NBA Jam Tournament Edition

"Throwing a flaming ball into a hoop and badly hyperextending all your muscles and somehow not paralyzing yourself has never been so much fun!"

NBA Jam Tournament Edition was the sequel to Acclaim’s arcade hit, NBA Jam. NBA JAM TE saw releases on the SNES, Genesis, Saturn, Playstation, Game Gear, and Game Boy. NBA Jam is one of Midway’s long-running game franchises, along with Mortal Kombat and NFL Blitz.

Game Play-
8/10

I cannot remember how NBA Jam the original played, so you will be spared any of my comparisons.

NBA Jam TE is an over-the-top basketball game, which is both simplified and exaggerated. It plays like basketball, but it’s only 2-on-2, which allows for 4-player mode, which I never played, seeing as how there are much better 4-player games out there. (Perfect Dark, Power Stone 2, F-Zero X rule all in 4-player gaming world!) The game features insane dunks, turbo playing, a good, yet grossly outdated, team roster, which takes a few players from each team and lets you play as two of them. All (then) 27 teams are included, but some of the super players were left off, for fairness sake.

The game is somewhat difficult, but basketball fans like myself will get and got the hang of the game quickly and even the hardest difficulty became a breeze after a while. The addictiveness will keep you playing for a while.

Control-
9/10

The game has pretty tight controls, and you will get the hang of them quickly. They’re easy to learn, and hard to forget. Tipping off for the ball will be the only problem you’ll have with the controls for a good while when playing this game.

Audio-
7/10

The music and sound effects in this game are good, but sound too 8-bit. They could’ve definitely stepped them up a notch in this game. It sounds too simple, and they could’ve recreated somewhat the basketball arena sounds and music.

Graphics-
8/10

The characters in this game are way too small on the court. You can barely tell one from another. You can see what team jersey your characters are wearing and see the characters themselves pretty well, but it’s hard to distinguish who’s who, and I think a lot more detail could’ve been put in this game.

Enjoyability-
8/10

It’s a very fun basketball game, and sports fan or no sports fan, this game will entertain you with it’s exaggerated simplicity and addictiveness, and, of course, my famous word, Enjoyability.

Score Rundown-

Game Play-8/10

Control-9/10

Audio-7/10

Graphics-8/10

Enjoyability-8/10

======================

Score-40/50

Percentage of Gaming Goodness-80%

Score-8/10

Doodleheimer’s Recommendationitivity-

Buy it. It’s cheap as dirt, and probably twice as common.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/01, Updated 05/20/02