Remembering NBA JAM (TE) [Archive] - Retrogaming Roundtable

Steven

05-21-2005, 04:59 AM

I just fired up the Saturn version earlier tonight. Man that brings back memories. While it's a crazy game nothing is sweeter for me than going for the dunk and having the two opponents jump at you -- only to lob the ball off to your wide open teammate 18 feet away from the basket.

Nothing but net. Now that's SWEET :D

Anywho, what do you guys think of NBA Jam (particularly the original and Tournament Edition) and do you think it's actually a "good" game, or is it a "stupid" game but one which is fun?

I can't decide how to grade Jam's gameplay. How would you grade/rank it? I do find it a lot of fun, but it's more "dumb" fun than anything else.

felix

05-21-2005, 05:09 AM

I really liked it. I played it a lot at my local pizza place and really longed for a good port of it (only to find the SNES port to be OK.) I loved the animations and how smoothly the players where.. I want to know what the FPS on the arcade boxes where cuz they still impress me. I think after TE, it was all downhill though. I liked college jam, but it didnt help out the soon to be dead game. As different versions came out, I lost my interest but would like to see a GOOD port of it on ps2.

Julio III

05-21-2005, 05:18 AM

I think its a great game. I had TE on my MegaDrive. Instead of just making a normal sports game, they added computer game elements into it. An excellent game in my opinion, enjoyable by people who don't even like basketball much at all. Oh my God, he's on fire! Anyway, i didn't think there were any real NBA Jam games after TE, i thought they changed the name and the gameplay?

slurpeepoop

05-21-2005, 07:10 AM

"Motumbo! Boom-shaka-laka!"

My friends and I used to play this game nonstop in the arcades, and promptly bought it once it came out for home systems. The list of hidden characters like the Beastie Boys, Eugene Jarvis, and Bill Clinton made that game so enjoyable.

NBA Hangtime was one of my personal must-get games for the N64 when it first came out. The fact that you could customize your character as an alien and other silly skins made for some fun gaming with your friends.

It was amazingly fun with four players, but single-player was absolute hell. The AI's "rubberbanding" really used to piss me off. No matter how good you were, unless you exploited the CPU's poor AI, their shot-making percentage would shoot to 99% and stay there until they were 10 points ahead.

jajaja

05-21-2005, 08:01 AM

Ye.. it was cool when it came, but today you can hardly give the game away hehe.

Mayhem

05-21-2005, 08:09 AM

SNES. Multitap. Four players. Utter chaos! LOL

Speedy_NES

05-21-2005, 10:29 AM

SNES. Multitap. Four players. Utter chaos! LOL

Yup :)

NBA Hangtime was also awesome with 4 players. The custom characters made the game really stand out, since you could just make the craziest character and do some crazy moves :) Both of the games really had a lot of replay value, especially when playing with friends.

I would say that it was a great game, even if the gameplay was "dumb" fun, since fun & entertainment is really all a game should be. ;)

-Speedy

josekortez

05-21-2005, 11:13 AM

TE was my least favorite on the Genesis because my college roommate was too good at it. LOL

Seriously, NBA Jam is the only licensed sports game that I liked as a kid. Arcade basketball is just more fun, IMO. As a matter of fact, I have a cheap copy of Ballers for PS2 that I need to try this weekend...

fishsandwich

05-21-2005, 11:45 AM

I've got 4 versions of this NBA Jam TE, and you know which one is my favorite? The Sega 32x version!

It's got all the things that were missing from the 16-bit games... particularly the scaling playfield and the oversized heads. The heads aren't that big of a deal, but the scaling IS a feature that I consider important and noteworthy. It looks and plays JUST like the arcade game I remember so fondly. The 32x game really is more than just an upgrade of the Genesis game... it's better than the SNES game, unlike Mortal Kombat 2.

The Saturn version is really good, but it has load times and it doesn't seem to control quite as well.

The Genesis version plays well, but it looks washed out with fewer colours and it doesn't have the scaling or big heads. The sound is worse than the 32x game.

The Game Gear port is obviously compromised by the technology, but it plays pretty well for an 8-bit portable.

http://www.vgindex.com/images/32x/box-cover/NBA-Jam-Tournament-Edition-cover.jpg

:D

.

grimbal

05-21-2005, 01:22 PM

I had just gotten my first income tax refund check when the first NBA Jam came out. Spent most of my refund on a Genesis 2 and that game.

Played it every chance I could and didn't even remove the cartridge from the system for a month. LOL

boozi2

05-21-2005, 01:45 PM

One of the best genesis games lol. Addicting as hell! Btw, they brought the arcade cabinet of the game to my prom's breakfast last night lol

Gamereviewgod

05-21-2005, 07:19 PM

TE is really underrated for what it did to upgrade the series. People just look at it like a standard sequel, and while the core gameplay remains, it's really been revamped.

The addition of mutliple stat categories really blew things up. The multiple players, including benches, is a great feature. The injury stat balances things out so even the best teams are forced to dump their best players for at least a quarter or two. Then you have the hot spots and occasinaly cheesy power-ups which can make the game something else entirely.

