NBA Courtside 2002 better than some but not as good as others

NBA Courtside has everything that you would expect an average basketball game to have.The key word here is average.It does some things right and some things wrong.There are several different play modes including quick play, season, arcade, practice, and a 3-point shootout.

The best thing about Courtside is the passing.Yes, that's right the passing.You use the c-stick to zip passes to players or you can just use B to pass to the person closest to you.This sounds like a minor detail but really improves the gameplay.Other than that its pretty basic.You use the d-pad to call plays and Y to do dribble moves.Z calls for a pick.Its easy to score you can score more than half the time by either calling for a pick and going to the hoop, using your dribble move and turbo combined, or simply dump it into a post.

Defense is another story.It is very tricky to switch between players.Which means that you can't always be around the ball.Your teammates simply stand by their man and don't do anything else.It is difficult to align blocked shots and you and all your players seem to move very sluggishly.Too often the CPU will just dump it in to someone near the basket and they will turn around to shoot an uncontested chip shot.Late in the game, an absurd amount of 3 pointers are made.Which gives the other team every opportunity to come from behind.After a made shot your teammate takes entirely to long to bring the ball in.This makes it utterly impossible to run a secondary break.

The graphics are great and there are no slowdowns or pop-ups in the frame rate.The announcers are terrible and very annoying.They use the same 5 punchlines over and over.After a few hours of play I ended up completely eliminating the commentary by muting the tv.

One addition to NBA Courtside is arcade mode.It is 3 on 3 "street" basketball.It plays the same as all the season mode.There is still only the 1 dribble move.What makes things interesting is the addition of a circle that randomly pops up.If you make a shot from that circle you get extra points.This enables you to overcome big point leads.The dunks are awesome.But this is only like an exhibition mode where you play one game and your done.I wish they had expanded this a little.