February 11, 2005 - En route to the playoffs, Superscape has finally unveilied its 3D basketball game, cleverly titled Swerve Basketball. The baller is currently only available on Verizon Wireless' new V CAST broadband service and while it's not exactly a "system seller," Superscape's two-on-two basketball game is a very competent arcade-style game that will appeal to fans.

Swerve Basketball does not employ an NBA license. As such, its leagues are full of fictional players that really don't even try to approximate real-life players. Teams are situated in actual NBA-enabled cities, but the uniforms don't resemble their actual NBA counterparts.

But even without superstars, Swerve Basketball has the moves. The two-on-two game play moves at a decent clip, although we did wish these fellas would glide a little more. They have the moves required to get the job done, such as passing and stealing, and in a very pleasant surprise, the computer isn't a monster. You will actually win a few games, and do so on skill not by luck. Some of that can be chalked up to the good control, which sensibly maps the in-game actions to the number buttons.

Visually, the game is nothing to throw a beer at. The Swerve engine is quite capable of rendering four players with a reasonable amount of detail (you aren't going to be retiring your copy of ESPN NBA 2K5 just yet) and giving them a good amount of animation. Lay ups, dunks, passes all look smooth -- especially things like behind the back passes where you can actually watch the arms move behind without blending into the player's body.

Closing Comments
Swerve Basketball is the very promising start of a franchise. Fans will appreciate the solid control and the smart AI -- it might even distract them from the lack of the NBA license. The polygonal player models are good-sized and the courts look good. When the players bunch together things can slow a little and polys start to melt into each other, but show me a first-gen PSone game that didn't do that. A good download for those that appreciate the sport -- and are looking for a tight game to show off their new handset.

IGN's Ratings for Swerve Basketball (Cell)
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8.1 OVERALL
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