Not a basketball fan... but do i dig NBA jam!

[LutzfromOz]

As the title says, its just excitingly fun pick up and play especially around my mates with beer, it was a very popular title in Australia, in the arcades and on the super nes/mega drive. Of course tournament edition is icing on the cake. Hangtime oh yes! however I don't believe hangtime translated well on to the super nes and megadrive that well though. I personally own NBA jam T.E on arcade format and on snes and sega Saturn as I would call the Saturn version a perfect arcade conversion, , even a fan of the 2009 reboot which I picked up on wii and ps3 which I believe is an update that retained the core gameplay mechanics, not a sports fan... but this game is just so radical which is also how I feel about NFL blitz, would love to hear from fellow Atari agers about these sports games that I guess... I would boldly state sports games per se, that aren't really sports games but really just arcade games if you get my drift, like they were in such a different genre basket to what electronic arts were pumping out at the time that were marketed as "simulation" any how... this aussie would love to hear from fellow NBA jammers to discuss the good, the bad (nba jam extreme), the odd but ok (nba jam 2004 ps2), (nba jam 99 gbc)

[Cynicaster]

I agree completely, NBA Jam is a great time. I just barely missed it when it was originally released. It arrived shortly after I had kind of lost interest in going to arcades; of course I remember the game, but I never played it back then.

 

It's only been semi-recently that I've started playing it on my MAME cabinet and really enjoying it. I've got a mostly-non-gamer buddy that I hang out with quite often who enjoys playing, as he calls it, "the arcade," but he's pretty closed-minded about games and has no patience for battling the difficulty or learning the quirky gameplay mechanics of older titles, so I started firing up NBA Jam in hopes that "basketball" was familiar enough for him to give it a chance. It also helped that, unlike most classic titles, I had no vast head start on him with experience/practice playing the game, so we were both starting pretty much with a blank slate at the same time, making for some great smack-talkin' competition. It has turned out to be one of the go-to titles we play now; a really great time. I'm still gritting my teeth at one of the last times we played a few weeks ago, where we were neck-and-neck the whole game, I was up by 2 as we went into the final seconds, then he nailed a fluke 3-point jumpshot from almost mid-court right at the buzzer to steal the win. I was in utter disbelief, and having to listen to the gloating after that was unbearable, haha.

 

We also play 2 on 2 Open Ice Challenge, which is essentially a hockey equivalent of NBA Jam, although we don't play this one as often. Still cool, though.

 

I will say that player-vs-player is the only context in which I have the slightest interest in playing NBA Jam, or, indeed, any sports game or fighting game on any platform. I never thought so in my younger years, but now I just find the whole exercise of playing such games against a computer opponent to be kind of weird and unfulfilling, because it's just a sham -- the computer can give itself a homerun or a 3-pointer at will. So, any time you win it feels like "meh, the computer just let me win" and any time you lose it feels like "total bullshit, the computer cheats."