’Neal, Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Magic Johnson, and dozens more. Opening each pack and flipping each card to reveal the mystery star underneath is a fun, suspenseful way to earn new players (duplicates are recycled into player XP). It's a system vulnerable to micro-transaction abuse, but so far developer Saber Interactive hasn't flirted with the idea. All players are earned by leveling up.

缺乏健全的教學和練習模式，玩家們將會需要屈服於錯誤和試煉的過程。好處是，你可以從中得到經驗點數(XP)。完成配對之後，玩家的檔案將會獲得經驗點數，如同個人籃球明星。 有了足夠的點數，球星將會得到新的移動技術----- 雖然每個動作的性質不清楚。 當玩家升級時，將解鎖新的卡片，這也是這款遊戲最令人印象深刻的事情。 卡片隨機出現現役或是過去的籃球明星，包含艾佛森、拉布朗詹，大鬍子登燈，魔術強森還有其他許許多多的球星。 開啟每個卡包然後翻轉每一張卡片，揭露卡片底下未知的球星，是一種獲得球星懸疑而有趣方式(相同的卡片可以回收獲得金幣。 這款遊戲易受到小額付款的陋習，但是到目前為止開發商Saber還沒有收費的想法。所有玩家全都透過升級賺錢。

The Switch version of NBA Playgrounds features all of the game's four-player local multiplayer and single-player options, including Exhibition and Tournament, but lacks the online play of the versions on PC, Xbox One, and PS4. Saber has promised a patch to enable online play on Switch and also online tournaments across all versions. Missing online functionality, along with some fuzzy graphics in portable mode, make the Switch version appear inferior technically to others on the market — at least until a patch arrives.

NBA Playgrounds is not the next NBA Jam. It's neither as comprehensible nor as democratic in its design. Yet the move away from accessibility has yielded a game richer in tactical decision-making and risk-taking. Fussy shooting mechanics and some missing modes neutralize the overall experience to a degree, but the game's strong moment-to-moment gameplay keeps it afloat. With enough practice and patience (and patching), Playgrounds could be a perennial crowd-pleaser.

NBA PLAYGROUND  SWITCH版本以在所有遊戲模式包含展覽會或是錦標賽可以四人或是單人出賽為特色，但是同PC、XBOX ONE 和PS4相較起來缺少了線上模式。SABER已經承諾之後SWITCH補丁會實現線上遊戲以及各版本間的謹表賽。 沒有線上功能，以及在攜帶模式中缺乏細緻的圖像，使得SWITCH的版本技術上和其他平台相比略遜一色----至少在有補丁之前。
NBA PLAYGROUND不是下一個NBA JAM. 它不易理解也設計上也不那麼大眾化。然而它的難以上手豐富了遊戲的策略制定以及戰術上的風險。 令人發毛的射籃技巧和一些缺少的模式很大程度上抵銷了它整體的體驗，但是這款遊戲瞬息萬變的遊戲風格，讓他的趣樂能夠維持下去。 有著足夠的練習和耐心和補丁，PALYGROUNDS 可能會是一款讓大家愛不釋手的遊戲。

This review is based on a digital copy of NBA Playgrounds for the NS, provided by the publisher.