By the time I entered high school in 1993, I'd been an enthusiastic arcade-goer for almost a decade, but something about the way in which the scene was changing was slowly starting to turn me off to the arcade experience.
I mean, I was still actively visiting local arcades, yeah. It was just that I didn't feel motivated to frequent them as often as I had in the past.
At the time, I never gave much thought as to why, exactly, I was losing interest in arcade gaming. I was too busy focusing on other activities.
But when I think back on that period now, I get the sense that my interest was diminishing because there was a sudden dearth of originality in the space. The fact was that game companies weren't innovating as much as they did in the previous years. They were, rather, only seeking to carve out slices of existing markets. As a result, arcades became saturated with fighting games, racers and sports simulations, and the entire scene started to become permeated with a feeling of homogeneity.
Even games that started life in completely different genres--games like the wrestling-themed Saturday Night Slam Masters and the platformer Karnov--were seeing their sequels turned into one-on-one fighters!
It was ridiculous.
But it also could have been the case that I was turning away from arcades because console technology had advanced to the point where systems like the SNES and the Sega Genesis could now adequately, if not very faithfully, reproduce currently popular arcade games. And because I was becoming more and more introverted (and also cheap), I was likely fine with the idea of rejecting the social aspect of arcade gaming and playing my arcade favorites in the quieter and more comfortable home environment.
While it's possible that my loss of interest likely resulted from a combination of both of the aforementioned issues, I'm convinced that the latter is the bigger culprit. I come to that conclusion whenever I reminisce about my time with NBA Jam, which I played almost exclusively on the SNES. My experiences with it mostly occurred within familiar bedrooms, living rooms and dens. Those were the spaces in which my friends and I would regularly get together to engage in some high-flying, rim-rocking arcade-style basketball action!
NBA Jam came into my life at the perfect time. In the previous years, I had never much cared for the NBA or professional sports in general (or anything related to them, including officially licensed video games). I preferred to compete in sports rather than watch them on TV (I was a regular member of my grammar schools and community's baseball, soccer, bowling and track teams).
But the circumstances of my entry into high school dictated that I had to start paying close attention to professional sports. Because, you see, one of the conditions of enrollment was that I had to join at least one of the school's sports teams.
Naturally I expressed interest in joining either the baseball or soccer team, but I was told that there were no roster spots available. The teams from the previous year were locked in because neither of them had a graduating player, and there weren't going to be any tryouts because the coaches favored the current players and had no interest in giving anyone new a chance to compete for roster spots.
So my only real choice, then, was to join the basketball team. And I had to do that while knowing very little about the sport beyond "dribble ball" and "throw ball through hoop."
Because I lacked basketball knowledge and playing experience, I spent the entire year riding the pine. I didn't feel particularly good about doing so, being the prideful athlete that I was, but I knew that it was for the best. After all: I had no idea what I was doing, and I had trouble grasping the intricacies of the sports and its thousands of rules.
During a game, for instance, one of the referees blew his whistle and made a rotating-hands motion (a "travel" call), as did most of my teammates, and I had absolutely no clue what that gesture was supposed to mean. I kept looking over to the scorer's table, thinking that maybe John Travolta was about to check in to the game.
I was completely lost.
Seriously: Trying to understand the plays that our coach, Tom, was drawing up on his clipboard was like attempting to decipher Ikea assembly instructions. I just didn't get it.
So in order to gain understanding of what was going on during our games, I started watching the NBA. I figured that doing so would help me to gain a better grasp of the game's rules and offensive and defensive schemes.
I happened to become a viewer in the winter months of 1994, when our local team, the New York Knicks, was making a serious run at the NBA championship. And as I watched the team play on a daily basis, I did indeed learn about the sport. But also, I wound up becoming emotionally attached to the team, which only brought me stress and heartache (and sleepless nights in which I worried endlessly about the outcome of upcoming playoff games) and led to my feeling devastated when the team lost in the NBA Finals.
