It doesn't matter on what console you play it on, Extreme
is a disaster of a video game. It's an unplayable mess, cheaply programmed and tossed out
to sell on name alone. On the Saturn, things are even worse. It's unimaginably bad, one of
the sloppiest video games you'll likely ever play.Leading that cause if the frame rate, hovering somewhere in the range of 15 fps, if that. The blobs that pass for players are unidentifiable and figuring out who has the ball is half the challenge. Each NBA star is grossly oversized, that or the court is too small. The flame effect when a player goes on fire is laughably bad. The animation is choppy and hardly believable. It seems the developers used polygons as a desperate attempt to seem fresh, and in the process, killed the game.
The only new addition is the extreme button, which only adds to the frustration. On defense, it adds an uncontrollable dive move. On offense, a few new dunks. You can play the game never once touching it and not know you're missing it.
Winning is all but impossible, as the programming dictates you
can't. Even if your team was shooting 100% from the field for the first three quarters,
you can merely watch in amazement as the AI begins the slaughter, both in the score and
physically. It doesn't matter what difficulty you're playing on. If the game had a season mode, at least you could break some records by losing each game. All that's offered is the unoriginal arcade mode, which can be played by up to four players. Every screen change requires excruciating load times, highlighted by the text "extreme loading." They could not have chosen text that is more appropriate.
Music during the opening menus is completely different from that during player substitutions. It almost seems like two different teams worked on each section. Marv Albert provides play-by-play, one of the few, if not the only, bright spot. He's limited and the fifth time you hear "I smell smoke," you'll lose all hope for this game actually becoming enjoyable.
Of the arcade-style games in this series, going back to the original all the way through NBA Hoopz, this is easily the worst of the lot. In fact, it's one of the more ridiculous basketball games ever devised. The Playstation port is a small notch better, simply because the frame rate is more tolerable. There's no reason to play that either since it's the same game and far better ones exist. Stick with NBA Hangtime.
