TV Sports Basketball
System: TG-16
Release Date: June 1991
Developer: Cinemaware
Publisher: NEC
Genre: Sports
Five on five hoops comes back with no bells, but some whistles with TV Sports Basketball! Cinemaware developed a trio of sports games for the TurboGrafx. We’ve seen the football game and now it’s time for the second of the bunch with basketball. Outside of a couple examples, basketball games on home consoles have been pretty rotten. Is this going to be another good hoops title?
You can choose to play an exhibition game or a league. League games have to be 12 minute quarters and you can choose from one of the eight fictional teams to control. I believe they are the same teams from the football game, but I don’t care to double check. I chose the Wizards to play as and was sent onto the court against the Outlaws.
The camera view is from half court looking at the hoop. When you reach half court, an automated transition occurs and you then face the other direction. In what can only be described as a travesty of game design, both passing and shooting are handled by Button I. If you tap the button, it is a pass, whereas if you hold it, you jump and releasing takes your shot. Button II does a pump fake and I’m flabbergasted that tapping Button I wouldn’t be a pump fake. This led to a large number of turnovers by me when I wanted to do one thing, but did another, instead.
The safety of your pass is denoted by the color of the icon on the player you want to pass to. If you take too long setting up your play, an opposing player will come up to steal the ball. When you finally try to make your pass, many times the targeted player will change, causing you to make a mistake. If I was able to make it to the paint, my guys would chuck up bricks without fail. Shots rarely fell from anywhere else on the court, but the opposing team was able to block just about anything they were near to.
They also made pretty much everything they put up. All defensive fouls send the other team to the charity stripe and the computer doesn’t miss. If stats outside of points and fouls were kept, I bet a good chunk of their points came from free throws. I got absolutely destroyed by the computer, but outside of a league to keep track of wins and losses, there was nothing that interested me into playing a second game.
Graphics: 2.5
The game looks alright. The players, animations, and court doesn’t look awful.
Sound: 0.5
There is the sound of a dribbling ball and bad voice samples from the ref.
Gameplay: 1.0
Whoever designed these controls had no understanding of what would feel natural.
Difficulty: 0.5
The computer doesn’t make mistakes, but poor design will force you to.
Fun Factor: 0.5
This isn’t a fun basketball game, much like the many others that have showed up.
Overall Rating: 1.0
TV Sports Basketball earns a D. This is a bad game that I can’t recommend in the least. Stay far, far away.