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Paying homage to the old school look and feel of classic arcade games, NBA Unrivaled brings to the table a contemporary retro design to this generation of high definition gaming. Sporting the full NBA license and the 2009 NBA season’s team and player rosters, the game also includes current stats, logos and jerseys. Ball your way up to the top of the league and play to your fullest to get the crowd pumped.

Genre: Sports

Publisher: Tecmo

Developer: A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Games

Online Play:

Local Play: 2 Versus

November 13, 2009 –
Every so often there is a game that makes you question what the person in charge of licensing was thinking when they agreed to loan rights to such an abomination. NBA Unrivaled is sadly one of those games. The NBA doesn’t need money, they don’t need to get their name out there more than it already is, so then why in God’s name would they ever ink a deal to loan their name and the names of their players and teams to a game like this? I understand that it’s trying to go for an old school arcade feel, but they’ve instead delivered one of the least fun sports game experiences I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing.

NBA Unrivaled presents a very simple setup. There’s quick play, Xbox Live play (either ranked or unranked) or you can take part in a challenge game. The challenge games are nothing more than a set list of NBA teams that you’ll need to beat. There’s nothing special about the games themselves as you’re still playing four quarters of poorly designed basketball, so it begs the question why they felt the need to call it “Challenge Mode.” That list of modes might be fine for a five-dollar purchase, but once you drop your ten bucks on the table for NBA Unrivaled, you’ll no doubt be wondering what the heck you paid for.

Click above to watch a clip of the Cavs vs. Thunder.Problems persist when you try and take the game online. Lag isn’t hugely prevalent but you will find that players are constantly dropping animations, they’ll slide around the court aimlessly and sometimes they’ll even perform my personal favorite move: the invisible dunk (when the player model turns invisible and the ball continues to throw itself through the hoop). Thankfully these problems weren’t ever-present, so I was still able to have a bit of fun when playing against Erik Brudvig (who beat me by one point).

The real issue with NBA Unrivaled is sadly at its core, which is to say that the basketball is just plain bad. The animations are nauseatingly jarring as players jerk their way up and down the court. When all five players for each team are on one side of the court, which happens extremely often, it can be very tough to follow the action because the ball constantly gets lost in the fury of mishandled animations.

As you dribble down the court and try to not unintentionally run into a still-moving player which is, for some reason, called a charge you’ll notice that nothing in this game looks very good. When the camera zooms in on the ref to make one of those dubious charging calls or on a player going for a super-dunk of sorts you’ll notice that there are details on the player models, they just don’t come through with the standard gameplay camera. The lighting system doesn’t exactly help either. Players wind up coming off cartoony and look like they could’ve been pulled off on the PS2.

Watch and weep.The one twist that NBA Unrivaled somewhat successfully adds to the basketball formula is momentum mania. Score a bunch of baskets in a row and momentum mania will unlock, boosting your players’ attributes up just a bit. Sadly that doesn’t stop the rubber banding AI that seems to increase the ease of stealing the ball for the player that’s losing. It’s extremely annoying if you’ve built a sizable lead only to find that your players all of a sudden get butterfingers. Other annoyances are easy to come by, just look at the coach who never moves or watch as your player stands in bounds to feed you the ball after a basket. I also ran into several occurrences of being behind the three-point line and being given only two points for a made shot and being credited a basket as I got hacked under the hoop, only my player’s shot animation never happened.

Closing Comments
There

November 13, 2009 –
Every so often there is a game that makes you question what the person in charge of licensing was thinking when they agreed to loan rights to such an abomination. NBA Unrivaled is sadly one of those games. The NBA doesn’t need money, they don’t need to get their name out there more than it already is, so then why in God’s name would they ever ink a deal to loan their name and the names of their players and teams to a game like this? I understand that it’s trying to go for an old school arcade feel, but they’ve instead delivered one of the least fun sports game experiences I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing.

NBA Unrivaled presents a very simple setup. There’s quick play, Xbox Live play (either ranked or unranked) or you can take part in a challenge game. The challenge games are nothing more than a set list of NBA teams that you’ll need to beat. There’s nothing special about the games themselves as you’re still playing four quarters of poorly designed basketball, so it begs the question why they felt the need to call it “Challenge Mode.” That list of modes might be fine for a five-dollar purchase, but once you drop your ten bucks on the table for NBA Unrivaled, you’ll no doubt be wondering what the heck you paid for.

Click above to watch a clip of the Cavs vs. Thunder.Problems persist when you try and take the game online. Lag isn’t hugely prevalent but you will find that players are constantly dropping animations, they’ll slide around the court aimlessly and sometimes they’ll even perform my personal favorite move: the invisible dunk (when the player model turns invisible and the ball continues to throw itself through the hoop). Thankfully these problems weren’t ever-present, so I was still able to have a bit of fun when playing against Erik Brudvig (who beat me by one point).

The real issue with NBA Unrivaled is sadly at its core, which is to say that the basketball is just plain bad. The animations are nauseatingly jarring as players jerk their way up and down the court. When all five players for each team are on one side of the court, which happens extremely often, it can be very tough to follow the action because the ball constantly gets lost in the fury of mishandled animations.

As you dribble down the court and try to not unintentionally run into a still-moving player which is, for some reason, called a charge you’ll notice that nothing in this game looks very good. When the camera zooms in on the ref to make one of those dubious charging calls or on a player going for a super-dunk of sorts you’ll notice that there are details on the player models, they just don’t come through with the standard gameplay camera. The lighting system doesn’t exactly help either. Players wind up coming off cartoony and look like they could’ve been pulled off on the PS2.

Watch and weep.The one twist that NBA Unrivaled somewhat successfully adds to the basketball formula is momentum mania. Score a bunch of baskets in a row and momentum mania will unlock, boosting your players’ attributes up just a bit. Sadly that doesn’t stop the rubber banding AI that seems to increase the ease of stealing the ball for the player that’s losing. It’s extremely annoying if you’ve built a sizable lead only to find that your players all of a sudden get butterfingers. Other annoyances are easy to come by, just look at the coach who never moves or watch as your player stands in bounds to feed you the ball after a basket. I also ran into several occurrences of being behind the three-point line and being given only two points for a made shot and being credited a basket as I got hacked under the hoop, only my player’s shot animation never happened.

Closing Comments
There