• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

NBA Playgrounds |OT| More entertaining & less predicable than the NBA play-offs!

Nester

Member
How is the image quality undocked? I hear it's sub-720p

Looks fine to me, just took this shot at the start of a game:

C_WR6YeVoAAVIMo.jpg
 
I can't get over how awful the faces are, they would have been better off just with a couple of generic ones.

If you live in the suburbs of Rhode Island sure.

For 90% of Rhode Island you are within a 5 minute walk of a mansion and a 5 minute walk of a ghetto crack house, so the dynamics are strange.

That said as someone who has been playing pickup ball next to 2 some of the shittiest RI area's for 20 years, I have had zero problem leaving my phone/wallet etc on the bench/table/ground while playing with the local dealers. Dudes are just trying to make a living and play some ball.

Now leaving it in an unlocked car 100 yards away from the court? That shit is gone.
 

Matticers

Member
Wonder if it had to do with player rights? Klay Thompson is missing too.

I think they said they had rights to most players except for guys like Kobe, Barkley and maybe Jordan. I'm guessing they just wanted to save some fairly big name players for a future patch/roster update to keep people interested in the game and coming back to it. But yeah, they definitely need to add some of these guys like Klay, Giannis and Thomas ASAP.
 

Steiner

Banned
Do you own Zelda or mk8? Does it look crisp like that or is it soft?

I've been playing undocked and I can tell you it's really soft. Pretty big downgrade, and it needs updating. Not acceptable at all, knowing what the Switch is capable of.

The strange thing is menus and UI are 720p in handheld mode but the character models, court, background etc are all fuzzy with pretty bad aliasing. In the menus especially the player models that stand around on the side look awful compared to the really sharp and colorful menu options.

I haven't played it docked yet but I'm really disappointed in the handheld version after spending quality time with the PS4 demo.

Edit: I mean just look at the screenshot you quoted. Look how sharp and nice looking that blue box is, and then look at literally everything else on screen. It pains me so much to say this but, short of an imminent announcement of performance updates coming soon, I may suggest yall avoid the Switch version assuming you were interested in it for handheld mode.
 
I think they said they had rights to most players except for guys like Kobe, Barkley and maybe Jordan. I'm guessing they just wanted to save some fairly big name players for a future patch/roster update to keep people interested in the game and coming back to it. But yeah, they definitely need to add some of these guys like Klay, Giannis and Thomas ASAP.
Hope that patch is soon.
If you're going to leave out a guy from the Warriors big 4 he's probably the right guy.
But he's one of my favorites :(
 

ryseing

Member
It's strangely missing a lot of key players. No Giannis or Middleton, the two best players for the Bucks, one of whom started the all-star game. Yet oddly they have Thon Maker.

Neither is Devin Booker. All he did was drop 70 points, NBD.
 

newsguy

Member
Edit: I mean just look at the screenshot you quoted. Look how sharp and nice looking that blue box is, and then look at literally everything else on screen. It pains me so much to say this but, short of an imminent announcement of performance updates coming soon, I may suggest yall avoid the Switch version assuming you were interested in it for handheld mode.

That's exactly me. I prefer to buy 3rd party games on the Switch because of the portability factor. If they can't run the games in 720p undocked then I will just get it on one of the consoles. No point is playing the graphically inferior version if it's not going to perform in handheld mode
 

MastAndo

Member
Not even able to find the page for this game on the Playstation Store website (or on the PS4 itself). Hope it drops at 12 AM EDT.
 

Steiner

Banned
idk i don't think the switch version looks that bad

it's more important to me how it runs

I mean yeah... It does run fine. And I swear I'm not a graphics snob but this is a tough pill to swallow. It reminds me a lot of how a low quality VR game looks all up in your face, just smudged and gross.

The HD rumble is also pretty jarring. Every time you dunk it's just full blast rumble. It's actually really loud; it woke my wife up.
 

bumpkin

Member
I mean yeah... It does run fine. And I swear I'm not a graphics snob but this is a tough pill to swallow. It reminds me a lot of how a low quality VR game looks all up in your face, just smudged and gross.

The HD rumble is also pretty jarring. Every time you dunk it's just full blast rumble. It's actually really loud; it woke my wife up.
Sounds like what happened with Snake Pass upon release. Sumo patched it pretty quickly, so hopefully it's on Saber's radar when they put out the first update (w/ online too, presumably).
 

newsguy

Member
idk i don't think the switch version looks that bad

it's more important to me how it runs

What mode are you talking about though? Switch games should all be reviewed twice. If Nintendo is going to market this as both, then performance should be tested for both. On the tv it's a graphically inferior version of the game. Missing real shadows and lighting effects. I can live with that only if the handheld mode is good, otherwise I just get it on the more powerful console.

