NBA Jam

Boomshakalaka! A single word is enough to trigger an avalanche of memories in anyone who grew up in the nineties next to an arcade cabinet or a console. NBA Jam is not a basketball simulation, it is its explosive, exaggerated and utterly unbridled celebration. Two on two, no fouls, no whistled travels and jumps so high that the stars' heads literally catch fire.

The gameplay rests on speed, spectacle and instant reward. The game abandons the rulebook and instead aims for a pure show: wild dunks, mid-air somersaults and the famous heated-up player mechanic, where after three baskets in a row the ball bursts into flames and your shots become all but unstoppable. This simplicity combined with the spectacle turned NBA Jam into an arcade phenomenon and one of the highest-grossing coin-op games of its era.

Originally an arcade title, it was created by the studio Midway with Mark Turmell as its designer. NBA Jam capitalized on an official NBA license, so real league stars took the court in cartoonishly inflated proportions. The game also became famous for its many hidden characters and jokes, among them the inclusion of the then-current American presidential couple as unlockable players.

The versions for Super Nintendo and other home systems brought the arcade experience into living rooms and became the backbone of many a gaming night. Commentary lines like He's on fire or the aforementioned Boomshakalaka etched themselves into pop culture so deeply that even people who never played the game still quote them today. Few sports titles ever left a comparable linguistic mark.

NBA Jam defined an entire sub-genre of over-the-top, two-on-two arcade sports and inspired a host of successors as well as later remakes and reboots. Its legacy is simple but powerful: it proved that a sport in a video game doesn't have to be faithful in order to be fun. It just has to be unpredictable, fast and full of show.

Why play: For timeless two-on-two arcade fun, flaming basketballs and one of the best party experiences any sports game has ever offered.