AND1 Streetball could be the Harlem Globetrotters for the new millennium. Drawing parallels between the newest urban grass-roots hoops movement and the legendary jesters of the hardwood isn't that difficult. Both groups emphasize wicked skill sets, a crowd-pleasing flair, and coast-to-coast tours which hit venues both big and small. Maybe it's no coincidence that the Globetrotters are enjoying a revival of sorts at the same time that the AND1 brand and the Mixtape Tour is absolutely taking off. The AND1 ballers, in just 10 years, have established themselves as true inner-city icons. Names like The Professor and Hot Sauce may not be as recognizable as Kobe and D-Wade, but they have street cred, game, and soon enough, their own videogame.

Ubisoft is utilizing the considerable sports development experience of Black Ops Entertainment on this title. The mission, it seems, is clear - transport the gamer into the world of high-flyin', dunk tryin', world of tricksta hoops. Score is kept and there are winners and losers at the end, but AND1 is all about one-upsmanship. Each possession delivers a multitude of winners and losers as moves are chained together in an attempt to create the most spectacular plays ever caught on film. Defense is NOT the emphasis here. Instead, AND1 pushes you to get the crowd riled up with fancy dribble moves and powerful throw-downs. There's a full repertoire of moves available to help you reach those goals, and the ever-popular right analog stick is implemented with the new I-Ball scheme. Similar to EA's Freestyle and 2K's Isomotion, the I-Ball scheme maps moves to each of the eight directions on the analog stick.


Add in the left and right trigger and you up the complexity, and crowd-pleasing factor, on the moves. Three levels of moves break down as follows - the easiest tricks are down with the right thumbstick only; the second level requires just the two analog sticks; the third level I-Ball moves bring both sticks and a trigger into play. It's not so different from NBA Street, with one notable exception - the "state" of the ball-handler matters a lot in that you can either be standing still or running. Each state triggers its own set of animations and tricks, which makes sense. We found ourselves messing up quite a bit early, but extended gameplay quickly revealed a balanced and fairly intuitive system. Some tricks were stunted in their execution, and some were not nearly as fluid as you'd like to see, but hey, this is a preview build (read: already old and dated the minute it was burned).