Born for Wii: NBA Jam

by Wesley Fenlon { Dec 30th 2008 at 10:58AM }

Nintendo knows how to sell you a console. Whether it's Tetris bundled with every Game Boy, Super Mario World packed in with each shiny new SNES, or Wii Sports freely tagging along with the bazillions of Wiis they've sold in the past two years, the gaming giant has a history of providing fun and enticing games as a free incentive to buy their consoles. This generation, Wii Sports has certainly become a runaway success -- there's probably an unsettling number of people who never even put another game in their system. And while Wii Sports can be a lot of fun, it's obviously a pretty simplistic experience that doesn't cover the range of entertainment sports have to offer. Sports videogames often get a bad rap for spawning milked franchises and little but roster changes from year-to-year, but every so often a game comes along and totally annihilates the formula. In 1993, that game was NBA Jam.

Midway's NBA Jam defined and popularized an arcadey, totally unrealistic and totally awesome style of gameplay for sports games. No fouls. Superhuman dunks. Turbo mode. Like the football series NFL Blitz Midway would develop several years later, NBA Jam passed up the finer points of basketball (like, you know, the rules) to focus on what really made the game fun. It's been several years since anything inspired by NBA Jam saw the light of day, and it's high time this timeless series returns to its former glory with a new take on its wacky, blissful gameplay.

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Gallery: Born for Wii: NBA Jam

Every week, Born for Wii digs into gaming's sordid past to unearth a new treasure fit for revival on the Nintendo Wii. Be sure to check out last week's entry in the series, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath, and for more great titles that deserve your attention, take a look at Virtually Overlooked.

Tags: acclaim, basketball, born-for-wii, joystiqfeatures, midway, nba-jam, sports

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

TheCoats @ Dec 30th 2008 11:32AM

I still break out NBA Jam for my Sega during parties......it is an excellent game!...one of the reasons my sega is still hooked up, that and streets of rage 2.

Maulok @ Dec 30th 2008 11:36AM

NBA Jam's unlockable characters kept things fun. Hillary Clinton passes to Bill - BOOMSHAKALAKA!

KingKRule @ Dec 30th 2008 12:20PM

Ha oh man this game brings back memories... I use to have this huge players guide filled with codes and such just for this game. One thing we need to be weary about with the move from 2D to 3D (especially with EA involved) is the character models. I would refuse to play the game if the characters even remotely resemble the art style of facebreakers or whatever that game was called. The game play was arcady but the sprites were realistic, I think that adds to the charm when you see the crazy things they do.

+++volume+++ @ Dec 30th 2008 12:34PM

I've spent so much time with this game. And the quotes! They're priceless!

"HE'S ON FIIIRE!!"

TheCoats @ Dec 30th 2008 2:08PM

"Heating Up"

"Boom-Shaka-Laka"

Wesley Fenlon @ Dec 30th 2008 4:07PM

KABOOM!!

Kenneth Caldwell @ Jan 3rd 2009 10:15AM

Terrible shot!

d_niziolek @ Dec 30th 2008 1:28PM

I really loved NBA Jam on Megadrive/Genesis back in the day. Was really good fun to play.

EA already has a similar title in its catalogue (gameplay wise) with NBA Street - just take a look at the crazy dunks, gamebreakers, characters etc.

I would love to see a new NBA Street or NBA Jam for Wii, with features similar to those mentioned.

Adam @ Dec 30th 2008 2:10PM

I just picked up a Wii over the holidays, and outside of RE4, Wii sports has not left the console. I love it b/c its pretty simplistic, but some skill can actually be applied to the simple games. However, those 5 sports can get pretty boring pretty fast, so a simplistic basketball game of any kind would be greatly appreciated. NBA Jam was cool, and like the guy earlier mentioned NBA Street is kinda a spiritual successor, but Nintendo is on such a hot streak I'd prefer getting a game directly from them.

rodjoh @ Dec 30th 2008 2:24PM

Thanks for this article! I really loved NBA JAM (and then NBA Hangtime on the N64) for all the reasons you mentioned.

I hated regular sports games due to the complexity and slowness (which cannot really be done otherwise to accurately recreate the sport experience) but NBA JAM made me love arcade style sports games cuz it felt faster, more simple to control and just plain fun. It didn't take itself seriously and it was all about amusing urself with stunts and catch phrases :)

Thanks to those games I went on to love games like NFL Blitz, Mario Tennis, Mario Strikers, Sega Soccer Slam and such.

Wesley Fenlon @ Dec 30th 2008 4:07PM

Same here. I've never been able to get into sim sports games or sim racers because they sacrifice speed and usability for complexity. Maybe I'm just impatient, but I don't have much interest in slowing down to 25 mph to take a turn or plan out a playbook to play a game of football.

I wasn't very good at NFL Blitz, but I sure loved throwing Hail Marys!

SoshiKitai @ Dec 31st 2008 1:27AM

PSH! Isn't the ONLY THING TO DO in Blitz is throw Hail Mary's? :P
At least, that's what I did all the time.

And when they created the ability to make your own plays, I just made revised versions of the Hail Mary. :P

...and it ain't just sport sims that sacrifice speed for realism. Armored Core, that Robot-sim that everyone hates now, used to be really fast and fun... but ever since they "made it more realistic" the game's gone down to a crawl. *sigh* I used to love that series, now they suck.