Lynx

Basketbrawl

Basketball mit deutlichem Prügeleinschlag bietet Ataris neuestes "Sportspiel". Statt elegantem Ballstibitzen dominieren Messerstiche und Kniekehlentritte: Mit Budesliga-Basketball hat Basketbrawl wenig zu tun.

While the concept shows lots of potential, Atari would've been better served by first seperately working on a decent basketball game and a fighter (and no, Pit Fighter doesn't count) -- or anything that would be more exciting than Basketbrawl.

While there is some fun in beating the hell out of opponents, it doesn't last long enough to make BasketBrawl worthwhile. It seems that the design wasn't well enough thought out and the development was done sloppily. The end result is a disappointing game.

With all of these sore spots, Basketbrawl comes across as nothing more than a poorly executed Arch Rivals knockoff, but without the sense of humor that made the latter so enjoyable. Even when the game tries to liven things up by throwing blurbs like "You!" or "He's Hurtin'!" up on the screen, it still falls flat.

As broken as all of that is, the fighting doesn't help. Various weapons litter the court, and picking them up will obviously do more damage than a standard punch. There's also a jump kick, all used to knock the ball from the player in control. It's hard to judge where you're on the court compared to the other player, and collision detection is hardly generous. The non-factor audio doesn't help. Combine this with the blocky graphics (the court is nice at times) and playing this is as painful as anything that happens to the players. The idea was done better by Arch Rivals a few years previous, though minus the weapons. This Lynx exclusive only made NBA Jam that more appealing when it was released.