
	Platform Genesis Genre Sports Developer Arena Publisher Midway Released 1994
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NBA Jam

Every series has to start somewhere, without Final Fantasy, we would not have Final Fantasy 7, and without John Madden Football, we would not have Madden ’06. Few series can claim to have defined a genre (or sub-genre), two or even three generations after the initial game debuted. Even the highly anticipated Dead Rising can be considered an incarnation of the Resident Evil series. NBA Jam is one of these games, whose roots can be found in arcades, and is now found on the current generation of home consoles. The first home console version of NBA Jam came on the Sega Genesis one year after the arcade version hit arcade rooms worldwide.

Midway was no stranger to making great videogames. In fact, in 1981, they had released the widely popular Ms. Pac Man. Two years before NBA Jam was brought to fruition, Midway had toyed with the idea of a basketball game before, releasing High Impact and Super High Impact to the arcade scene. Both games met with about decent success; however, they were not big attractions. Then, Midway created NBA Jam and brought it to the arcades. This game proved to be a breakout success and generated a lot of money for the arcades due to the high price to play. At about $0.50 per quarter, which made it $2.00 to play an entire game, NBA Jam easily surpassed about $1 billion in profits. The following year Midway decided to bring the game to the home consoles, starting with the Sega Genesis in 1994.

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NBA Jam ranks among some of the greatest games to change their respective genres, and with all the things that made it great, it’s not very hard to believe. The first thing they did was they used real names, and real teams. Then, they took it one step further and made the players look as close to the real likeness as they could given the graphics of their time. They put

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some of the legends of the game in such as Patrick Ewing, Scotty Pippen and the like, which captivated the people who were big on basketball. Then, Midway added a touch of unreal physics. The gravity defying slam dunks were a major draw and were always cool to watch no matter how many times you saw them. Another draw was in the hidden characters within the game. Before you started a game, they gave you a chance to enter initials to keep a record of how well you did and what teams you had beaten. However, entering certain initials would replace the character you control with one of the hidden characters within the games. Characters such as Al Gore and Bill Clinton were playable when their special initials were entered, adding some amusement to see Gore slam dunking over Scotty Pippen. There were also some special dunks that would only occur if you hit certain spots while on your way to the hoop. There were some that had you jumping up so high you were off the screen temporarily, while others had you dunk so hard, you would break the glass backboard.

Now, that s not to say that NBA Jam is not without its bad points, because there are many times where you just want to chuck your Genesis controller, but hold back because the system just might fly along with it. For one, there are absolutely no fouls other than goaltending in this game. Now, that might seem like a good idea, but when you are going for the big rebound, pass, or even the big dunk, and suddenly the computer shoves you halfway across the court, grabs the ball and slams it in can be very frustrating. Sometimes when the ball starts bouncing around the court, it can be very difficult to grab the ball, and many times it will seem as though you ran through the ball. Also, when facing off against the computer, the computer doesn’t pick teams at random, but from a pre-determined list based on what initials you entered at the beginning. The pre-determined list isn’t a bad thing, but it just feels like a lazy cop out when they could have added a couple more lines to implement a randomization.

All in all, taking in the good and the bad, this is one of those games that screams “you’re missing out if you don’t play me at least once.” Sports games always seem to fall into two categories: you love them or you hate them. The original NBA Jam, however, seems to be a middle ground, where people can appreciate it’s over the top take on basketball, while not immediately hating it because it is a sports games. This game is like 2-3 bucks if you want the original, and the other consoles versions are just as available depending on which system you are looking for. Games that change their genres are few and far between these days, so take the time and the effort to pull out the older consoles and some of the classic games that helped shapes games as we know them today.

Marc Phillips

(July 30, 2006)


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