NBA Jam review: two on two, no fouls, and the rim is on fire

A player catches the ball, turns on the turbo, and leaves the floor. He keeps going up. By the time he comes down, he has put the ball through the rim from a height no human being could reach.

What happens when you delete the rules?

NBA Jam is a two-on-two game with real NBA teams and digitized likenesses of real players, and almost every rule is gone. There are no fouls or violations except goaltending and the shot clock, so you can freely shove an opponent out of the way. Players jump extremely high and dunk in ways that ignore physics. It is basketball with the boring parts taken out, and what is left is steals, shoves and highlight dunks every possession.

Two on two is the real genius. With only four players, every one matters, and each human at the cabinet always has the ball or is about to. Nobody stands in a corner waiting. That is why a room full of people who did not care about video games cared about this one.

The best sports games are not simulations. They are the version of the sport you played in your driveway.

You can see a hot streak

Make three baskets in a row and your player goes on fire, with unlimited turbo and better shooting, until the other team scores. It takes a feeling every basketball player knows, the hot hand, and puts it on the screen where everyone can see it. It also creates the game's best tension: the other team is now desperate to score just to put the fire out.

Lead designer and programmer Mark Turmell wanted wider appeal and built on Midway's earlier Arch Rivals. Its catchphrases went on to become part of basketball culture, and anyone who stood near the cabinet can still recite a few.

What it meant back then

In American arcades in the early nineties, basketball was everywhere and NBA Jam was the loud cabinet with four players and a crowd. You found it at the mall, the bowling alley, the pizza place, and the arcade by the movie theater. Michael Jordan was not in it, because Midway did not have the rights to his name or likeness, which every Bulls fan noticed immediately.

And years later, Turmell, a Detroit Pistons fan, confirmed what Chicago kids had always suspected: the game made the Bulls miss last-second shots in close games against the Pistons. Every American who lost a close one with the Bulls got a very late apology.

Playing it today

It is still one of the fastest ways to get four people shouting in the same room. The controls take a minute, the fire rule takes one game, and the arguments about who should have taken the last shot never end.