NBA Jam: Tournament Edition

NBA Jam: Tournament Edition is an upgraded version of the legendary arcade basketball game that made its name with exaggerated dribbling, a ball catching fire after a run of made shots, and foul-free play under its own loosely NBA-inspired rules. It arrived on the Atari Jaguar in 1995 and became one of the platform's standout sports titles, on a console whose library otherwise barely represented the sports genre at all.

It's played in 2-on-2 pairs, the pace is extremely fast, and the emphasis is on flashy, almost supernatural moves - half-court dunks, jumps across the entire court, and spectacular passes between teammates, accompanied by commentator lines that fans still remember today. Tournament Edition added an expanded roster, adjusted team stats, and several hidden characters compared to the original NBA Jam, boosting replayability especially in tournament matches with friends around a single screen and one extra controller.

On the Jaguar, the game benefited from fast response times and clear graphics, which kept the action feeling smooth even with four characters on screen at once and a ball flying faster than the eye can track. In the console's fairly thin sports lineup, it was one of the few titles that could go head-to-head with versions on rival systems and draw in players who otherwise picked up a Jaguar mainly for its action games.

Why play it: NBA Jam: Tournament Edition ranks among the most entertaining arcade basketball games of the 1990s, and on the Jaguar it delivers fun that holds up just as well today as it did on release.