NBA Jam: the most faithful and fictitious game of the 90’s returns

NBA Jam was the second greatest arcade experience of my life.

The 2-on-2 hoops classic was the perfect antidote to any given Street Fighter hangover.  It became a ritual of sorts for my brother and I, desperate to play as Jordan, to test out a new combination of initials and birthdays each time we were at the arcade.

My enthusiasm for b-ball lived – and later died – with this game.  But what a time it was:

My Knicks were stacked with superstars going shot for shot with the Bulls during Jordan’s peak: Ewing, Oakley, Starks [who could forget “The Dunk”?].  But more important, Jam was there to help ease the pain – many a night would be spent punishing Pippen and Grant to soothe the rage after yet another New York letdown.

NBA Jam was a phenomenon – so much that I can’t truly explain it to those out there who weren’t around to experience it.

But here’s a second chance.

NBA Jam Wii is on fire

NBA Jam is making a comeback on the Wii later this year, and it could be awesome.  It fact, it needs to be.  Because sports games have become downright unmanageable over the last decade – alienating more and more players by the year with increasingly cumbersome controls and stacks of time-consuming menus to navigate.

Sadly, in this misguided attempt to achieve a sort of realism on par with the constantly-evolving visuals, all essence of accessibility is lost.

But a game like Jam so beautifully merged the fictional and fantastic (scorched nets, gratuitous fouling) with the simulated and authentic.  It was built on a foundation unashamed to be a video game, even while tracing the imprint of a ‘true’ game.

The biggest indication of Jam’s aspirations for authenticity came from the game’s incredible digitized graphics.  Never before had the visuals of a sports video game been so detailed that you could make out the very player on screen -

Reggie Miller really looked like Reggie Miller; Larry Johnson really looked like Grandmama; Horace Grant really had those awful goggles.

Even the presentation was top-notch – with cherished announcer Tim Kitzrow calling the shots and a TV-style scoreboard popping up after every basket.

This level of detail was simply unheard of at the time.  But fascinatingly, Jam didn’t accompany these cutting-edge advances with bulky, simulation-like gameplay to match.  Instead, Jam was quite content to march in step with it’s Arch Rivals roots.

The game of video b-ball simply hasn’t shined since – not in 1996’s quasi-sequel Hangtime; not in NBA Street; never.

Details are still light, but we do know that NBA Jam Wii is going to be faithful to the original [just look at those heads!] and that backboards will most definitely shatter.  And maybe – if it’s really faithful – a certain current president will even get an include as a hidden character:

Images courtesy of Old-Wizard and The Fun Ones