An Awkward NBA Jam Rip-Off
One of the genres that I feel that is missing from handheld systems these days is a good arcade basketball game in the style of NBA Jam. I just want a basketball game that is fast paced and fun to play. There is only two games that come into mind for the DS: Mario Hoops 3 on 3 (good game, but slow)... and this abomination.
Harlem Globetrotters: World Tour is one of the worst games for the DS. You would think a basketball based on the Globetrotters with the NBA Jam formula thrown in could have some promise. But no...
The presentation is very poorly done. This is a straight-port of the Gameboy Advance version of the game. But all of the menus can only be navigated through using the touch screen. Now it is important to note that this is the ONLY use of the touch screen through the whole game. Navigating the menu options is very tedious due to being forced to push small buttons to scroll through modes and options. Also, the menus play this constant loop of hip-hop music, which is also very annoying.
And that brings up the sound. The menu music is the only music in the game and the rest of the sounds consist of very low quality basketball game sounds. You will hear shoes squeaking on the floor of the court. But that happens every time your player turns around. So that can get very annoying very fast. There are also tin-can quality crowd sounds. But that might be the DS speaker's fault. Still, the crowd sounds bad. What I find odd, though, is the lack of any sort of sound from the net when you make a basket. No sound from the rim when you make a dunk, either.
The graphics are what you expect from a GBA port. The players are sprite-based and so is the background. The only thing I noticed is that there are two basic types of players: guy with short hair and guy with mullet. There is no variation no matter what. The bottom screen shows the action while the top screen only acts as your scoreboard.
The gameplay is the most important part of any game. But it is also the worst part of this game. There are three modes: World Tour, Quick Match, and Multiplayer. All have basically the same gameplay. Multiplayer is Ad-Hoc only, so you and the other 4 people who were stupid enough to own this game cannot play on the internet.
Shooting is based on a double-tap style of shooting. So when you press A to shoot, you have to press A again at the apex of your jump to release the ball. The same goes towards dunks, which makes no sense. When you tap A the first time, going up for a shot, your player will stand stiff, holding the ball straight out from his chest and jump very high. A lot of times, the ball will get stolen because your player holds a basketball wrong when shooting. Once you release the ball, the ball has barely any arc going towards the basket. A lot of times, you will miss jump shots, so your instinct is to jump up for a rebound. But that might be a problem since it is nearly impossible to get your player to jump up for the ball. In this game, it seems you can dunk from crazy lengths down the court. But due to the double-tap system for shooting, if you tap A for the second time too early, your player will literally skip frames of animation and end up at the basket. But the bad thing about dunks is that once you make your dunk, the camera focuses right in on the referee instead of the action.
Passing is done with the B button and that is also an awkward experiece. Half of the time, the player won't pass the ball. A lot of the times, there will be glitches in the game and the player will lose the ball. The ball will be sent flying like it is a shot, but it doesn't go high enough to make the basket. Another complaint about the gameplay is that it is WAY too easy for the computer to steal the ball away from you. Every game, there is a total of 40+ steals between the two teams. But there is no way to know that you lost possession because steals have no animation either.
All in all, if there was one way to describe this game, that word would be "awkward". Controlling the menus (due to the forced touch controls) and the gameplay (due to the lack of animations in shots and steals). Is there any redeeming quality to this game? No...
Do not buy this game. Don't even pirate a copy of it.