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| gaming-oldies.com |
For a seven-year span between 1993-2000, I was an
anonymous private donor for Midway Games. Unfortunately, they don’t know this
but I do because I invested a lot of time and plenty of quarters in the NBA Jam series. Even though I played the
console version of the game, it was the different arcades and other places
where I played it where I had my most vivid and enjoyable memories of the
series.
The original NBA
Jam came to arcades in 1993, and was based on an earlier game Midway put
together called Arch Rivals that came out in 1989. NBA Jam
incorporated elements of Rivals’ that would be more synonymous with its game
than its original predecessor. Arch
Rivals featured a two-on-two full-court basketball game that involved
punching the opposing player in order to get the ball from them. NBA Jam featured the same type of
gameplay but substituted punching the opposing player for shoving. The game was
so popular that it generated 1 billion dollars in quarters and at the time was
the highest-earning arcade game of all time.
My earliest memories of NBA Jam happened when I was 11 years old and sneaking into the
University of Illinois-Chicago’s (UIC) Student Games & Bowling Center while
my mom was working and playing the game without being caught by campus
security. I was immediately enamored with its gameplay and its loud announcer
when he shouted out BOOM SHAKALAKA after a powerful dunk. I managed to play a
couple of games before security caught me and I was asked to leave, but I was
hooked from then on out.
Now I played NBA
Jam through many different consoles during that time span from NBA Jam: Tournament Edition on the SNES, NBA Jam Extreme on the PS1, to NBA Hangtime (my favorite game in the series) and NBA Showtime: NBA On NBC on the N64. However, the most joy I had playing
the game was the original arcade version that my old high school had.
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| photobucket.com |
For the first two years during my lunch period at
St. Benedict High School, you would more than likely to find me playing NBA Jam until it was time for my class
next period. My team back then was the Orlando Magic with Shaquille O’Neal and
Scott Skiles and it’s fair to say that I completely dominated with those two. I
even got a chance to play as the infamous secret character, Willie “Air” Morris Jr. and I still remember his initials and birthday to play as him (WIL, JAN
1). I think that’s the reason why that
got rid of the game because I was just that good and it just wasn’t fair (I
don’t really know the reason why but my reason sounds better).
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| dimemag.com |
After that I took a long hiatus from the game until
2010 when EA brought back the franchise and my excitement for the game brought
back fond memories and gave me a chance to play others from all the world that
shared the same excitement that I did and brought in a new set of players to
have the own experiences with the game.
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| giantbomb.com |
NBA Jam has had a huge impact in my life similar to the Street Fighter series. It’s great that I still have fond memories
of this game I will take those memories to the grave with me.
#KeepItNerdy
Written By: Justin Cooper
(@ItsMrCooper82)
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