At the same time, though, I became a fan of the sport in general and an eager consumer of NBA products. That's why I was so enticed by the idea of owning NBA Jam, which was the type of game that I was previously apt to dismiss. (I avoided licensed sports games because I assumed that all of them were simulation-type games, which I strongly disliked. Instead I stuck to alternative and arcade-style sports games like Ice Hockey and Arch Rivals, which were easier to understand and play.)
Had I adhered to old biases and declined to buy NBA Jam, it would have been a tragedy. I would have missed out on some of the most blissfully fun multiplayer experiences my friends and I ever shared!
That's what the game brought to my life.
My friends and I loved it. Each one of us bought our own copy of it, and we'd bust it out everywhere we went. I was apt to play as the Knicks, since I was very familiar with Patrick Ewing and John Starks' tendencies and abilities, but otherwise, I'd gravitate toward teams that ranked high in 3-point shooting (and I'd do so even if I didn't recognize the teams' players). Because, after all, three was greater than two, and the game's players made 3-pointers at a ridiculously high rate. It was just good logic.
NBA Jam was, we felt, a superior basketball game at the basic level, but it was the game's unique, over-the-top elements that truly pushed it into the "legendarily fun and addictive" category for us. We simply couldn't get enough of the game's ridiculously exaggerated dunk animations or its ingenious "on fire" mechanic, which triggered whenever a player made made three shots in a row. For as long you were on fire, you'd be granted infinite Turbo speed, improved shooting accuracy, and the freedom to legally goaltend jump shots, though, honestly, we were more eager to enter into on-fire mode because its potency allowed us to burn away the nets and epically shatter the backboards!
Those things were just really fun to do!
NBA Jam was as "alternative" as a sports game could get. It had the capability to offer us some serious, fiercely competitive basketball action, sure, but more so, it had a knack for creating situations that made us laugh uncontrollably. I'm talking about hilarious moments like when one of us would get the inputs mixed up and accidentally throw up a wild half- or three-quarters-court fling-shot, which would prompt everyone else to mockingly shout "Hail Mary!" in unison.
I'm telling you: Nothing was funnier to us than how Dominick, my best friend, would get monumentally pissed whenever one of those fling-shots would go in at the buzzer and cause his team to lose by a single point. He'd throw a fit and either accuse the rest of us of cheating (by using some type of unseen external device to "rig the coding") or threaten to hunt down the game's developers!
He was a special breed, that guy.
I made it a point to play NBA Jam exclusively with my friends, and I did so for one very particular reason: The CPU players were absolutely obnoxious. They had the propensity to make scores of consecutive jump shots--even when, contradictorily, their "3 PTRS" ratings were low--and instantly halt my on-fire build-up phases. If I hoped to beat a CPU team, I had to struggle to maintain a three- or four-point lead in the 4th quarter's closing seconds lest it would become a certainty that I'd be beaten at the buzzer by a wild full-court shot, which a human player would of course rarely sink.
So to avoid that nonsense, I stuck to playing the game with Dominick, Mike, Steve, Chris and the rest. They all had the same gripes and agreed with me that the game was way better when it was played in multiplayer mode. It was where the game truly shined.
And during that period, we continued to derive great enjoyment from NBA Jam. It was one of our go-to games, and we made sure to play it every time we got together.
And each time, we'd have great fun and share a lot of laughs.
NBA Jam, like Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat, was a gaming phenomenon, and it had a strong impact not just on the industry but also on culture in general. Its nomenclature, in particular, became a part of every kid's lexicon. At the time, it was almost a requisite to repeatedly shout "He's on fire!" or "Boom Shakalaka!" during any social gathering (the game's commentator--or his voice, at least--was as iconic to us as the aforementioned games', and we always made sure to mimic it as closely as possible when we were shouting lines from the game).
It was basically a new form of communication.
Also, it was obligatory for us to attempt to replicate the game's crazy dunks any time we were in our high school gym!
