The players you use will also level up as you play more games with them, giving them new animations in the process. Those little miscues can be the difference between a win and loss, and so the high-level competitive aspect of this game online will rely on four players being able to control all the action. For example, sometimes when I tell my teammate to go up for an alley-oop he’s very delayed or never does it at all, which leads me to idly dribbling around or trying to score a different way before I lose the ball. Currently, it’s limited to two players online, with each controlling a team with an AI partner, and as of now the teammate AI is functional but not ideal. Speaking of post-release content, one other update that will be a welcomed addition is four-player online play. For example, Giannis Antetokounmpo is not currently available, but if I were a betting man I’d say he’s likely to appear later. Saber Interactive has promised that more players will find their way into the mix post-launch. The roster has impressive depth, with each team having three to eight current and former players available. I love opening a pack of cards to hopefully find one of my favorite players like Allen Iverson, or Steph Curry, or Alonzo Mourning. Importantly, there are no microtransactions – you simply get new packs each time you level up by playing the various modes. It takes a page out of NBA 2K’s myTeam or EA Sports’ various Ultimate Team modes by having you start off by opening three packs of cards to unlock your initial players, and earning more packs immediately becomes the main draw here beyond the gameplay. “These hiccups are frustrating because the core of Playgrounds is solid. There’s no way to really know if shot timing is tied to each shot or alley-oop animation, or if it’s the same across all of them, so even after playing for many hours I am no closer to deciphering the perfect timing that the AI can execute reliably. The intent is to add an element of skill that separates experienced players from the inexperienced by rewarding a perfect release with an extra point, but the animations just aren’t consistent or readable enough. The timing-based shooting mechanic is another element that does not quite fit this style of game. It feels bad to lose completely randomly like that. The problem is some power-ups are much better than others, and the system can come off feeling unbalanced when your opponent gets the equivalent of the blue shell and makes a shot worth 12 points. For example, you build up a meter by doing things like throwing alley-oops and blocking shots to get a random power-up, like in Mario Kart. “But in that same way, the more I got into Playgrounds, the more I noticed some things that felt unfair or difficult to read.
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