Quick Review: NBA Jam

I finally got to play the new NBA Jam yesterday, and like everybody else who's played it (and knows the series), I have mixed reviews.

The game is good. Like, there's no doubts about it, it's good. It's fun, tt's entertaining, it serves it's purpose as a game well. The only gripe I had about the game ITSELF is the controls dont feel tight enough to gimme that arcade feel I expected out of a NBA Jam.

Now, the only real things I even worried about were how the game stacked up as an NBA Jam, and how it functions against live competition (read: is it just a scrubby game.)

So, does it feel like NBA Jam? Honestly, not really. Like, it's not a BAD thing what they did, it's still good and interesting, but everything just didn't add up to the NBA Jam experience that I know. The first big thing is that stats straight make-or-break everything. Like, if your character has low dunks, you probably cant dunk unless your under the rim, if not at all. They go no power? Shoves don't do too much. Those ideas are fine, but where I see it being a problem is 3 pointers (and the whole 3 point system). It's one thing that 3 pointers are huuuuuuge in this game, but it feels like there isn't a real way to defend them and lower the chances of a good 3 point shooter making a shot. I couldn't count how many times I was on my man, jumped WITH HIM as he shot a 3, and he still put it in clean. It's like the "hand in the face" concept doesn't exist when your stat is high enough. So naturally, a person thinks "Well why try to dunk when I have to run through 2 people and could get stuffed when I could probably hit a 3?" And that's what a good bit of the game can dissolve down to.

I probably shouldn't have said that first, cause that might make the game sound BAD to some people, but there are some good things that actually come from stats making a huge deal. What it does is it actually makes you put some thought into who you pick and how you play. If you have two 3 point shooters with no dunks... YOU CANT DUNK. So your whole game HAS to revolve around tryin' to get open on the arc. If you got two big men, then you're got more leeway to drive in the paint and drop bombs. Good steals and no blocks? You've got to hone in on when and where your opponents try to get by. It's not ALL bad, but it's just odd.

The other thing I looked for, like I said, was how the actual mechanics meshed together. And to my surprise, the game actually takes a lot more skill and coordination that I previously thought. In short, you've got to have a combination of good reactions (to block shots/stop Oops) and real good prediction skills (to jump routes for shoves and steals). From what I could tell, you couldn't really mindlessly spam ANYTHING because everything has a fairly long animation. Even just swatting for a ball takes long enough for you to get stepped, so it's not like the old days where you could practically swarm a guy, try to steal his cookies, and stay with him the entire time. Na, now you gotta make decisions like "Do I wanna try to swipe or do I need to wait for him to try and shoot?"

The other side big aspect of playing is coordination. It's damn near impossible to carry a team by yourself in this game. On offense, you MIGHT be able to get away with it. But defense? Nah dawg. You've got to be able to work with your teammate to either stick your man or stick your zone. Gotta be able to hit switches or just know your partner is with his man so they don't get free oops and open 3s.

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When we turned the game off, I had some pretty mixed feelings about it. All in all I wouldn't say the game is bad, but I'm hard pressed to really call it NBA Jam. Pretty awesome game to play with people (and I wanna play it again to actually try some of the game modes), but you can't really go into it expecting to get "the next step" after the Hangtime/Showtime era. It's best to leave it at an arcade/sim-esque game with an old title slapped on it.