Halfway Fun
posted by Isometric (PORTLAND, OR) May 5, 2011
Member since Jan 2006
3
out of
6
gamers (50%) found this review helpful
Rented on X360. Spent quite a bit of time with this reload of the venerable coin-op and, though I am trying my hardest to like it, I'm beginning to fail and here's why: I'm 32, I have a family that includes two young children and a job. When I get to play games now, it's usually not for very long and I'm looking for an enjoyable, less frustrating experience. What bothers me so much about NBA Jam is the frustration that is coded into the game. Take the Classic campaign, for instance. Should you set the difficulty to Easy, as I did after seeing just how many games I had to win to complete the campaign, you will be pleasantly passing the minutes blocking and shoving the AI opposition with impunity...until the second half, when the AI makes an inexplicable jump in skill. Soon, where before you were able to score 20-25 points in a quarter, you will find yourself struggling to score 10 against a suddenly more aggressive foe. On easy. And the further you are ahead, the more difficult it becomes. If the developers intended to have the AI on a sliding difficulty scale, they shouldn't have given the illusion of choice to the gamer, then dangle a couple impossible achievements out there, like holding an opponent scoreless for an entire game or merely tripling their score. Again, if I'm playing by myself, I ought to be able to play the way I want to, so if I want to blow out an opponent by 80 points, I should be able to on an appropriate difficulty setting. Worse is the new Remix Tour, which takes away even the illusion of choice. The difficulty is automatically adjusted for each challenge, meaning if you want those gold challenges completed, you're going to have to play on hard. No say in the matter, and it's a single player only mode! Just you and a bunch of challenges only a masochist will want to keep trying. If you're in it for the achievements, don't bother. You've got over 200 games between you and half the points. That's at least six times through the classic campaign!
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