#doubledribble

Let's face it: we're not all compatible with one another. It's just how life is -- there are plenty of different folks out there with different likes, dislikes, ambitions, etc. The same can be said for games. I learned this rather quickly when PRANG popped out this next title.

Double Dribble: 5 on 5. It's a sports game! For Game Boy! Now, I'm not much of a sports fan, let alone in video games. I'd much rather be playing said sports than watching or virtually playing them, but a date's a date! I'm not gonna back out when there's new experiences to be had! Let's take a look at the roster.

You get to choose a team from 6 cities across the US, each with their own stats. I...guess that means every player in the team has the same stats? What, are they on some training regiment that makes them all identical? Whatever, I have a feeling the stats really don't matter much. Let's choose based on mascot! I went with the Frogs, namely because look at that little guy! He looks like he knows some cheat codes and is gonna exploit the heck out of them or somethin'! Plus, he's a frog, who ought to be good at jumping. I'm no basketball master, but I assume jumping is a pretty important part of the game that should come in handy. Not like the Eagles with their hollow bones, the Breakers with their constant time outs, and the Wheels with their...erm...penchant for getting flat tires? Weakness to brakes? Uh...yeah, I got nothin'. Let's get on the court already!

You start with a tip-off, though I was at an enormous disadvantage since I didn't know the controls or how to switch my characters. Within seconds, I got severely dunked on!

Guy looks like he's trick or treating

This continued for a while until I got my bearings. It's pretty standard control-wise with other team-based sports games I've played, with one button swapping control of teammates and shooting and the other passing and stealing the ball. You dribble automatically, so traveling is not a thing really in this game unless you just sit there holding the ball for too long. The controls are okay I guess, but stealing is a die toss for you and seemingly simple for the CPU to perform -- provided they actually run up to you. It's really easy to outrun them and just toss the ball, but the safe way to play is to approach the net and hold B briefly to dunk!

I do this with the kid nets all the time, it rocks

All the effort went into these animations, so the CPU does them ALL. THE. TIME. You really can't stop the dunks, either, so it gets to be a back and forth game of slammin' balls into hoops. It's very boring. You can go for normal shots or 3-pointers, but again, it's a die toss whether the game's code will allow you score or not. There's no rhyme or reason to control a thrown ball, just a number popped out of the RNG. The only skill comes from foul shots.

See the little gauge at the bottom? Yeah, skill!

In the end, I got rocked since I started slow and it was tough to gain points in the back-and-forth dunking that the game turns into. I went back and tried again on the most difficult CPU level to see how that compared, but I didn't really see a change. Since I knew the controls and what I was doing this time, though, I squeaked by with a win. Hooray?

The defeat screen is much better because they put all the animation into that little towel on the right side there. Only winners can move! Losers are turned into depressing statues!

There's really not much else to say here. It's a pretty simple game and not all too fun to play. Sometimes the random chances at passing and shooting nets make you feel bad for actually spending time on the game. It feels watered down and monotonous. Even your cheerleaders don't look they want to be there!

The leg ratio to body ratio seems a little...extreme.

Suffice to say, I would not go back for a second date. This guy just talks about dunking too much. Don't take him to a pool. Or an Oreo factory. He may be good at baptisms, though, but that would be a weird place for a date. Just take this Sprite of Passage and get outta here! My whole house smells like gym socks and gatorade now, so I'll have to grab some air fresheners to spruce it back up. And by that I mean with the little spruce tree car air freshener things. It'll be a mini coniferous forest in here!