Realistic sports games have never been my thing. Give me an arcade sports game any day of the week. Arcade style sports games are all about fast and furious fun where you can leave all the technical garbage where it belongs. Over the top moves which usually blend into even more extreme moves are my kinda thing and it's where I'm happiest. I wouldn't even look at the latest NBA 2K if you payed me. It's slow, boring and far to technical for me. NBA Playgrounds turns all that nonsense on its head and offers a great change of pace. But can it stay the course?
NBA Playgrounds is a two-on-two basketball game that will be very familiar to fans of NBA Jam. Your court is much smaller and there are no penalties for roughing up your opponents. Each character can perform a set of highly stylised and over the top moves as they reach ridiculous heights and cover huge distances in one outrageous leap. 
The matches fly by at such a pace that there isn't much chance to get bored and that's fine with me. The pick up and play arcade style plays well and with such a small court to play on the fact that there are only four players on the court at one time it allows you to play with a surprising amount of strategy. NBA Playgrounds only has two modes available with one being an exhibition mode and the other a tournament mode in the single player options. Each tournament win rewards you with new courts and packs of cards that unlock players from the game's one hundred and fifty strong rota.
Shooting the ball will take a while to master which is a good thing because scoring from anywhere and anyhow would just make the game mind numbing to play through. Timing is key when shooting for the hoop. You start your shot by pressing the shoot button but you have to release the button with precision timing so you have a much better chance of scoring. When I say precision timing I mean it. There is a knack to it that I just can't fathom. I see nothing on screen that helps me make that decision or any feedback via the joypad either. It a flawed system especially when you're teamed up with an AI partner who is dumber than shit and you're competing against two AI opponents who always score that perfect shot time and time again.
You're going to find yourself playing against the game's AI to begin which just compounds the problem because those sons of bitches are lethal as I mentioned above. So if you're not up for the fight turn back now because any mistake you make will be punished. The ball will be stolen off you constantly and it quickly leads to a frustrating experience. Their accuracy is insane and during the first dozen or so games I could count on one hand how many times they missed. Your AI teammate is the complete opposite of the players you face off against. You constantly wait for him to get into a half decent position and by the time he gets there the ball will have been stolen off you or he will just be blocked by the ruthless AI of the opposing team.
As your skills improve so will the moves you can pull off when scoring which allows you to build up your team's special meter. Fill that bar all 0he way and you set off a random lottery pick. These reward you with power-ups for you and your team and you'll quickly go from a semi to a pro with these activated for a short period of time. Lottery picks include speed boosts, bonus points when you successfully defend or complete an offensive move and a guarantee score when you shoot. As I mentioned above NBA Playgrounds moves at a frenetic pace and a well timed lottery pick can mean the difference between winning or losing.
Finally I managed to win the first exhibition match which opened up the the Tournament and online play mode. Having to win this match to unlock the other modes is a bad call especially when you have to go through a ridiculously hard process of beating a seemingly unbeatable team to get there. I nearly gave up several times and I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there that will which is a shame. At the moment there is only a two player competitive mode available which is a shame when the opportunity for four player mode is available offline. There is a real bare bones approach to the online options which Saber Interactive promise they are putting right in a future update by including an online tournament mode and hopefully more.
If you're on the lookout for some NBA Jam inspired arcade gameplay and are prepared to put up with the incredibly tough AI and hard to master shooting technique then you'll find a lot to like here. If not like me you'll be off to pastures new very, very quickly. NBA Playgrounds main problem is its lack of game modes both offline and online and for the pricey sum of £15.99 I was expecting more. As it stands NBA Playgrounds doesn't have enough content to justify it's price tag but hopefully that's something that will be taken care of in the near future.
Developer: Saber Interactive
Website: NBA Playgrounds
Twitter: @TweetsSaber / @nba_playgrounds
Price: £15.99
Review code supplied by Saber Interactive