If the main thing that sets the Switch apart from my consoles is the fact that I can take it to go, and it's 540p and blurry as hell, then no thanks. Devs need to stop half assing this aspect on the Switch. If games like MK8 can be doing everything they do @60fps undocked, these 3rd party games need to keep up.
 
I expect the game to sell pretty well on all platforms, especially the consoles.
Maybe if we make a big enough stink about it, they will refine it or try to like the post-game support Bomberman got.
That was on Unity though, you would think UE4 would be easier to improve but I don't know much about that shit.
They HAVE to keep it at 60 FPS though.
 

nikos

Member
Trying to decide on which version to get. Really hope there will be a Switch demo. Though if my coworkers are all playing tomorrow, I'll buy it on the spot.
 

joeposh

Member
Man, I misread and thought this would be up at midnight ET for the Switch. Was hoping to give it a run during my cross country flight in the morning.
 

Karak

Member
Ya very nice of the devs to at least inform folks in the review about their plans. I hope its true of course. But at least right now. There is just a lot of stuff missing and the bugs really started to bother me. That being said its sometimes....a god damned blast lol. Its just that the more I played the more I bumped against all the issues.
 

sneas78

Banned
Oh hey, that was me! :D

Overall I enjoyed it. I'm not a huge basketball fan or anything, but I do enjoy Arch Rivals/NBA Jam styled gameplay, so I had a good time. I'm terrible with shot timing. I look forward to playing more of it when online releases for the Switch version, the planned updates seem really nice.

I'm grinding through the tournaments in portable mode right now while watching TV so if anyone has any other questions about the Switch version, I can try to answer them!
I just missed the live stream I guess .. really wanted to see how the game looks in portable mode. Does anyone else have the game yet with a stream in portable mode?
 

derek212

Member
Is Xbox the only place to buy right now ? I tried switch and PS4 couldn't find it on PS4 an lad no buy option on switch. Maybe I'm doing something wrong ?
 

Past

Member
Is Xbox the only place to buy right now ? I tried switch and PS4 couldn't find it on PS4 an lad no buy option on switch. Maybe I'm doing something wrong ?

Sony and Nintendo updates their store in the afternoon/evening. They only have midnight launch for big releases.
 

derFeef

Member
How does the dunking feel? That's my most important question - also are the controls responsive, like in the OFE of NBA JAM? It looks slow on the videos.
Also I want to get the Switch version, hopefully it's not that bad :(
 
How does the dunking feel? That's my most important question - also are the controls responsive, like in the OFE of NBA JAM? It looks slow on the videos.
Also I want to get the Switch version, hopefully it's not that bad :(

the shooting (even the dunking) has this weird timing system that just doesn't feel responsive or satisfying, at least from what I played of the beta/demo.
 

tmac456

Member
3PT shooting being timing-based is an even bigger issue.

C_HRXlBVwAA5Q3o.jpg:small

das not good

enjoying it so far. haven't played online yet. have played in the tournaments and trying to unlock more packs

and yeah the dunking seems weird with the timing. shooting i'm fine at but i've missed way too many dunks/layups
 

derFeef

Member
the shooting (even the dunking) has this weird timing system that just doesn't feel responsive or satisfying, at least from what I played of the beta/demo.

Aw man :( Hopefully they tweaked it for the final release?
edit: does not seem like it.
Why do you make an arcade basketball game with unsatisfying shooting/dunking mechanics? come on.

edit: switch handheld mode impressions: https://youtu.be/zPteahdYeE0?t=645
ugghh all the shimmering :( looks really bad even offscreen.
 

Luigiv

Member
Looks fine to me, just took this shot at the start of a game:

C_WR6YeVoAAVIMo.jpg

Mind you I'm not an expert at this, and there aren't a lot of particularly good edges to count along, but my quick, low precision attempt to pixel count is getting me 80% x 80%, or in other words 1024x576.

Not as low as I was expecting, given how blurry the shot is. Guess that might be more the result of post processing gone wrong.

Edit: Oops, didn't realise the screen shot was already downscaled to 1200x675. That gives 960x540.
 
Top Bottom