Tag Archives: nba jam

Atari 2600, Random Games

Random Game #33 – Turmoil [Atari 2600]

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Turmoil

When you have a video game collection like mine, it can be hard to play all of the games. This is especially true when additions are made on an almost weekly basis. Still, I appreciate nearly every game I’ve accumulated for this reason or that. In the hopes of improving my writing through continuous effort and promoting ongoing learning of these games, I’m going to compose brief, descriptive articles.

If I’m not mistaken, I acquired this game at the 2014 Oklahoma Video Game Expo for about a buck. That was many months ago now and I’ve yet to play it. I don’t anticipate playing it anytime soon either. It looks like a fast playing shoot ‘em up for the Atari 2600, not too dissimilar from Tempest. The player’s ship remains in the center of the screen, surrounded by about five pathways on either side. Enemy ships zoom between each side of the screen while the player attempts to stay alive by destroying or avoiding them.

Perhaps the most interesting factoid about Turmoil is the fact that it was designed by Mark Turmell. He later went on to design Smash T.V., NBA Jam, and NFL Blitz, among others. He was working for Sirius Software at the time and the game was published by 20th Century Fox. It was released in North America around 1982 on the Atari 2600. It also had releases on Atari’s line of 8-bit computers, the Commodore VIC-20 and C-64, and on MSX computers.

Nintendo Entertainment System, Random Games

Random Game #12 – Magic Johnson’s Fast Break [NES]

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Magic Johnson's Fast BreakWhen you have a video game collection like mine, it can be hard to play all of the games. This is especially true when additions are made on an almost weekly basis. Still, I appreciate nearly every game I’ve accumulated for this reason or that. In the hopes of improving my writing through continuous effort and promoting ongoing learning of these games, I’m going to compose brief, descriptive articles.

There are some games in my collection that I don’t recall obtaining. Magic Johnson’s Fast Break is one such game. I can speculate how it came into my possession, but ultimately the game is pretty inconsequential to me. As best as I can recollect, I’ve played it once. My friend and I competed against each other as part of the Leonard 2012 Video Game Olympics. He’s much more adept than I when it comes to sports games and accordingly was victorious. It’s incredibly dated at this point, but I can’t imagine it had much going for it back in the day even. My belief is that basketball games weren’t noteworthy until NBA Jam, but many people have a fondness for Double Dribble so that would seem like the genre’s best on the NES.

Magic Johnson’s Fast Break was originally developed and published by Arcadia Systems and released as an arcade game in 1988. It was ported to the NES by Software Creations and published by Tradewest in North America in March 1990. It was also ported to a handful of European PCs at the time as Magic Johnson’s Basketball. Most notably, the NES version featured support for up to four players.

First Impressions, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network, Xbox 360, Xbox Live Arcade

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition – Demo Impressions

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He's on fire!

When I was young I played a ton of NBA Hangtime on my Super Nintendo, I loved it. I’m not that big into sports games, but NBA Hangtime’s fast-paced and exaggerated take on the sport was very fun. After doing a little research a year or two ago, I realized that NBA Hangtime was developed by Midway, the same developer behind the super popular NBA Jam. This alleviated the grief I had whenever I’d hear people callout NBA Jam so fondly, but not NBA Hangtime.

I guess once Midway stopped developing the series (and created NBA Hangtime) the series went through a long period of staleness. That changed last year when Electronic Arts released the critically acclaimed NBA Jam for the Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. This year they have a follow-up in NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, a sequel appearing on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. NBA Jam: On Fire Edition was developed by EA Canada and published by EA Sports this week on XBLA and PSN.

The demo only had two teams: the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat, a familiar match up.

These sorts of video games are always better when you have another person so I was lucky that when I decided to play the demo for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, I had a friend over. We only had a few minutes of gameplay so we had to get acquainted with the controls quickly. I was a little overwhelmed at first, but once I realized the movements I should focus on I was much more comfortable. Trying to steal the ball, blocking shots, using turbo, this was all familiar to my friend and I, and it seemed more effective than it used to be.

Once we got used to the controls we became effective at defense, but also offense. We took many jump shots and began learning the timing necessary to hit three pointers. But it’s not NBA Jam without outlandish dunks and On Fire Edition delivers. We saw many different dunks, but they repeated often; we were only able to play as the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat so I wonder if some dunks are character or team specific.

The game looked really nice. The character models looked like their real-world counterparts with the exception of their cartoonish proportions. Everyone had an oversized head which conveyed expressions very well, especially during dunks. The announcer is another memorable part of the past games and again, On Fire Edition doesn’t disappoint.

Okay, now you guys are just showing off.

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition was a riot. My friend and I played three matches; the first was very close, the next game my friend blew me out, but I blew him out in the final game. EA Canada basically took the NBA Jam format and updated everything around it. NBA Jam: On Fire Edition appears to be just as fun as the past games and well worth the fifteen dollar price tag.

Links:

NBA Jam: On Fire Edition
Electronic Arts

In Between Posts

In Between Posts, August 7, 2011

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I’m very happy about last week. I was able to throw a lot of posts up and made progress in the games currently on my docket.

I believe I’m in the final stages of Grandia Xtreme. Before I began playing the game I read a few reviews and one of them mentioned a one hundred floor dungeon. Well, the dungeon I’m currently in seems like it’s going to go on for a long time (there’s been a teleport back to town every five levels so far) and it being the final dungeon would coalesce with where I’m at in the story.

My friend and I also played a couple more hours of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, but we’re still pretty early on in that game.

I think I will write my first impression/review of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP this week. I’ve played it off and on for a month or so now, but it has been frustrating me recently and I’m going to write about it and be done with it. Although I’ll probably play it when I’m bored in the future…

I began playing a lot of Halo 3 last week. I remembered I recently renewed my Xbox Live Gold and began playing it with my friend. We also played a good deal of NBA Jam on the Sega CD and that game is awesome!

So I should post something about Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP this week, and we’ll see what else.