NBA 2Ball

[Sph1nx]

http://www.newfiemail.com/dp/2ball/

Apparenly I have a copy of one of the rarest games for Playstation.
Unfortuneatly, the cd is cracked and thus (assumable) unplayable.

However considering what PapaStu has told me (thank you sir), this is an insane find anyways.

Woooo... R9... woooooo!

Hopefully PapaStu and DangerBoy will post some more info, but from PS on irc:

* The only (other) confirmed copy is owned by the prgrammer.
* Joe and some other people had / have a scan of it.
* There were around 2000 made and they were given away at a basketball agme.
* They think it was a LA game in 97-98 (No idea why they think this)


Oddly enough, this turned up at a flea market in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Quite a ways away from where it was probally given away.
Its actually been sitting in my closet for about a year. I bought it from a seller who had a box of cds that I dug through... I grabbed like 5 or 6 demo cds off him. I think it was cracked when I bought it because the case dosent show any signs of damage and it easily could have been because I don't remember ever looking in it.

Anyways.. my first and only really rare find! :D

[tholly]

nice find....too bad its cracked

thanks for the pics....i have always wanted to see what it looked like, and i have searched for pics, but i could never find any

[PapaStu]

Me and DB were kicking the idears around a little more, and one of the other rumors about it was that it was an Allstar give away. In 97 All Star game was in Clevland (thanks Chunky) it might have come from that.

Really though, we dont know jack doodly about this game. Congrats on pulling this out of the box it was hiding in.

[kevincure]

Nice find, man.

I'm gonna place NBA 2Ball in the "Demos" section, since it says Demo CD and has a Demo SLUS (as far as I can tell). Could you tell me what the SLUS number says in full? I see the 0 24181, but the part starting with 9 is the one I'm looking for.

Thanks.

(Oh, does it list any developer or anything of that sort?)

[gavv]

Me and DB were kicking the idears around a little more, and one of the other rumors about it was that it was an Allstar give away. In 97 All Star game was in Clevland (thanks Chunky) it might have come from that.

Really though, we dont know jack doodly about this game. Congrats on pulling this out of the box it was hiding in.


actually, it couldn't have been 1997 since the first NBA Allstar weekend that had a 2Ball competition (the game obviously was based on, and most likely used to promote the new game, that they created and used to replace the Slam Dunk competition which they retired after the '97 game) was the 1998 allstar game in Madison Square Garden. Perhaps the small # of discs relative the the capacity of the crowd meant that maybe it was done as a small crowd thing, plus perhaps used in press and VIP gift-bags...


gavv

[Flack]

From Googling I found NBA Hoopz for the Playstation contains a mini-game called 2Ball. Is it possible this was just that mini-game given away as a demo, which was then rolled up into NBA Hoopz?

Here's a link to a message from a guy looking for fellow owners of the game: http://www.talkaboutgaming.com/group/rec.games.video.sony/messages/666609.html

That's all I found at the moment. I'll keep looking.

[digitalpress]

My recollection of the story (as passed on to me vvia John Hardie and originating from one of the game's original designers) was that it was given away at an All-Star game. I wish I had paid more attention at that time, I passed the info along to one of our editors and pretty much forgot about it since.

[kevincure]

Flack, that guy in the link you posted in Dangerboy (Jason Dvorak). There are only one or two mentions of 2ball for Playstation on the internet that aren't a result of Jason's search for the game.

[Blackjax]

You may still want to either try playing that game, or seeing if a PC can rip the files off of it.

While it is cracked, if the crack doesn't go through the actual data of the game, there's a chance it may be playable, or at least readable in a PC CD drive. Maybe it can be recovered, its at least worth a shot.

[Flack]

You may still want to either try playing that game, or seeing if a PC can rip the files off of it.

While it is cracked, if the crack doesn't go through the actual data of the game, there's a chance it may be playable, or at least readable in a PC CD drive. Maybe it can be recovered, its at least worth a shot.

Yup, very true. If you don't have the resources and would like me to try for you, PM me.

[delafro]

Thanks for the pics. Good stuff.

[izret101]

I couldnt even find anything before to prove this game was real. All the stuff said it was a feature in another NBA game.
Thats so cool though.

[spoon]

IS it possible that it was released in NEW York at an All Star game in 1998. When 2-Ball was introduced. The competiton skipped 1999, then returned in 2000. Maybe a search of giveaways during a given NBA season will provide results?

link
http://www.ccyaa.org/2ball/2ball_video.html