Taking inspiration from the NBA Jam series, Blacktop Hoops is an arcade-like basketball experience that fuses easy-to-pick-up mechanics with real life basketball. It’s an admirable goal, and one that the game impressively manages to achieve on various levels. With a visual style that doesn’t attempt to go for realism, and instead opts for that GameCube style aesthetic, it looks pleasingly simple yet still surprisingly immersive.

But, how well does it play?

Many thanks to the publisher for the review code.

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BALLIN’
Whilst the game offers a robust multiplayer mode that has you taking on opponents in varying team sizes (perfect for those wishing to re-enact a real Basketball match), there’s still a pretty beefy campaign for you to work through in your journey to become the G.O.A.T. The story won’t blow anyone away with its narrative, but it manages to do the job well enough – especially as the hip hop style of the characters works well with the game’s overall vibe and the voice actors pretty much knock it out of the park.

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The two main key elements of basketball (from the perspective of someone who knows very little about Basketball, at least) are dribbling and shooting, and thankfully both of them a straightforward to pick up. Dribbling is done by moving your hand up and down with the ball in hand, and doing so will allow you to move around the court with the joystick. If you’re not dribbling, you’re unable to move, which makes abiding by the rules of the game far easier. The ball has a magnetic attraction to your hand too, so there should never be any issues keeping a hold of it. The ball can be crossed over to your other hand, which will earn you bonus points, although that magnetism also makes it surprisingly tough to do at times. I found myself trying to cross it over on multiple occasions and it’s way harder than it should be when in motion. It’s not an essential manoeuvre by any means, but it will make things easier later on when the difficulty starts to ramp up, for reasons that will be explained later.

Shooting is also surprisingly intuitive, and the game does a really good job of transforming your hand positioning and wrist flick into the appropriate momentum. As a keen paper ball tosser, I never found throws to be unfair. Part of it is down to being able to choose just how much ‘auto-aim’ is added to your throw to help compensate for the virtual environment, but those who wish to play unaided can choose to do so – just expect to miss a lot of your shots.

Pulling off some great shots, tricks, or just stealing the ball from your opponent, will earn you some special bonus points that fill a special meter that – when activated – will allow you to pull off a special flaming ball shot that can essentially guarantee a shot from anywhere assuming that you are aiming in the right direction. It’s a neat little addition that probably won’t be used all that often, but it can turn the tide of battle in the event of a close match.

Overall, there’s a great amount of depth to the gameplay that make it feel all so real. When combined with the Quest 3’s 360º movement, it manages to capture the feeling of playing a real game in a virtual environment. Until you jump up and slam dunk your lamp, of course (which is something that happened to me!)

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What Blacktop Hoops doesn’t do so well is actually teaching you how the game plays. Upon starting the game, you get a brief tutorial showing you how to dribble and shoot – which are, of course, the basics of Basketball – but then little more. It’s a little frustrating as you get thrown into a rival match with no idea about stealing, what a clear is, and why you keep getting a ‘traveling’ error every so often. It makes this first match rather gruelling as you try your best to pick things up on the fly whilst also trying to win against a surprisingly competent opponent. After beating the match, the game finally decides to teach you how to steal the ball: something you’ll have been forced to learn anyway to win that previous match. It’s absolutely baffling.

But, these elements are probably going to be most problematic for those with a passing interest in the sport that are looking to experience it in a virtual environment. Anyone familiar with all the ins and outs will probably slide into the game with relative ease and won’t even notice the game’s shoddy tutorialisation. With a game that feels so good to play and quite an extensive amount of content on offer, Blacktop Hoops really is the ultimate VR Basketball game.

VERDICT
Blacktop Hoops does a fantastic job of bringing Basketball into virtual reality. Fusing an immersive and realistic experience with arcade-like elements helps to make the game feel both accessible and fun for both newcomers and professionals alike. It’s a shame then that the game’s awful tutorial makes things way harder than it should be for newcomers; however, if you can ride it out, there’s a fantastic game here to enjoy.