Because of this game I can't have basketball on TV without saying "THE STEAL", "TERRIBLE SHOT", "FROM DOWNTOWN", etc.
NBA Jam for the SNES is one of the first games I ever had. At that point my brothers and I could still keep track of what order our SNES games were obtained:
1. Super Mario World (pack-in, duh)
2. Bubsy (*groan* youngest brother got it for birthday)
3&4. Mega Man X & NBA Jam for Christmas!
My brothers got Mega Man X as a shared present since it was more expensive and I got NBA Jam used from a videostore. I found about it on Christmas Eve actually. I needed to wrap a gift and my parents told me to do it in their room. While in there I noticed a plastic case sitting by their bed. It was the plastic case the videostore used for the game and said NBA Jam on the side! I had no idea my parents would get that for me. They were very down on videogames and I never even bothered to ask for such things (my brothers and I bought the SNES ourselves). They assumed I would like because I had rented and just played the **** out of it. They didn't wrap the plastic case, just the game and box, with the idea being to give me the case after. I'm disappointed that because of this decision I accidentally had one of my most pleasently surprising Christmas gifts blown for me the night before but it was still awesome.
A friend of mine, whose brother was a friend of my brother's, had Super Bomberman which came with the multitap. They however only had the two controllers that came with the SNES. So my brother and I brought over NBA Jam and our two controllers and had a blast. In the days of multitaps having a four player game going was a special treat. It felt like a rare achievement that required significant effort and some sheer luck. As a kid you can't just go buy a multitap or extra controllers or even drive yourself to your friends house. Playing four player NBA Jam was an event. I think we only did it once until years later when I go my own multitap.
I don't Midway owns the NBA Jam name anymore. Near the beginning of the 32/64 bit generation Acclaim released NBA Jam Extreme which was complete ****, while Midway released NBA Hangtime which was very clearly an NBA Jam sequel. Acclaim published the home versions of the NBA Jam games and must have obtained the rights to the name though some bad contract on Midway's part.
Even if you did the 2-on-2 format and the turbo and everything correctly I think a big part of NBA Jam's appeal was that it was really, well, cool. But it was what 12 year olds thought was cool back in 1993. What's cool for 12 year olds NOW would be ridiculously lame to anyone that was 12 when NBA Jam came out. While the gameplay is incredibly solid, the presentation is dated. Today's kids wouldn't like it's style and if they used a current style the old NBA Jam fans would probably be turned off.
I just want a hack to play NBA Jam TE with any NBA stars I want, past and future. Have a Lakers team of George Mikan and Shaq and a Suns team of Steve Nash and Charles Barkley.
Topic: NBA Jam (Read 3887 times)
