Basketbrawl - Atari 7800

I've seen some reviews that on the whole aren't particularly kind to this game, but whatever. I think it's great fun, and perfect for gimping around with for ten minutes or so.

The idea of the game? Play a game of street basketball (either one-on-one or two-on-two) and score as many points as you can in the time limit (one, three or five minutes). The twist? As you might have guessed from the title, you can punch the crap out of your opponents while you lob the ball around. Various power-ups give you extra speed, punch-power and a couple of other things. Oh, the referee at the bottom of the screen appears to throw knives at the players (I think. I'm not too sure what he's doing, to be honest). The controls are easy enough - one button to shoot (or punch when you don't have the ball), and one button to pass. Though this is the most logical control scheme, I kept hitting the pass button when I meant to shoot and vice-versa, but I put this down more to me being an idiot than any failing on the part of the game.

Short lived appeal? Sure, but it's not like anyone is pretending this is Halo 3 or something. I find myself coming back to this more often than I probably should be. You might too.

Score: 3.5 / 5