A Retrospective into Sports Games with Licensed Soundtracks, Part 1: NBA Street Homecourt

Let me be clear: Nobody who has ever played NBA Street Homecourt on purpose is a winner,and the wheel I used that randomly selected it as the first game I play in this journey is playing a cruel joke. I didn’t like NBA Street Vol. 3. I didn’t like EA doubling down on that style with Homecourt. I’m not going to say something stupid like “they stripped the soul out of the series” or anything like that, but they changed too much and not enough. 

This era is riddled with half-assed games where developers thought analog controls were the future not realizing their version of them were so unintuitive that it chased away old people and young people alike. The only series I can think of that made the button modifier-style work is the EA NHL games. The button modifier style (meaning, you have to hold a button to make the analog stick do a certain thing) still plagues the UFC games to this day, though the bones of EA UFC 5 are so broken that they should lose the license.

Oh, THQ, how I miss you. 

Back to Homecourt: The same problems that plague UFC 5 in 2024 plague this game. The analog sticks don’t do what they claim they will, and the defense and counter system feels like it’s made for someone who wouldn’t play a basketball game. If I wanted to play Street Fighter, I’d play Street Fighter. God knows, I’d be having a whole lot more fun.

And I guess that’s the problem. NBA Street Homecourt isn’t fun. It has the skin of an NBA Street game with a good soundtrack and a cool art style, except the soundtrack disappears during every game so you can hear the players talk shit to each other, and the art style has framerate issues. Looking back, it’s no shock that EA’s basketball games weren’t long for this world.

This was supposed to be a review of the soundtrack while I played, but the gameplay was so bad that I couldn’t let it go unmentioned. In this list of 201 games I have, stretching from 2000 to 2012 (when 2K told Jay-Z to pick NBA 2K13’s soundtrack and ruined every licensed soundtrack in every sports game), this is hopefully the worst.

I already know it’s not. My list of games includes BMX XXX and multiple World Series Baseball games.

Anyway, here's the first part of a 200-some part series of me talking about old sports games. I'll be mostly talking about the licensed soundtracks they used, but I won't be ignoring gameplay. Games like, say, Madden 07, will get the praise it deserves. Games like NFL Street 3, a game with a banger soundtrack and a terrible control scheme and glitchy engine, will get the malign it deserves.

Here's a link to the NBA Street Homecourt soundtrack, which nobody's ever heard because EA got high on its own supply and made the game so atmospheric it never plays. It's pretty good! The game isn't! Do not play this game!