Any guy who had a childhood worth remembering indulged in the greatness that was NBA Jam. It was a sports video game with such simplicity; 2 on 2 basketball, no fouls, and dunking in all formats was strongly encouraged. Picking your duo and mashing your fingers on the controller against your friends for ultimate supremacy is a nostalgic moment that many of us remember fondly. Since I miss both my childhood and the NBA, I decided to do an interesting spin on both: The creation of NBA Jam: The Next Generation Rosters. Yeah, I know they did a re-make of the game, but it’s mere existence is an insult to it’s much more exalted 16 bit counterpart, so I pretend like it was never made. However, there are two important stipulations that make these rosters much more interesting
Stumbled across this beauty of a series yesterday and was thoroughly impressed. Frankly, I'm not sure anyone has ever spent this much time contemplating and entirely fictional sequel to a classic video game, which, coincidentally already has a sequel, only it failed horribly to recapture the magic from its glory days.
I'm not going to give you the rankings or anything, don't want any spoilers, so check out 30-21, 20-11, and 10-1 if you want to see the entire lists, suffice to say its one of the most complete blog posts I've seen in a while, much more thorough than anything I throw together during my breakfast/blogging brainstorm and final draft 30 mins each morning. This is the kind of blogger I need working here, someone to work on the big picture items while I toil away with my usual posts.
That said, I'm rather disappointed that no where in this 3 part Epic were any bonus players you could unlock mentioned. I mean that was a huge part to the original NBA Jam. Seems like a pretty drastic oversight for an otherwise fantastic blog.
My top three I'd like to see as hidden bonus players, couple of rules, 1) no current players, 2) You're seeing them in their absolute prime:
1. POTUS Obama - This is pretty obvious, dude has already balled with UNC, makes his Final Four picks on Sportscenter each year, and to be blunt, seems more concerned with perfecting his J than with our nation's economy.
2. Anfernee Hardaway - I just want to see him in his prime, pre-knee blowout, one more time. This is a selfish pick that presumably no one will agree with, but no player captured pre-puberty CW's imagination more than Penny. Just ahead of his time in every facet of the game, even when it came to Puppet based shoe commercials. I mean come on Lebron, Kobe, guys couldn't even get your own advertising schtick?
