NBA Baller Beats Review

Game Reviewed: NBA Baller Beats

Release Date: September 11, 2012

Developer: HB Studios

Publisher: Majesco Entertainment

Platform: [Reviewed: Xbox 360]

Genre: Sports

Rated: E10+ for Everyone 10 and older

Honestly, I can’t explain exactly when times changed. When I was younger my parents wouldn’t hesitate to get on me about playing with a ball in the house. Why? Because you can simply break anything. And, that will follow up with me being broken; until now I guess.

Baller Beats

HB Studios worked hard on this release. It’s a new innovative way to use your Kinect and track your basketball as a peripheral at the same time. And if that wasn’t enough, Baller Beats includes a basketball, eliminating the need to spend anything else for the title itself. This is NBA Baller Beats.

NBA Baller Beats is literally Guitar Hero with a basketball as your instrument. You’re listening to the music while watching the onscreen icons tell you what dribbles to perform. You earn points by dribbling on the mark and have the tendency to lose them when dribbling too early or late.

To prepare for what’s to come you can run through a tutorial with your NBA voice commentator for Baller Beats, Kenny “The Jet” Smith. Through the tutorial they will take  you through all the dribbles and skill moves.

Before you start working your way to the rim, presumably, you get to choose your favorite NBA Basketball Team. You start off with a small handful of locations to play in. Regards of where you choose, your area will be fully decorated with your team’s logo.

The challenge of NBA Baller Beats kick in with the skill moves you are to perform. The skill moves will appear on the stream of moves as well on your right side of the string in a carousel . While earning points by successfully bouncing the ball to the beat, performing skill moves will adjust your score through a multiplier. If you’ve ever played Guitar Hero or RockBand, you know exactly what consistency brings, way more points. The only twist is your multiplier will decrease rather than just disappear as a whole. So, if you miss a skill move when you have a x8 multiplier it will decrease to x6 rather than you needing to work your way back up.

The tracking system for NBA Baller Beats is on point. I didn’t know if the timing may be off, if my rug throw off the sensor; just about anything that could go wrong. In Reality, though, the only thing that could go wrong is if your handling is off and the ball breaks your lamp, TV, Kinect, or whatever, whomever is too close. A disclaimer is there reminding you to make space, it’s dependent on your handling. If you don’t make space while playing this game, you are going to have a bad time.

Once you complete a track and you’re all sweated out you can make your way over to the NBA Store. Here you can buy items such as posters for your backdrops in-game, runways, wavys and even new tracks to keep your game fresh by unlocking full tracks.

If NBA Baller Beats is a game of your interest, get it. Baller Beats actually has some replay value and can help you increase your skills on a real basketball court. Well, as least as far as dribbling goes. It’s a genuine workout that you don’t feel until you’re done.

The Scores

Gameplay: 4/5

Visuals: 3.75/5

Audio: 4.5/5

Controls: 4.5/5

Value: 3.75/5

Overall Rating: 4/5