Everybody who knows about NBA The Run wants it to be the spiritual successor to the beloved ‘00s EA Sports Big franchise, NBA Street. The spirit is definitely there, and its brand of streetball is friendly to newcomers with enough complexities to please fans, but the insistence on its always-online structure keeps it from achieving true greatness.
Created by Play by Play Studios, a new team that includes a number of EA Sports veterans, NBA The Run is a fast-paced 3v3 arcade-style basketball game that strikes a good balance between flashy and strategic skill-based play. Its knockout tournaments are its bread and butter, both as a squad and solo. Knockout Squads feature team-based 3v3 play, and Knockout Solos gives you full control of the trio you pick.
Whether you choose to head online solo or with a squad of three, The Run is built around its roster and does a good job making each NBA star’s kit feel authentic. Steph can shoot a trey from anywhere, but his shots are easily blocked. Wemby is thought of as the best player in this version of the game, but keeping him away from the paint can force bad jumpshots instead of easy dunks. This is all stuff to consider when picking your ballers, and the rulesets make the metagame fun.
That’s where The Run is different from other basketball games. Every game has randomized rules determined at the beginning, which gives each game a sense of balance and enhances that “one more game” hook.
One such example is Triple Threat, where three-pointers are worth three while other shots are only worth one. There’s also Dunkfest, where dunks are the more valuable shot type. That often means relying on your online teammates to play towards the objective, which can be perilous. I often encountered teammates online doing nothing but dunking when the rules clearly stated three-pointers were the way to win. It’s just better with friends, so you know which players they pick and how each selection will complement your team based on the rules.
Human or bot issues aside, I always had a smooth experience finding matches online. Its focus on fast matchmaking and rollback netcode is a strength, but it’s a double-edged sword. Online tournaments are all the game has. There’s no story, no create-a-player, and while the game features a nice roster of over 32 playable NBA stars and 5 fictional streetball legends to unlock, the lack of accessible lore makes the fictional legends feel like nothing more than grind rewards. If you solely want to ball online, this is a great way to do it, but for everyone else, it leaves much to be desired.
With the game always online, the lack of couch multiplayer is its biggest hindrance. Couch multiplayer is obviously less common today than it was in 2003, but it is an expected arcade sports staple, and it’s The Run’s most disappointing exclusion.
NBA The Run does its best to make up for what it lacks with a high attention to detail that makes it easy to see the love for streetball culture. The gameplay, art style, and overall presentation hosted by the legendary DJ, Bobbito Garcia, feel like it all belongs, and that’s what matters. The love of the game is what’ll keep me playing, and it’s easy to feel the team’s love of the sport. Play by Play made clear its plans for ongoing iteration without annualized releases, so hopefully many of these shortcomings can be rectified post-launch to make it the definitive streetball game it wants to be. As it is, it’s too barebones to wholeheartedly recommend, but there’s a great game of basketball waiting for you if you don’t mind only playing online matches.
