NBA Jam

NBA Jam is a basketball arcade game created by Midway in 1993. Impressively, the entire game was coded in assembly. Many critics claim that the release of NBA Jam gave rise to a new genre of sports games, which were based around action-packed, unrealistic gameplay.

[edit] History

Midway, no stranger to releasing landmark games (having earlier released Ms. Pac-Man), had started experimenting with the ideas two years earlier, with the High Impact series. Both High Impact and Super High Impact had somewhat average success in arcades. The gameplay of NBA Jam is based on Arch Rivals, another 2-on-2 basketball game released by Midway in 1989. However, it was the release of NBA Jam that brought mainstream success to the genre. The game became exceptionally popular, and generated a a significant amount of money for arcades after its release, largely because of the fairly expensive prices put on these games; a game quarter generally took two credits and a full game generally took eight, typically equal to $2.00. Nonetheless, the game was a smash hit. The original arcade release made $1 billion in quarters.

[edit] Trademarks

NBA Jam was one of the first real playable basketball arcade games, and was also one of the first sports games to feature real teams, real players, and their real digitized likenesses. A key feature of NBA Jam was the exaggerated nature of the play - players jumped many times above their own height, making slam dunks that defied both human capabilities and the laws of physics. Of course, seeing NBA superstars of the era, like John Starks, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Chris Webber, Calbert Cheaney, Scottie Pippen, Harold Miner, Shawn Bradley, Reggie Miller, Detlef Schrempf, Charles Barkley, and Hakeem Olajuwon, flying through the air with the greatest of ease brought just as many fans back. In time, players discovered another major feature of the game, as it was filled with Easter eggs, special features and players activated by initials or button/joystick combinations. Early versions of the sequel, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, even allowed players to put in codes that allowed people to play as characters from the Mortal Kombat" series, but the NBA, uneasy over the controversies surrouding Mortal Kombat's levels of violence, forced Midway remove these characters in later updates.

[edit] Sequels/Spin-offs

Unsurprisingly, it produced a sequel, NBA Jam Tournament Edition (commonly referred to as NBA Jam T.E.), which featured more new features and easter eggs combined with the same fun of the original. The NBA Jam games were also ported to many video game consoles and the PC, beginning with the original's debut on the highly-publicized Jam Day (March 4, 1994). Console versions were well known for featuring tons of easter eggs; the home versions of Jam T.E. even allowed you to use then-President Bill Clinton, then-first lady Hillary, or then-Vice President Al Gore (not to mention Atari's Vice President of Software Development Leonard Tramiel on the Atari Jaguar version). Acclaim ported these, and later ended up winning the exclusive rights to use the NBA Jam name. Acclaim used the name on NBA Jam Extreme in 1996, a 3D version of Jam which featured Marv Albert doing commentating. Some of the most famous and repeated sayings of that year came from Albert saying, "Razzle Dazzle", "BOOM-SHAKALAKA", and "He's on Fire!". The game was a flop, in comparison to Midway's version released that same year, rechristened NBA Hangtime, a game which featured a create-a-player and a usual batch of new features combined with a classic, but improved, NBA Jam feeling. However, by the time NBA Maximum Hangtime (a further update) was released, Midway began to lose steam with the game, and the game was considered to be a commercial disappointment. The basketball idea was temporarily shelved.

In 1995, a collegiate version of NBA Jam was introduced, entitled College Slam. Although the game was created to capitalize on the popularity of March Madness and the subsequent Final Four, it did not enjoy the popularity of the earlier NBA Jam games.

However, the idea was not quite dead as Midway passed it to their other sports games. The 1995 hockey release 2-on-2 Open Ice Challenge was only mildly successful at best, but NFL Blitz in 1997, a wild, hard-hitting 7-on-7 version of football which, while not the big hit Jam was, became quite popular, and the series remains active today. The success of the game brought forth another high-flying basketball game, and genuine 3D rendered (but 2D playing) sequel to NBA Jam and NBA Hangtime, NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC (which used the familiar NBA on NBC theme) in 1999, a game which was received well and had acceptable success. After it was ported, Midway decided to focus itself on other games and it is presently the last game in the series. Acclaim continued to keep the NBA Jam name alive with its console games, although the games are only mildly popular.

Now making console games exclusively, Midway has used Jam's idea on several other sports, with NFL Blitz, NHL Hitz, MLB Slugfest, RedCard 20-03 (a hard-hitting soccer game), and another basketball game in NBA Hoopz. Many of Jam's influences remain in their games. The latest efforts of Midway arcade baseketball include NBA Ballers.

[edit] Popular culture

In certain subcultures, the phrases "He's heating up" and "He's on fire" have entered into common usage. The phrases, as in the game, are used to (self) describe someone doing something successfully twice or thrice respectively, as the original expression was used for any player who scored more than six points - three buckets - in a row. He would be, literally, "on fire", as he then started tossing/dunking a flaming ball to the basket, burning its net in the process. The effect only wore off if the opposite team scored.

[edit] Saga

[edit] External links

• Game Information
• KLOV Entry