![]() ![]() This will allow one to understand the limitations to any basketball video game, until virtual simulation one day becomes a reality. I think it is important to understand this concept in order to grasp the connection, and disconnection, that we all experience while playing a video game. This piece will examine the emotional impact of the most recent release of this electronic video game series, and the effect it will have on the global game of basketball, emphasizing my experiential history of playing basketball video games in the 90s and looking beyond the year 2020. Many cases could be made to suggest that these two separate items facilitate the engagement of the other, and this phenomenon has reached a summit for the female basketball player as for the first time professional players starring in the WNBA will be featured in NBA 2K20: a supremely incredible moment in time for the entire basketball universe. I realised this once I mastered the pilot controls for dunking – Microsoft Basketball Simulator-style – white chick can’t dunk, man! Only lay it up.However, unlike the paper doll market living by the fashion theme and dying by the Barbie market, the basketball video game market is flourishing, specifically with the NBA and the sport of basketball more broadly. Rooooo-xanne, you don't have to put on the red light! Not only is she named and dressed like a prostitute, I’m pretty sure her stats have been messed with on account of her being both white, and female. And the sexism don’t forget the sexism! Both of these vices are embodied in one character: Roxy. To think this kind of gritty oatmeal ugliness and ‘street’ ‘tude is actually praised in today’s games – it’s boring and cringeworthy! Says 'Chill' to 'Slade': "you as bored as I am, man?" How delightfully 'urban'.Īnd then comes the racism. Said characters are photo-captured Mortal Kombat-style like just about every other awful game of that era. There are exactly three playable characters to choose from – two black guys and a white chick – meaning only three possible match-ups. It’s one-on-one street basketball, so there are only two fleshy sprites to break up the grey. It’s street basketball, so it takes place on a grey concrete half-court with chain-link fences. Don’t say I didn’t try.Īside from those things, Jammit is a rather bland basketball offering. What do I like about the game? Well, I like the funky slap-bass soundtrack, which matches the title quite well I like the fact that there’s a ‘Trash Talk’ setting in the options screen ranging from ‘off’ to ‘some’ to ‘lots’ and that’s about it. Now that I’ve done Jammit the disservice of comparing it to two great Jams, let’s discuss the game on its own merits. Speaking of simulations, dunking in Jammit is about as easy as landing an aircraft in Microsoft Flight Sim. Good simulations of the sport of basketball mayhap, but not good basketball videogames. Basketball videogame aficionados feel free to disagree with me here, but to my mind there hasn’t been a good basketball game since NBA Jam (perhaps with the exception of NBA Hangtime, which was essentially NBA Jam 2). ![]() This is also an unfavourable comparison for any basketball game, recent or otherwise. Upon realising that Jammit is in fact a basketball game, it reminded me of yet another videogame: NBA Jam. Unfortunately for Jammit, it has just damned itself to the seventh level of Videogame Hell simply by being mentioned in the same breath as Toejam & Earl and failing to live up to that gold standard – an unfavourable comparison for many a videogame, and an unfair one, some may say. Those of you who have had the pleasure of playing that game will no doubt understand the reference. A game that, in my humble opinion, is one of the greatest games of all time. The word ‘Jammit’ immediately elicits memories of a game very near and dear to my heart, Toejam & Earl. ![]()
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