The last several months I've been on the DL from playing basketball due to plantar's fascitis. Unfortunately the only way to get my hoops fix has been from offering up lousy trades in fantasy sports and more importantly, bball video games. It leads to the natural topic for my fellow setshotters: What are the best hoops video games of all time?
My vote would go to NBA Jams, which cemented the phrase "he's on fire" into NBA lexicon forever as players like Jeff Hornacek and Charles Oakley did 720 dunks after making several shots in a row. Justin and I once had a good season of NBA 2K3 where I was inexplicably able to score 23 a game with Celtics reserve Eric Williams. Double Dribble was the best game for the Nintendo, even though there were certain spots on the floor where players would shoot 100% from 3-point land.
There's a couple of games that were fantastic in their day that get slept on: Arch Rivals, the original Atari video game that featured two stick figures walking back and forth and shooting on a two dimensional straight line representing the "hoop", and of course the classic Jordan vs. Bird, where an irate Janitor would come clean the floor and admonish MJ or Larry after shattering the backboard with a ferocious dunk.
Fellow Setshotters, what are your favorite hoops video games, and why?
4 comments:
Prior to the emergence of Playstation and Xbox, I think that the 2-on-2 format was really the best. It was just too confusing to play fives on those old Nintendo and Genesis era games. I was a huge fan of Arch Rivals in the arcade, and I was addicted to NBA Jam for the Genesis. It was awesome to make Stockton do a 360 dunk, but my favorite thing about Jam was the system of cheat codes that would allow you to play as George Clinton, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and others.
If I remember right, Gore shot jumpers like a little pansy.
I always thought Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball was a pretty groundbreaking game, not for the actual hoops action which was fairly pedestrian, but for the way it let you upgrade players and customize your lineup...very cool stuff for an old Super Nintendo.
As for actual good hoops action, I think you gotta go as current as possible...games just keep getting better and better (Though there is always a soft spot for Jordan vs. Bird!)
5 on 5 on the Genesis was confusing? Apparently you never played the EA NBA series (the progenitor to the NBA live series). It started with Lakers v Celtics on the PC. This was ported to the Genesis and continued through Bulls vs Blazers - the name was NBA Showdown for one year then the Live moniker was founded.
Though LvC was far more realistic and involved more strategy on the original PC version, the Genesis version introduced us to 6'1 guards doing 360's from the free throw line (Terry Porter), the two-handed Tommy Jam from anywhere just inside the 3pt line (Barkley), turnaround 3's from behind the backboard (Bird), and guys with the initials MJ doing pretty much whatever the programmers were in the mood for them to do.
Thank God for emulators.
This game brings back the family computer/Atari times. I couldn't remember much of the old games way back, except for Mario. Thanks to the developers of the new games of today, countless Download Games/Video games/Online Games are way better than the Atari times.
Post a Comment