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| josh TX | Dec 17 2007, 05:36 PM |
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Review: NBA Jam (SNES, 1993) Imagine, if you will, an NBA game played with no rules, no fouls, and the ball never rolls out of bounds. Imagine a lightning fast 2 on 2 game with only the best players from each team. Imagine somersault, reverse dunks strong enough to break the backboard. That pretty much sums up the fantasy world of NBA Jam. After toying around with the idea for a faster paced, non-simulation style basketbal game, Midway finally found success in programmer Mark Turmell's NBA Jam, after previous attempts such as 1989's Arch Rivals weren't received so well. NBA Jam kept things very simple: Basically you have your 24 second clock, and a goaltending rule. Besides that there was nothing else to slow the game down. No timeouts, no personal fouls, no out of bounds calls, and no momentum-killing free throws to shoot. What we have here is a fast paced game of 2 minute quarters, full of pushing, shoving, and dunking. Players first choose any NBA team available at the time (remember this is 1993, no Canadian teams yet) and take control of two of the best players from that team during the 1993-94 season. That's going back quite a bit, huh? Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Choose the Jazz and you'll play as the classic Stockton-Malone tandem, the Spurs will give you the Admiral David Robinson and soft-spoken Sean Elliot, and choosing the Charlotte Hornets got you two of the best young players at the time, Mr. Grandmama Larry Johnson and a young Alonzo Mourning. And since you were probably wondering, no Michael Jordan is not included here. EA owned the rights to his likeness at the time, therefore Midway could not include him in their game. However, Scottie Pippen was given boosted stats to make up for this. Onto the gameplay. Offense, for the most part, consisted of basically trying to work around the defense through the use of passing and a turbo button, which would temporarily increase the speed of a player and allow him to attempt a dunk further from the hoop. On defense, the priority was to block and steal, but holding down the turbo button here would allow you to push and shove offensive players, hopefully getting them to drop the ball for a turnover. The no foul gameplay led to very quick turnovers and lots of fast breaks up and down the court. The emphasis on the game was definetly the dunks, and this aspect of the game was truly glorified. Although every player had individual stats, pretty much everyone could dunk, and the players with the higher dunk ratings were capable of performing quite ridiculous dunks indeed, like windmill jams from the freethrow line or acrobatic-style spinning dunks that arent even humanly possible. In all there were well over 20 different dunks in the game, and besides looking cool, these were an encouraged form of offense as they were the toughest to block. Another interesting fantasy aspect to the game was "fire" mode, which occured when a player had scored three unanswered baskets. The ball would literally catch on fire, and the powered-up player would have unlimited use of turbo, be allowed to goaltend, and have the ability to make a basket from almost anywhere on the court until the other team scored. This feature could really turn the tide in a game and usually led to lots of three pointers made. NBA Jam was pretty light on options. The bread and butter of the game was the action, and unlike basketball "sims" there was no season mode, franchise mode, trade options, or any of the other features found on many of those basketball games. The game included support for 4 players, and the single player mode was a bare bones schedule of games where you would take on every NBA team once, starting from the team with the worst record the prior year (Wolves) all the way up to the last game against the Chicago Bulls. The game included a password option to save your progress and W-L record, as the developers themselves probably realized it would a bit repetitive to try to take on all the teams in one sitting. The SNES version of this arcade hit was a decent translation from developer Iguana entertainment. Although the arcade versions' digitized characters couldnt be reproduced on a home console, the most important part, the gameplay was kept faithfully intact and most of the hidden game codes included there are here, as well as quite a few of the hidden characters (mostly the developers themselves) with boosted stats. The in-game music is missing, and the announcer sounds muffled and repetitive, but these arent too much of a loss. This home version does include basic configuration options to change the shot clock time and length of quarters. NBA Jam was a successful title because it revolutionized an alternate way to play a sports game. While it took a basketball enthusiast to play a sim title, NBA jam was simple and easy enough to learn so that just about anyone, NBA fan or not, could pick it up and find enjoyment in playing. The gameplay would often become repetitive and sometimes feel mindless due to the lack of strategy, but the no rules style of play was perfect for a quick game and there was always someone around who knew how to play it. NBA Jam birthed a slew of like-minded titles, with countless sequels, Midway's own NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz titles, and EA's more recent "Street" series of games, which have really expanded on the jam idea have become iconic titles themselves. While the unrealistic, repetitive play and lack of rules might not be for everyone, NBA Jam was definetly a milestone in sports game history and the effects are still being felt in it's influences on many of today's titles. My Score 8/10 thumbs up    SNES Screenshots  Arcade Version Screenshot |
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8:23 AM Nov 27
