NBA JAM TE...pump it up!

Review
     I have to tell you, I used to love NBA Jam. When I first got the PlayStation version, I was giddy like a school girl. There I was with an arcade quality game on my game system that was as entertaining as it was fun. Between this and Street Fighter Alpha, you couldn’t keep me away from the system.

The game is played 2 on 2, where the only rules in play are shot clock violation and goal tending. Players can perform massive dunks, pick-up optional power-up items, and keep a personal gamer ID so that their entire career can be tracked via memory card. Pretty fast paced, the home version even allowed the player access to the arcade board’s dip switch settings, like clock speed, hot-spots, and more. With four people on board, the atmosphere could become quite the party flavor.  

Year later, I’m looking back, and even with nostalgic eyes, Jam still holds up, but only in the slightest of ways. Don’t get me wrong, the game’s still 99.9% arcade perfect with extra icing on the cake, but the genre has evolved to a point now, specifically regarding Nintendo’s Wii Sports, that titles like this may soon lose all of their value, nostalgic factor included.

• For those of you constantly confused by the difficulty, there's a reason. All the difficulty settings are reversed! While Medium is fine, All the Easy options are really Hard, and vice versa. Meaning if you wanted to play the easiest game, you have to set it to the hardest option!



• Among the celebrities you can unlock in the game are the Beastie Boys, Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, Fresh Prince, and even Frank Thomas!



• There are hidden players available to you should need them. Simply highlight a team, hold Select, and rotate the D-Pad counter clockwise twice. You'll see 'Extended Rosters' drop down on the screen. Now you have more players to choose from.



• One of Midway's 'Digitized' sports games, along side WWF Wrestlemania, NHL Open Ice: 2 on 2, NBA Jam, and others.



• Referenced in Mortal Kombat 3's high score screen as NBA.



• The first basketball game AND the first arcade conversion ever released for the PlayStation. Released 4 days prior to the actual system launch.



• One of the long box games with no known variants.

Game loaded fine with both options turned on, but does suffer from the framing issues common in 2D games.