NBA Jam
From Hoopedia
NBA Jam is a basketball arcade game created by Midway in 1993. It is the first entry in the NBA Jam series. Impressively, the entire game was coded in assembly. Many critics claim that the release of NBA Jam gave rise to a new genre of sports games, which were based around action-packed, unrealistic gameplay. The arcade version takes place in the 1992-93 NBA season and the console version takes place in the 1993-94 NBA season. Due to his own personal licensing, the league's best and most popular player, Michael Jordan, was not listed as a player for the Chicago Bulls or any other team.
History
The gameplay of NBA Jam is based on Arch Rivals, another 2-on-2 basketball game released by Midway in 1989. However, it was the release of NBA Jam that brought mainstream success to the genre. The game became exceptionally popular, and generated a significant amount of money for arcades after its release, largely because of the fairly expensive prices put on these games; a game quarter generally took two credits and a full game generally took eight, typically equal to $2.00. Nonetheless, the game was a smash hit. The original arcade release made $1 billion in quarters.
NBA Jam was one of the first real playable basketball arcade games, and was also one of the first sports games to feature real teams, real players, and their real digitized likenesses. A key feature of NBA Jam was the exaggerated nature of the play - players jumped many times above their own height, making slam dunks that defied both human capabilities and the laws of physics. Of course, seeing NBA superstars of the era, including Dominique Wilkins, Scottie Pippen and Hakeem Olajuwon flying through the air with the greatest of ease brought just as many fans back. In time, players discovered another major feature of the game, as it was filled with easter eggs, special features and players activated by initials or button/joystick combinations. Early versions of the sequel, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, even allowed players to put in codes that allowed people to play as characters from Mortal Kombat, but the NBA, uneasy over the controversies surrounding Mortal Kombat's levels of violence, forced Midway to remove these characters in later updates.
Pop Culture
In certain subcultures, the phrases "He's heating up" and "He's on fire" have entered into common usage. The phrases, as in the game, are used to (self) describe someone doing something successfully twice or thrice respectively, as the original expression was used for any player who scored more than three buckets in a row. He would be "on fire", as he then started tossing/dunking a flaming ball to the basket, burning its net in the process. The effect only wore off if the opposite team scored or after that player scored four more times. Other phrases from the game include: "The Monster Jam!", “Jams it in!” and “Grabs the rebound!” Lastly, NBA Jam incorporated a slogan from Spike Lee's alter-ego in his 1986 film She's Gotta Have It, Mars Blackmon, who was also featured in a Nike basketball shoe television commercial at the time. The NBA Jam commentator asked, "Is it the shoes?" after a player performed spectacularly.
