Boomshakalaka! Five Features That Need To Be In The New NBA Jam
When word came out a few months ago that EA Sports would be releasing a new version of NBA Jam, older video game players rejoiced. That joy was dampened a little when we learned it would only be released on the Nintendo Wii, but it was still pretty good news.
But after looking at an initial screenshot of the game, a new NBA Jam could face a lot of pitfalls. Because how do you duplicate or improve on a game that was great because of its imperfections?
The original version of NBA Jam didn’t have Michael Jordan. It also didn’t have pick and rolls or reliable goaltending enforcement. But you know what, we liked it that way.
So here’s what we’re hoping for in this new incarnation of a 1990s classic. They can gussy up the graphics all they want, but the gameplay should be true to the original. Otherwise, you might as well go play NBA Live.
Forget three players at a time, put it at two
NBA Jam started off simply as a 2-on-2 game, but its later descendants like NBA Hoopz expanded it to three. That just doesn’t feel right. The more players you throw on the court, the more this game actually resembles a basketball simulation. All you really need in this game is a shooter and a big man, that’s it.
The best way to play defense in the game remain to be shoving
NBA Jam actually hurts itself the closer it gets to realism. And that holds true with calling fouls. They should continue to be nonexistent. Shoving an opponent all game long would get the average NBA player banned from the league (unless you’re Bill Laimbeer), but NBA Jam players should be rewarded for their shoves like in the old days with constant turnovers.
Players still need to score on the corner 3-pointer about 75 percent of the time
Anyone who played this game routinely knows that there are two sure-fire ways to score. The first is to dunk with the big man while holding down Turbo. The second is to spot up in the corner with a 3-pointer. The top of the 3-point line is pretty effective too, but it can’t match the corner for sheer deadliness. That needs to stay true in the new version as well. Because that last minute of every quarter needs to be a mad dash for the corner.
The final team you play should be a pair from the 1990s
This is the final area where NBA Jam needs to call back to its heritage. If a player can beat all the other NBA teams, they should be pitted against an original NBA Jam team. It could be Karl Malone and John Stockton, or Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley. Even Patrick Ewing and John Starks would be a fun boss to face. But no matter who it is, the new NBA Jam needs to bring back some old faces.
LeBron James and Kobe Bryant need to be absent from the game
That’s right, the new NBA Jam needs to forget including two of its best players.
We all know that the original NBA Jam didn’t have Jordan because they couldn’t secure his rights. I’m assuming there won’t be a similar problem with Kobe or LeBron, but the new NBA Jam needs to forgo its biggest super stars for one major reason: Because the original NBA Jam was actually better due to Jordan’s absence.
If Jordan had been a playable character when the original NBA Jam came out, every kid that wasn’t a Knicks or Pistons fan would have picked the Bulls every single time. The team-selection process would have turned into a mad scramble to pick Chicago first. Could you imagine being that poor kid at the skating rink, trying to beat an older kid with just the Charlotte Hornets. You would have been banished to playing Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalker”.
There simply would have been no stopping a Jordan-led NBA Jam team. But because the game didn’t have him, most of the elite teams (Charlotte, New York, even a Scottie Pippen-led Chicago) were similarly elite enough that you stood a chance in every match up, so long as you didn’t pick a crap team like Dallas. And the game was better because of it.
Now, you could argue that the talent is better distributed nowadays, or that the game’s programmers won’t make Kobe and LeBron unstoppable, but today’s generation will be robbed of a true NBA Jam experience if they have every player at their disposal. And while not having Jordan in the old days was an obstacle we all had to overcome, you could certainly argue that we’re all better for it.
At the very least, it helped us appreciate the subtle shoving genius of Horace Grant.
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