NBA Street Homecourt, the fourth installation of the popular arcade-style NBA Street series that first appeared on the PS2 back in 2001, made its debut on the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 yesterday. The NBA Street franchise is known for its over-the-top, physics-defying, high-flying moves and its pick-up-and-play game mechanics that will have players pulling off dazzling cross-overs and spectacular dunks with ease, even if they've never played the game before. But while its simple control scheme makes NBA Street accessible to first-time players, it also rewards those who take the time to learn the game's intricacies. Try playing against someone who has spent weeks or months with this game and you'll find out the hard way how much skill it takes to dominate.

NBA Street Homecourt refines the gameplay by assigning the "trick moves" to the face buttons, as opposed to the right analog stick in the last two versions. This new "Trick Remixer" mechanic makes it even easier for players to consistently execute a string of fanciful dribbling by using a different combination of button presses. There are a couple of moves that are new to the series. One is the ability to jump off your teammate's back to take off from the 3-point arc and dunk the ball, and the other is the ability to dunk the ball twice by allowing you to hang on to the rim and catch the ball with your other hand as soon as you dunk it, and then put the ball back through the rim one last time before you land. Fancy stuff, I tell you. Also, the Gamebreaker feature returns giving the player more control this time around. For those unfamiliar with NBA Street, there is a Gamebreaker meter that fills up whenever you perform trick moves and dunks. The more complex the move, the higher the meter fills up. When the meter is full you can trigger the Gamebreaker mode during which your basket will count for more points and at the same time taking some points off of your opponent's score. In the past, when a player gets into the Gamebreaker mode he can choose to go for a dunk or a jump shot, resulting in a pre-rendered animation sequence. In Homecourt, when you get into the Gamebreaker mode you are allowed to attempt as many trick moves as you can within the allotted time to maximize the value of your basket, even turning a 1-pt dunk into a 3-pt affair. In the meantime, your opponent has the opportunity to not only block your shot but also steal the ball from you. That automatically puts them in the Gamebreaker mode without using up their own Gamebreaker meter, making it possible for them to enter into the Gamebreaker mode twice in a row, depending on how full their own meter was at the time they stole your Gamebreaker. For those not too fond of the Gamebreaker concept, the games outside of the career mode are fully customizable, allowing you to turn off the Gamebreakers as well as adjust various parameters including the number of points to play to and the value of each basket.

Of course when it comes to "next-gen" titles everyone wants to see next-gen graphics, and thankfully, NBA Street Homecourt delivers. Sporting a cinematic, somewhat sepia tone, the visuals look gritty and fits the mood perfectly. The animations are more fluid and hold up during the replay segments, where in previous versions of the game, minor glitches such as the player's hand not making contact with the rim during a monster dunk were highly noticeable. Small imperfections like that seem to have been eliminated. Skin textures display sheen from the sweat and the shiny wooden gym floors show off accurate reflections of the players. In the sound department, the annoying, repetitive hip-hop style play-by-play commentary has been replaced with a less prominent but very appropriate on-court chatter that not only gives off the right vibes but also serves as useful information for the player, occasionally reminding you of how much you are losing by or to warn you of your opponent's pending Gamebreaker.

Not having spent many hours on the game yet my biggest disappointment thus far is the create-a-player mode, which now consists of morphing three different existing NBA faces of your choice, into one face, using the analog stick to control how much of say, Shaq's face you'd want your created player to have in proportion to Kobe's or Wade's. I loved being able to turn an obese, 5-ft player who looked like Snoop, into the ultimate dunking machine in the previous NBA Streets, but you no longer have any control over your player's physical dimensions and facial features in Homecourt. But at least you can now find out what Jason Kidd's, Allen Iverson's and Shawn Marion's kid would look like if all three of them decided to get married to each other.

But genetic engineering aside, NBA Street Homecourt gives players the essentials of street basketball--the flash, the style and intense 3-on-3 action that is simple to play yet offers depth for those who take the time to master its gameplay mechanics. In the midst of EA Sports' mediocre titles during the last year and a half, NBA Street Homecourt delivers in EA Sports BIG fashion.