Back in the early days of video gaming, you had a very, very limited number of
basketball games in the arcade or the consoles. You had Atari Basketball which
had no 3 point line, and a square ball. (To think...some of you reading this
will actually have never touched an Atari 400...)
Then came Double Dribble with its spectacular 3 frame close-up dunks.
After that there really wasn't anything much.
For me, the big problem with video game basketball was that I actually played
basketball. I'd be yelling at my players, because there was just NO WAY I would
miss a wide open lay-up like my player just did, and I could definitely play
better D.
So for me there wasn't much fun in it. And so, eventually, Midway found the
solution. Make the game more outrageous. Dunks that nobody can possibly
replicate without trampolines. (by the way, Pat Croce, Slamball is a totally
stupid idea for a sport.) I'm only 5 ft. 9 inches tall, so the only way I'm
going to be breaking any backboards is if I threw I brick through it. (Or set up
small remote explosive charges that detonated when I dunked.)
And so NBA Jam burst into my life. I first became aware of it when the local
7-11 put it inside the store. (Incidentally, the LAST game ever put into that
7-11, they just never put a game in after they took it out...horrible decision
by 7-11, to this day, because of that decision, I generally won't set foot in a
7-11 because of that franchise-wide decision.) It was awesome. And even though
my brother and Frankie will tease me about it, I was up on the top 10 list for
"Longest Streaks", with one of my many victories coming at their expense with no
time left on a heave from half court.
I started yelling and celebrating, of course, they're both embarrassed because
they were playing out a familiar scenario...losing.
The point of all this is that this game captivated me in a way that no other
basketball game before did, and no other one did since NBA Street for the PS2.
(By the way, Street Hoops for the XBox and PS2 looks about as fun as Bruce Lee
for the XBox.)
The game's format is simple. Full court 2-on-2 basketball complete with 3-point
lines and a 24-second clock. The game even kept track of assists, dunks and
nearly other stat imaginable. That way it still felt like you, the person, were
still accomplishing something.
No fouls, very little gravity, and no realism. But that's what made it so damn
fun.
You could choose from any of the 27 teams back then. (This game was released
prior to the addition of Toronto and Memphis, nee Vancouver.) I think there were
5 players on a team you could choose from, and the players each had a bunch of
stats.
I don't remember what all of them were, but the only really important ones were
your Speed and Dunks. This was cool because Spud Webb was still in the league
with the Sacramento Kings. (He's 5 foot 7 and he won the Slam-Dunk competition.)
So I'd use them or the Hawks most of the time. Every once in a while, your
3-point shooting would come into effect, as my brother got lucky once with a
team of Dale Ellis and Brad Lohaus. (pronounced "Low House", or at least that's
the way the announcer would yell it.) Lohaus was 6-11 and actually had an OK
3-point shot, probably ahead of his time. So once he caught fire, my brother was
shooting as soon as he crossed half court, and he was getting like 55-60% on the
little shot clock % box.
Anyway, you played an accelerated 3:00 quarter (per quarter...this was
unfortunately the first of the mega-token eaters to grab me.)2 o, and as all
Midway Games have you could enter in codes and such to give yourself effects
like Big Heads, Infinite Turbo, every shot breaks the backboard, and all that.
The game also let you put in a name and birthdate to unlock secret characters
like the developers, (in the SNES version they had Bill and Hillary Clinton, as
well as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince.) and that was a pretty fun little
gimmick. If you were the career player type, you could put in your own name and
birthdate and NBA Jam would keep track of your user stats.
Using mo-capped basketball players playing on 8-foot rims, the spectacular dunks
were the real highlight of NBA Jam. If you took off from anywhere near the free
throw line while holding the Turbo button down and you had decent dunking stats,
you'd throw down a impossibly vicious dunk. If you scored three times in the
row, the announcer would shout out, "He's On Fire!" and you'd literally just
turbo down the court and shoot anywhere from inside half court and burn up the
nets.
Sound added a lot to the atmosphere with the cranked up announcer doing a pretty
good job of adding to the ambience. The SNES version of the game gets lower
marks from me mainly because it doesn't look or sound as good as the arcade
version did.
Still, for 4-player fun, you really couldn't ask for too much more than NBA Jam
on the SNES offered. Almost as addictive as Super Bomberman.
This game also has a fond place in my heart, because it was through playing NBA
Jam T.E. and Judge Dredd that I became the Blockbuster Video Video Game
Champion. (At *2* different stores, no less. Represent!)
So, while I can't say, "Go out and buy a copy today!" cuz it's like, pretty damn
old, I can say that this game changed the way I looked at basketball video
games. Kudos to you, Midway. At least you did something right before you went
and made Mortal Kombat.
9.1
