![]() Road Trip mode allows you to take on every team in the NBA, at a variety of different levels of difficulty, with set challenges to complete along the way. Playing four player Jam is a multiplayer gaming rite of passage, right up there with the first time you Multi-tapped Bomberman, only now you can do it without inviting your hairy arsed friends round to crowd your personal space.Įarlier NBA Jam titles were defined by their multiplayer experience, with their single player modes often something of an afterthought. You can play locally or online with up to three mates, as well as challenging random strangers online and sharing your scores and achievements on online leaderboards. The standard multiplayer matchups are as thrilling here as NBA Jam has ever been. As well as a few roster alterations, what EA Canada have done is trim the fat from the preceding game, and refined the whole experience, both multiplayer and single player, on and offline. It was a success, even without online play as standard, and was only a matter of weeks before the game was released in full HD with online modes for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.īeing an EA Sports concern, a sequel was almost inevitable. With glowing reviews all round, and a straight up return to the crazy dunks, stylized players and fiery-balled mayhem of its forebears, EA Canada did exactly what they promised on the front of the box – reignited the classic arcade franchise. EA Sports had already partaken in stripped down versions of other sports with its Street titles and decided to have a go at creating a new Jam game for the Nintendo Wii. Indeed, first sequel Tournament Edition from 1994, which made a few minor tweaks, updated the rosters and added more secrets and craziness, was the apex of NBA Jam action, and remained the best version of the game to have been released, until 2010.Īcclaim bit the dust in 2004, and the NBA Jam name lay dormant for some seven years. Rather than stick to the time honoured formula, Acclaim, the game’s publisher, started changing vital aspects of the game, such as remodelling it into 3D, adding extra players to create 3-on-3 or even 5-on-5 matchups, completely missing the things that made the OTT, in-your-face, 1993 coin-op such a cast-in-stone classic. In keeping with the zeitgeist (and publicising another of their hugely popular titles), it was possible on early versions of the game to unlock Mortal Kombat-ants Kitana and Jax and take them to the court, however this was swiftly removed once the wholesome NBA got jittery about being associated with high levels of violence and bloodshed.Īs the years went on, there were sequels and remakes, but none of them captured the imagination of the original NBA Jam. Excellent arcade conversions were released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Megadrive (there were also stripped-down ports for the handhelds of the day), with the superb action augmented by a bunch of crazy Easter Eggs and secrets, such as hidden characters accessed via the “Enter Initials” screen, and special modes such as an ultra slippery court or grossly enlarged bobble heads for your players. Of course this meant that home ports were inevitable. Anyone who stepped into a bowling alley, fairground arcade, or similar, during that period would have heard the familiar sound of the commentator exclaiming “Boomshakalaka!” as four excited players crowded around an NBA Jam cabinet. The original arcade version made millions of dollars in revenue for arcade owners. ![]() Two-on-two, with very little in the way of actual rules, and an emphasis on crazy slam dunks, NBA Jam gave you the opportunity to select your favourite NBA player, complete with impressive digitised likeness, and send them whizzing around the court at turbo speed, jamming the ball into the hoop in a series of outlandish tricks, and even setting the ball on fire if you manage to pull off three unanswered scores with the same player. NBA Jam gave arcade patrons a brash, officially licensed, four player game of basketball, the likes of which they had never seen before. Capitalizing on a golden period for the sport, where larger-than-life stars like Shaquille O’Neal, “Sir” Charles Barkley and my favourites, the pick and roll duo of John Stockton and “The Mailman” Karl Malone, were gaining popularity on this side of the Atlantic. Mortal Kombat was an attraction due to the evisceration and by-proxy cool that came with playing something that had been deemed controversial by the powers that be. When I was a youngster, frequenting the then-plentifully stocked amusement arcades of my fair city, the most popular cabinets were always either the top-tier Capcom/SNK fighting games, or the huge, incredibly noisy Midway behemoths that housed their mega-hits: Mortal Kombat and NBA Jam. ![]() Available on: Xbox 360 & PlayStation 3 (Reviewed on Xbox 360) ![]()
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