Fish: The 32X port is good, but they were sloppy with it. Some of the heads are screwed up (look at BJ Armstrong and Pippen on the Bulls). The Jaguar port is about equal. The sprites took a size hit too, though that's arguably better since you can actually see more of the court. The music in the Jag version is a disgrace too. The PS One and Saturn versions were the only ones to really port it perfectly.

suppafly

05-23-2005, 01:23 PM

This is a great game. I had hours and hours of fun playing it with friends in the summers of 1993, 1994....The genesis version is way better than the SNEs version too...more voices, and I liked the control better. I have to try the 32x version sometime!

BTW Did you know that one of the game�s programmers, Steve Snake, is the creator of Kgen and Kega??? (the genesis , 32x and sega cd emulators)

imanerd0011

05-23-2005, 01:30 PM

NBA Jam is one of my favorite Arcade games of all time!!! It has to be the best Basketball game every made. I remember playing it when it first came out at the Jersey board walk. They had a 50" big screen version, and the lines were like 30 minutes long to play the game!
I am actually in the process of buying a NBA Jam arcade right now.

LocalH

05-23-2005, 01:30 PM

DynastyLawyer

05-23-2005, 01:32 PM

My name's DynastyLawyer, and I endorse this thread.

howdoin

05-23-2005, 02:00 PM

NBA Jam is the only sports game I ever played... and I enjoyed it (but my SNES days are long gone :) )

demen999

05-23-2005, 02:10 PM

SSJ3

05-23-2005, 03:02 PM

I was playing the sega cd version yesterday....kinda sucked. I was thinking of getting the 32x version, but i have never tried to install that system on the cdx i got. lazyness you might say. But yeah NBA Jam was a great game to pass the time with friends. Kinda still is today if you think about it.

Haven't you realized that the Sega CD pretty much sucked in the first place? LOL

NBA Jam is one of my all-time favorite sports games, I bought every system just to play this, I hate the new one its an insult to the old and classic one. I loved when you picked the Rookie All-Stars the anouncer would cry out something like, "AHHHH". The best slam dunk was the front flips and dong that on fire, do I hear seizure anyone?

VACRMH

05-23-2005, 04:27 PM

Hvaen't you realized that the Seag CD pretty much sucked in the first place? LOL

I "Hvaen't" :angry:

Ah NBA Jam, one of the few sports games I could even play.

goatdan

05-23-2005, 05:05 PM

This is one of the many series that I do not understand why it wasn't updated with more versions. NBA Street is sorta similar, but it just isn't the same...

SSJ3

05-23-2005, 09:20 PM

Hvaen't you realized that the Seag CD pretty much sucked in the first place? LOL

I "Hvaen't" :angry:

Ah NBA Jam, one of the few sports games I could even play.

Wow, you are cool. You are my hero :roll:

Anyway, NBA Street had some gameplay things that were just great the characters where great but the character design in the first one sucked bad. The Street Volume one I personally think was the best one yet, with Nelly and all the other characters. Street Vol.3 was good, but your custom character can't be white he is only black. :angry: :roll:

evildead2099

05-24-2005, 12:47 AM

I enjoyed the 1.0 version of Jam because you could play as MK characters. Stupid fucking NBA, taking offense to that and making Midway remove them...at least it's emulated in MAME, so no chance of losing it to time.

No kidding! Thanks for bringing that to my attention!

Since so many of us seem to like this game, I say that we should arrange a 4-player netplay session sometime via Mame32. Whaddya say? 8-)

Bluteg

05-24-2005, 03:10 AM

I loved NBA Jam when I was a kid and I do not regret payimg the $50 for the Genisis version 10 years ago. The arcade feel suplimates the rest of the crap sports it presented.

evildead2099

05-24-2005, 12:41 PM

Jam TE is definately one of Acclaim's better games.

Bluteg

05-27-2005, 03:10 AM

I was playing it on Jaguar today and I find that version greatly is superior the Saturn version it seems to have more arcade like smoothness and has insignificant load times, thanks to the cart format.

sharp

05-27-2005, 09:31 AM

Just got my MD 32X version two days ago, sadly the cable for connecting the 32X to your MD is missing so I can't play it. Would love to play the game again, as it's years ago I played it for the last time (think that was the Jaguar version, which was really good).

buttasuperb

05-27-2005, 10:31 AM

I would love to get the PCB with the v1.0 roms (play as MK characters)

Zadoc

05-28-2005, 05:41 AM

Jam TE is definately one of Acclaim's better games.

LOL! They only published it.

CreamSoda

05-29-2005, 12:58 AM

I just got NBA Jam T.E. for the Saturn a few days ago...

Man, this version BLOWS the 16 bit ones away!(although those are still awesome on both the Genesis/SNES).

But I love the Saturn version of the game, it's arcade perfect? The only thing that sucks is the load times. Everything else is great. ;)