NBA Jam

"Not worth it if you own this on another system"

NBA Jam is one of the greatest arcade games from the early 1990's. As was the tradition then, every good arcade game was ported to every home console known to man (and many that people didn't know about). NBA Jam was no exception. The Sega CD port of NBA Jam is perhaps the least known of the original game, but it is different enough that all fans should own it and it is a decent game for Sega CD owners in general.

Game Play

NBA Jam was made famous by the super human slam dunks and the wide selection of secret characters. The Sega CD version is no exception. This is a basketball game where no harm really means no foul. No matter how many times you knock a guy down, you don't get called for the foul. The two on two style makes it great for multi-player action. While the Sega CD version boasts some different features than other home ports, it is also lacking in some areas.

The one thing that makes this game very different from other versions is that the roster is quite a bit different. The game boasts an "updated roster." While there are many new players, some of these players out right suck. Players stats were also changed, some quite dramatically from their previous versions. However, for the most part, the teams are balanced a little more.

Perhaps the best thing that the Sega CD version boasts is the fact that it can save your season directly to the internal ram. This means you do not have to deal with the lousy password system that plagued the SNES and Game Gear versions.

While the good make the game better, the bad bring it down, and hard. In a game that has "Jam" in the title, jamming is actually a hard thing to do. Gone is the ability to dunk over people. Gone are most of the awesome slams. You can only slam dunk when there is quite a bit of distance between you and the defender(s). Many of the dunks are missing from this version, so when you actually do get up in the air, you get pretty much the same four dunks each time. Shattering the backboard is, as far as I can tell, impossible. How the developers managed to do this astonishes me.

Another lousy thing is that your turbo barely does anything. Aside from being essential for dunking (which doesn't happen) it hardly speeds you up and runs out seeming faster than ever before. I guess the saving grace here is that it does come back just about as fast as it left.

My final beef with the game is the loading times. This is to be expected on a CD based game, but not THIS bad. There is a good 10 seconds just to load up each coaching tip between the quarters and another 20 seconds to get back to the game. In a face paced game, this is a real bring down and is quite frustrating. You will get used to these loading times, but they should just not be that bad.

Score 7

Graphics
The graphics in this version aren't any worse than every other version I have played. All the players in the game are actual portraits and look fairly good. Everyone in the game actually looks like they should. Height can be seen as well as physical size. These aren't just palate swaps of sprites. They actually are the real player in the game. The thing that rubs me the wrong way is the fact that the game doesn't provide anything above and beyond what the Genesis and SNES versions do graphically. If this is the only NBA Jam title available to you, it won't matter to you, but seasoned veterans of the series will want more graphically.

Score 6

Music and Sounds
In every ad I ever saw for the Sega CD or any of its games, I always saw something about "CD quality sound." With that said, I expected some darn good music from the Sega CD version of NBA Jam as well as a plethora of new announcer sound bits. I got neither. The in-game music was poor. It was the same music as the title screen. At first I didn't think there was any music because it was very quiet. When I turned up the volume, I wished I had left it where it was. The announcer sound bits were nothing new. The game boasts a new player roster but what they left out was "nothing else is new; in fact, some of it was left out!"

The best quote of the game doesn't even occur in this version, despite being printed on the back of the case. NBA Jam without "Boomshakalaka" isn't NBA Jam in my book. I am at a total loss as to why this and other sound bits were left out.

Score 4

Controls
The controls are decent, especially with the Genesis controller. For the most part, they are quite responsive with no delay. There is an option to switch the buttons around if you do not like the default mode. Controlling a team mate is easy. The controls are easy to pick up and do not take long to master. Aside from dunking, all the abilities are about the same as any other version. Stealing is made easy as well as passing and shooting.

Score 9

Secrets
The best part of NBA Jam is the secrets. While the Sega CD version doesn't have any new ones, it does have all the ones that you would expect. From Bill Clinton to Al Gore to Warren Moon, all the secret guys are there. All your power ups are there too and in this version, you can use more than one at a time. If you want good defense and infinite turbo you can do both. You can enter as many codes as you can during the "Tonight's Match-up" screen which is a nice change from other versions of the game.

Score 10

Overall, NBA Jam on the Sega CD is a decent game. It provides you with different players and more video clips at halftime. While it lacks in the sounds category, it is NBA Jam and is a lot of fun, especially with multiple people. If you can get past the difficulty of dunking, you will find a decent game. However, unless you love NBA Jam or cannot find any other version, this game probably isn't for you. While it removes the pesky password system, it doesn't provide enough to make it essential to play.

Pros:
1. Has an updated roster
2. More than one code can be entered at a time.

Cons:
1. Load times are atrocious
2. Sound is sub par, especially for a CD game
3. Dunking the basketball was nothing spectacular

Final Score 7

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 05/16/05, Updated 06/04/07