The Classic Game - NBA Jam

The Classic Game:  NBA JAM

With EA picking up the rights to the NBA JAM franchise after the shutting of Midway Games, then announcing a new game in the series that's heading to the Wii, this is the perfect game to hit off our second round of the classic game!

The series started out in 1993 with the first entry being an Arcade game and was then followed up with home conversions to the Sega Mega Drive and Super Nintendo in 1994. The game all spawned a lot of home ports with it appearing on various computers and handhelds of the era. In a very well timed move for Midway the world was in the middle of a basketball craze with basketball cards selling in large quantities and with some of the greatest players of the game all playing in the same generation, a good NBA game was always going to sell well.

As a basketball game though NBA Jam was far from the simulation that modern players of NBA live 10 or so are used too, players jumped many times above their own height, making slam dunks that defied both human capabilities and the laws of physics. There were no fouls, free throws, or violations except goal tending and 24 second violations. This meant the player was able to freely shove or elbow his opponent out of the way and run around the court that fast you thought Sonic the hedgehog would appear at any second!(Sorry Nintendo Owners, NBA Jam was more fun on Sega's Console). Jam also was filled with a high level of secrets, letting you play as a whole roster of wacky characters, from Bill Clinton through to Mortal Kombat Characters.

The game is also very memorable for its audio with cult classic quotes filling the roster of in game speech, "Boomshakalaka", "Oh My He's On Fire" and "Is It the Shoes?" are just some of the great quotes that mix in with some of the generations most memorable tunes.

NBA Jam was one of those rare things, you know the type, there was something about it that even avid basketball haters seemed to have great amounts of fun absorbing themselves with, a perfect example is the TV show Top Gear, car haters love it!

With its huge wide appeal this was the game you party played, long before the likes f Rock Band, Buzz, Singstar or Guitar Hero there was NBA Jam and its many ports and sequels, a silly amount of instantly pick up and play fun!