Well, really, we couldn't come close to doing anything of the sort because none of us could jump high enough to dunk (I could jump high enough to make finger-contact with the rim, but that was about all I could do). Though, we were so determined to replicate the game's dunks that we improvised a way to make the attempt: One day, we went to the school's gym ten minutes before gym class was set to begin and dragged out the springboard that was hidden underneath the pull-out bleachers. Then we placed it near the free-throw line.
Our plan was to launch ourselves from a distance and gain the hang-time necessary to replicate the NBA Jam players' spinning, rotating, and leg-splitting motions. What we discovered, though, was that you actually lose the ability to control your aerial movement when you're launched into the air by an external force. So rather than the execution of graceful and spectacular dunks, our results instead included guys (a) losing control of the ball while in midair (particularly when they were simultaneously startled by someone yelling "Spasm!" as they were in mid-flight), (b) desperately grabbing onto the rim to prevent themselves from flying off to the left or right or crashing into the backboard, and (c) missing the rim entirely and violently splatting on the court's rubbery surface.
And somehow, we were the Honor Roll students.
And as we were doing this, I found out, personally, how potentially dangerous uncontrolled dunk attempts could be. In one particular instance, I tried to forcefully throw the ball down ("With authority!" as NBA commentators are apt to shout) and wound up hitting the cheap tin rim so hard that I lacerated two layers of skin on the palm of my hand. I was left with a semicircular wound, and the skin was sliced in such a way that I could peel down a chalky layer of dead flesh and view the bloody layer resting beneath it.
I decided not to visit the school nurse and have her check it out because, of course, acknowledging wounds and admitting pain was for sissies. So I spent the rest of the school day tightly holding a piece of abrasive brown paper towel (the type that you find in every school bathroom) against my palm and using it to dull the pain and absorb the continuously seeping blood.
"That's the last time I'll ever try to do something like that again," I told myself in following.
I wouldn't have gotten the chance to do so, anyway, because coach Tom caught wind of our activity and demanded that we put the springboards back under the bleachers and never touch them again.
He probably saved a few lives that day.
NBA Jam's popularity endured for a few additional years thanks in large part to the release of an improved sequel: NBA: Tournament Edition. It, too, was a huge hit and pretty much dominated every platform on which it appeared.
I knew that the game wasn't offering anything wildly new, but I bought it anyway because I was intrigued by its additions: three selectable players per team, player substitutions, and a greatly expanded roster of wacky guest characters--among them NBA legends, former presidents, celebrities, musicians, and mascots, all of whom were, typically, overpowered and fun to use for that reason. (If anything, Tournament Edition gave me a great reason to look forward to the arrival of the next issue of Nintendo Power, which would, more than likely, reveal more guest characters!)
And I was really happy with the new additions. I felt that they gave the game superior replay value. And my friends felt the same way.
We appreciated the newly provided ability to mix and match players because they added some variety to our contests, but we agreed that such an ability was merely a bonus and that NBA Jam really didn't need it to be a great multiplayer game. It was, in its original form, already perfect for what it was.
But still it was nice to be able to play as Will Smith and dunk on Hillary Clinton! That, to me, is just good entertainment!
And my friends and I would have continued to enjoy NBA Jam and its wacky action for years in following had we not lost contact with each other following our high-school graduation. Sadly, that situation abruptly ended our get-togethers and forever changed the way that I engaged with video games.
It became inevitable, then, that I'd have to leave the NBA Jam behind, since it was the type of game that lost much of its appeal when it wasn't being played in multiplayer mode. The experience just wasn't the same without the presence of my pals or the personalized banter we used to share. It wasn't as jubilant.
That's how it was for all of the games we used to play together. I was never again able to enjoy them in that way. My experiences with them just weren't the same. They weren't as spirited or as fun.
But that's just how life goes, I guess.
So in the end, the only thing that I can say is that I'll forever miss the 90s era of gaming for the friendships that it helped me to enjoy and the purely fun craziness that it brought to our gaming-focused get-togethers. I'll miss games like NBA Jam, which inspired us to eagerly express our childhood joy and gleefully showcase our untamed spirit.
Hopefully we'll all meet again in the future and have some fun playing our multiplayer favorites and reminiscing about the old days.
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