NBA Street Showdown Impressions

LAS VEGAS--Electronic Arts has firmed up its plan to deliver a new game in the NBA Street series for Sony's PlayStation Portable. This upcoming PSP game, titled NBA Street Showdown, appears to be sticking to the same themes and gameplay that made the Street series so great in the first place, and it should be available right around the time of the system's North American launch.

NBA Street is a three-on-three affair that throws most of the rules of pro hoops out the window and substitutes insanely over-the-top dunks and ankle-breaking style moves in their place. To date, there have been two entries in the series on consoles, and a third is on the way. Showdown contains a few new twists in the form of exclusive modes, but it also has main features that fans of the series will find quite familiar, like a tournament-style single-player mode that pits you against several other teams made up of NBA players. In the game's king of the court mode, you can create your own player and pit him against several different opponents.

New to the PSP version of the game are arcade shoot-out and shot blocker minigames. These can be played alone, or you can pass the PSP around in a four-player contest to see who can earn the highest score. The game will also allow for two-player multiplayer pickup games using the PSP's built-in wireless networking support.

Like many of the games in EA's sports lineup, NBA Street will also contain EA Pocket Trax. Pocket Trax is a bonus content sort of feature that will let users watch music videos for some of the songs on the game's soundtrack. For songs that don't have real, live music videos, players will be able to play the songs along with NBA Street-themed onscreen visualizations.

NBA Street is currently under development at EA's Canada studio and is scheduled to be released in March. We'll have more on NBA Street Showdown as it becomes available.