Game:

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition (1995)

Category:

Review

Duration: 1:50:57

21,870 views

962

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: Steve Snake told me in a follow up email after watching this video, Kirby did in fact convert the Rob Northen code to PS1 as Kirby explained in the video. Snake said Rob would not have had a PS1 dev kit yet. He believes everything else he said about the code being applied to Saturn is accurate. He also said this: “One thing not mentioned was, the animation trick was used in all the console ports. The reason it worked so well is that there are only enough actual animations to update every 4th frame anyway. So apart from a possible 3 frame delay when you change directions, it still looks like the original.” He also said ALL Jam ports (except Jaguar and GameBoy) were made in the UK.

Chris Kirby responded in the comment sections here saying yes he did in fact convert the Rob Northen code, and that he remembers leaving Iguana UK between the release of Jam TE and College Slam. Slam came out in February 1996, about four months after TE’s Saturn port.

Welcome to... NBA JAAAM!!! Remember when I said this would be not as long as the Corpse Killer video? Turns out — that was a lie. This rabbit hole took me through four interviews, unearthed source material, and the bizarre relationship the NBA Jam arcade board may have with home appliances. On top of all this, new context on the Saturn vs PlayStation developer war is revealed within this tale of porting a basketball game to fifth gen hardware. Grab some popcorn, or tea, or maybe even some Jolt cola for what is the longest video I have ever edited... so far.


Some material referenced in this video:

NBA Jam (The Book) by Reyan Ali. It has DOZENS of interviews and loads of rich retro game history. If you are a fan of well researched arcade lore, then you will enjoy this book. If you are a big fan of NBA Jam, then you MUST read it. Big thanks to Ali for appearing in this video and helping with previously unearthed source material.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YSZZXVQ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Mark Turmell, Sal Divita and Tim Kitzrow speak at GDC 18:
https://youtu.be/Dp3Os2kk6V4

Gamehut explains Rob Northen Compression:
https://youtu.be/IehwV2K60r8

Modern Vintage Gamer digs into the rubber banding in the source code of NBA Jam:
https://youtu.be/Kyk2s4HTPpk

Big shoutout and thank you to Tit0 for agreeing to be interviewed. Please check out his channel, Hall of Game. Start with his NBA Jam video, "What if NBA Jam was Real?"
https://youtu.be/JUhS_ufbdbo

The man behind the camera is main man Jordan Ryan, of GBATemp. You should check out his articles and reviews here:
https://opencritic.com/critic/2536/jordan-ryan

Tracklist: https://pastebin.com/raw/cMCyq7NR

———
This episode of PandaMonium Reviews was brought to you in part by Sega Saturn Shiro! I'm a part of the podcast crew and it is rad: https://www.segasaturnshiro.com/

Shiro’s YouTube channel is also rad: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfTSQ67HNTG7ENRNU_XGFUA

Welcome to the series where I review every single Sega Saturn game released in North America by order of release date. I made a spreadsheet with all the games satakore.com has as American releases, listing them off by order of release date, including sources. All the games are narrowed down to the day they came out in the U.S. Big thanks to Pimpeaux for the years of research help. (Her channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/Pimpeaux)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15tfzGsJZ08Ms_qneV7OYxPcqrw8Uu5HpSTqA_VeBbvI/edit?usp=sharing

Twitter is COOL:
https://twitter.com/PandaMoniumGR

00:00 Intro
06:05 From the Streets to the Cathode Rays
13:09 A Practice of Perfection
23:01 Perfecting Perfection
30:25 Putting Iguanas in England
39:58 Kirby's Basketball Land
51:51 Head to Head
01:08:52 Understanding the A.I.
01:18:13 Printing Even More Money
01:22:46 Post Game Report
01:29:58 Wisdom of the Snake
01:38:22 Overtime
01:45:04 Closing out a Good Season
01:48:33 Credits
01:49:52 Post Credits

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