NBA Hoopz

NBA Hoopz is a 2001 basketball video game published by Midway. It is the sequel to NBA Hangtime and NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC. Hoopz was the only 3-on-3, arcade-style basketball video game available during the 2000–01 NBA season. Shaquille O'Neal is featured on the game cover.

Overview
Rather than 5-on-5 action like professional play, or 2-on-2 like its predecessors, this game features 3-on-3 play. Using players from the NBA, each player chooses a guard, forward, and center from the team's NBA roster for the first half and can make substitutions for the second half.

NBA Hoopz is an arcade-style game and not meant to be realistic: players can jump twenty or thirty feet in the air, dunk the ball from 20 ft away, and do otherwise physically impossible things. Fouls are only called on flagrant pushes, foul shots are rare (and only after a number of fouls are accumulated), and there is no out of bounds. In addition, after a player makes three consecutive shots he becomes "on fire" which allows him to make almost any shot as well as goaltend without penalty. The PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast versions accommodate up to four players.

Features

 * More than 500 High Flyin' Animations
 * Sharp Graphics, Player Models and Animated Crowds
 * Addicting Mini-Games like 21, 2ball and Around the World
 * Secret Hidden Courts like Beachside and Street Court
 * Jammin' On-Fire Mode
 * Official NBA Stats and Player Rosters

The uniforms for the Orlando Magic and Phoenix Suns were not updated for the game. These teams sported the uniforms they had in the 1997-98 NBA season instead of the ones they had in the 2000-01 NBA season.

Reception
The Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 versions received "mixed" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. GameZone gave the former console version universal acclaim, a few weeks before its release date. Rob Smolka of NextGen said of the latter console version, "Sloppy dunk animations and a blatant lack of originality draws [sic] a technical foul on NBA Hoopz."

Dan Elektro of GamePro's April 2001 issue said of the Dreamcast version, "Goodies like player creation and season mode, along with mini-games like 2ball, can't make up for the main game's fatal identity crisis. NBA Hoopz comes off as a simulation wannabe, simultaneously betraying Showtime fans and only weakly attracting serious hoop addicts. Stick with NBA 2K1." He also said of the PlayStation version, "Give Midway credit for trying, but not much more. If Showtime left you wanting more stats and details, Hoopz might fit the bill, but Live is a better sim." However, he said of the Game Boy Color version, "Maybe someone at Midway will get the hint that the Game Boy should have its own basketball game to match its capabilities, instead of constantly forcing the GB to do things it can't and shouldn't do. In a word, NBA Hoopz sucks." An issue later, Jake The Snake said of the PlayStation 2 version, "Even with a locker room full of features—including four mini-games, such as 21ball and 21—Hoopz isn't great but is decent enough that some gamers, especially those with short attention spans, will prefer it over EA's NBA Live."