Overview:
I have found the precursor to my beloved basketball game: NBA Jam. The only difference is that I LOVED NBA Jam and I can’t stand Arch Rivals. This is a two on two game with fictional teams with you controlling your character of choice. After all that you’re thrown into 4 minutes of non-stop basketball action. It’s basketball.
Visuals:
To be really honest, this game has some pretty shitty sprites. It kind of looks like a high school arena moreso than a professional court while the characters themselves all look the same, regardless of ethnicity. The animations are also pretty choppy, especially the cut scenes after a point is made. Here it is very prominent they were sponsored by, the now defunct, British Knights [I had some of those when I was little] and it seems that the developers were focusing on the more…seedier…aspects of the game. You can honestly see a dude watching a [still] cheerleader with his tongue out. AWKWARD.
Audio:
Fuck the music in this game and the sounds. You get the inevitable squeaks that happen on a real court and a terrible sounding dribble. The whistle that the referee uses ALL THE TIME is murder on the ears with the only solace coming from the smacking noise when you punch a dude.
Completion:
I started out by picking my team and opponent: Bawl State [me] v Natural High [them]. I can’t tell if this is a university versus a high school but, if so, that’s pretty fucked up. Next I picked just who I was going to be controlling as I made my way through this game, finally settling on the person that personifies me the best: Tyrone. This proved to be me choosing poorly.
After just one fucking quarter I was trailing 31-8 because I could not get Tyrone to do shit while my partner kept getting his lights knocked out all the fucking time. I stopped it there because I could tell that it was just going to get even worse. Fuck you Tyrone!