Quick games can be 4,6,8 or 16 minutes. The 4 minute game is so short you’ll find the buzzer for the quarters interrupting your play quite often. The timer doesn’t set for 4 minutes on the short game. Instead it sets for 12 minutes and just counts down faster. It doesn’t tell you, but pressing a shoot or pass button during the cheerleaders will get you back to the game.
You can choose teams with varied offense and defensive strengths. The teams just use the city names and silly mascots, like pigs and owls. Among the other game options is an option to making “running” automatic. Instead of removing the mundane task of chasing around the ball while still letting you shoot and score, it actually just turns the game into a demo and plays the whole game for you.
Basic gameplay
The controls are simple. You have shoot, pass, and a directional pad when you are on offense. Defense has the directional pad, a “steal/block” button and a “switch” button to allow you to swap players.
Shooting requires a bit of finesse. In order to make a good shot, you need to time your “release” of the ball. The in-game demo is excellent at teaching you how to shoot. When you first press the “shoot” button, your player starts the jump shot. You release the button when he is in the right place in the air. No indicator as to what that is, you just need to guess. Making a great shot still won’t guarantee the shot will score points and a “too early” or “too late” shot can still score a basket.
Trying to make a shot from right under the hoop can result in a dunk and is also a seemingly solid way of scoring points. Since all the stickmen run at the same speed, it becomes a little difficult to catch runaways.
The ads. Oh man, the ads.
Ads. You can watch one specific video to remove ads for a short period of time it had a great impact during the game preventing ads from getting in the way, but it will not remove the ads at halftime. So many ads. Ads in the menu, ads each quarter, ads at the end of the game, video ads when you’re trying to figure out how to use the menu. The ads seem to have more loading time than the actual game.
Money solves pretty much anything
The game has a few challenges, such as winning a quick game in order to unlock the season play option or you could just “become a pro.” This option is a available for $2.47 in the app store. It removes all ads and opens all game/season options.
Final opinion?
This game would be entertaining enough to play in your free time if you didn’t have to worry about the ads using up as much time as the actual game. While I’m expecting a lot for a mobile game here, characters with different skill sets would create a much deeper experience. The ads really detract from the game. The banner ads, which are removed from watching the video, are the least intrusive. If you could remove the video ads, the gameplay would improve drastically. This game is a no for me. My phone will be getting some memory back.
