With the NBA preseason about to tip off, two contenders have stepped onto the court, with your gaming budget as the target of a loose-ball scramble. Juggernaut NBA 2K16, shaking off a rough year plagued with server problems, takes on fallen giant NBA Live 16, which is attempting to make up lost ground after years of embarrassment. There’s plenty of new stuff out there for those who aren’t interested in hoops. Surefire blockbuster Skylanders Superchargers, which introduces vehicles to its arsenal, is at the top of the list.
There are also some impressive exclusive for handheld systems, with Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer ready to move in to your 3DS, and the oddball cult favorite Persona 4: Dancing All Night giving you a reason to dust off your Vita.
Reviews by Phil Villarreal. Phil is an author, blogger and Twitterer. Publishers provided review copies.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer
(3DS, $40, Everyone)
You could dismiss Animal Crossing games as Nintendo’s version of virtual dollhosues, but that would be missing the point. You get what you put into Nitnendo’s city builders, which allow you to flex your creativity and organizational skills to put together your master vision. Happy Home Designer, a spinoff of the mainline series, has a more narrow focus than the typical village builder, sticking with interior design rather than master planning. You take jobs from various villagers and do whatever it takes to match their visions with an arsenal of tools and modifiers available.
Previous Animal Crossing games have had online connectivity, but Happy Home Designer is Nintendo’s most open-ended and aggressive move to form a virtual community in the series. You can upload your best designs and download the work of others, rating the offerings in various categories. If you want to dive even deeper, you can share photos of your creations through an integrated photo service that lets you post your work on social media. There’s also connectivity with Nintendo’s Amiibo action figures and accompanying cards, which let you load characters into your weird little houses. This is thoroughly and unashamedly a game for the most extreme Nintedorks.
NBA 2K16
(Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360, PS3, $60, Everyone 10+)
The developers at Visual Concepts are never afraid to disrupt the status quo by pulling in guest celebrities and going off in wild new directions. In the past, that’s meant dedicating a mode to the careers of NBA legends, employing hip-hop artists as producers and focusing on Olympic hoops. This year, the gimmick involves enlisting Spike Lee to direct a dramatic side mode. The Hoop Dreams-style package, dubbed Livin’ Da Dream, has you guide a player from high school, through college, draft day and the launch of a pro career. Previous sports games have had similar modes, but never with anything close to the level of writing and production value here. The publisher could have easily spun the mode off into its own stand-alone title.
On the court, there aren’t as many changes. For most of the last decade, Visual Concepts has had a stranglehold on the most natural and free-flowing virtual basketball in the land. This season, the developers smoothed things out by recording 10,000 new animations, as well as eliminating the need for many pre-programmed collisions by modifying the physics in the engine. Now the angle and timing players collide factors in more to whether shots are released and bodies hit the floor. As usual, there is plenty here to pay tribute to not only the modern game, but the past, with 12 legendary teams from the past available. Last year’s game suffered from online server problems that were ironed out after a month or so. This year’s game appears to have avoided the rocky start in the early going.
NBA Live 16
(Xbox One, PS4, $60, Everyone)
EA Sports has either dominated the market or held steady in most every sport, but had suffered an embarrassing slump in basketball for the past several years. Last season was a triumph of sorts only because NBA Live 15 was a competent, though unimaginative, game of basketball. Now that the team has generated a little confidence and establish some solid mechanics, it’s able to flex out for a fuller-featured effort that’s more of a competitor for the 2K juggernaut.
An emphasis on streetball takes over this time out, combining the best aspects of the old NBA Street franchise. You can put a team together and take on teams with pros in pickup games on the asphalt in courts around the country. Customization options abound, letting you deck out your player with authentic gear and tattoos. The basketball action has lost its stiffness, and is now a more fluid, free-flowing game, bolstered by touch-passes and hot-key on-the-fly play calling. There are still bugs to work out. There’s a possibly cool feature that allows you to scan in your face via a smartphone app and upload it for the player you create in the game, but I couldn’t get it to work after several tries. Also, a corrupt save file eliminated hours of my progress, forcing me to restart. If an update can solve those issues, NBA Live 16 could be a contender.
Persona 4: Dancing All Night
(Vita, $50, Teen)
The quirky JRPG is no stranger to wacky, nonsensical spinoffs. After Persona 4 Arena, which took the core group of emo, monster-summoning teens and plopped them into a graphic novel/fighting game combo, Dancing All Night swipes the rhythm-game format of Elite Beat Agents. The story, which fills in holes and expands on the mythos of the confusing, twist-filled story from the mainline Persona games, is interrupted by button-tapping dance numbers, which call on you to nail the timing and rhythm of scrolling notes in order to advance.
The result is the video game equivalent of an off-Broadway musical, with the ridiculous show-stoppers expanding the oddball story. The poor, neglected Vita is an excellent home for the game, with its large, bright touchscreen making it easy and fun to tap the screen prompts. If you want to see it on a much bigger screen, the game is also compatible with PlayStation TV. Since so few people own either system, it’s disappointing that the game isn’t available on the PS4. A stylus-friendly 3DS port would also be welcome.
Skylanders Superchargers
(Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, PS3, $75, Everyone 10+)
The fifth entry in the pioneering toys-to-life series continues to innovate while dreaming up devious ways to get you to buy more and more expensive action figures. The new facet of Superchargers is vehicles, which change the paradigm in the manner of the Batmobile-focused Batman: Arkham Knight by making missions more expansive, fast-paced and shooting-focused. You pair a Skylander figure — as with previous games, all Skylanders are compatible with the new game — with a ride, then experiment with the way the hero’s weapons modify the car’s handling and weaponry. Certain pairings lead to a supercharge, which grants you special abilities that let you mow down enemies with ease.
Although the Skylanders series lacks characters with the name recognition from rival Disney Infinity, it remains the winner in level design, storytelling and mission flow. Rather than mire itself in level creation and item unlocks, the focus sticks with a humorous story with traditional bosses and puzzles. The drop-in, drop-out offline multiplayer makes it easy to switch from solo action to co-op, but the downside is that you may find yourself yearning to fly solo more often because the vehicle portions of the game make the experience lame for player two, who is relegated to aiming a cursor and shooting stuff onscreen. One welcome change is the game’s openness. Unlike other Skylanders games, this one doesn’t lock down certain areas unless you have the right characters. That means you can see everything the game has to offer without buying any extra characters other than those that come in the box, making the starter pack a worthy investment instead of just a down payment.