There was a time that playing sports games in video arcades was the cool thing to do. I was well out of my high school years and wasting time through college spending nights at the local student center, eating up pizza, looking at pretty girls, slugging a beer or two and then partaking with some of the frats in a game of Midway's NBA Jam. At the time, NBA Jam was an endearing arcade experience, made up of exciting arcade-style gameplay and thrill-a-minute dunks, where players flew up in the air with the greatest of ease and came down with the mightiness of thunder gods as they racked the rim. The series has taken a number of directions since then, with Acclaim eventually taking the helm and releasing the somewhat faulted NBA Jam Extreme. But then the big nail in the coffin supposedly, hit with the release of a "serious" NBA Jam game for N64, one of the worst basketball games for the system. One would have to wonder if Acclaim would ever recover from that stumble.

Well, miraculously they have crawled out of the pit, somewhat, with the release of NBA Jam for the PlayStation 2. They have smartly gone back to the original formula of arcade basketball, allowing players to bolt up and down the court with turbo, blocking, and offensive passing and scoring options in their possession in typical 3-on-3 style. But the question is, is it too late?

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy a good game of NBA Jam back on the SNES now and then, if only to have Bill Clinton face off against Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys with unlock codes. But you may have noticed that basketball games have evolved greatly since then, with great simulation efforts as the forthcoming ESPN NBA Basketball and NBA Live 2003, as well as the definitive arcade b-ball experience with EA Sports Big's NBA Street Vol. 2. Could NBA Jam hold up with the best of them?

Let's first cover the graphics in Jam. Acclaim has built a nice new engine, instead of recycling the abysmal isometric camera from NBA Jam Extreme, and it moves smoothly without too much slowdown. Some of the visual effects are nice, particularly when your players end up "on fire," scoring three shots in a row for their team. Some of the courts look great, and the crowd details seem to be pretty solid. However, animations seem to be all over the map, with typical running players looking like they've eaten too many beans for lunch and are suffering from diarrhea. But when they dunk, man, they look like they've got ferocity. You know it's almost a bit unbalanced. The overall appearance is friendly to the eye, but nothing I'd call "groundbreaking."

The sound options are a bit limited in terms of sound effects, but listening for sound effects in a game like NBA Jam is like listening to a Limp Bizkit album for artistic value; there's really no use. However, to its credit NBA Jam does have the thrilling announcing stylings of Tim Kitzrow, the original NBA Jam announcer, and he rocks the house with plenty of quotes all over the place, including "Boomshakalaka", the quote that made the game what it was back in the early 90's. Granted, some of the quotes grow a bit stale over time, but fit the game nicely. There's also the addition of 70's funkmaster legend Bootsy Collins, who not only adds a bit of musical flavor to the game with three songs on the soundtrack, but also has a great commentary style in the 70's Legends mode, which we'll cover shortly. He's funny as hell and still knows how to keep us funky. The game does have some good licensed music, including Cameo and Kool and the Gang ("Celebration", but of course), but it doesn't use it nearly enough. Oh well, you can only take so much Smokey Robinson anyway.

Gameplay-wise, the game is pure NBA Jam, with good offensive play between turbo, pass, and shoot, and defensive play with turbo, steal, and block. It's old-school all the way, complete with some fantastic airborne dunks; although a couple, like the Egyptian dunk, look downright silly. Yeah, this is a perfect time to be walking like an Egyptian, flying and scoring two for the team. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer the martial arts poses. The game also has a "hot meter" going for it. If your team does well enough, hot spots activate on the court, where you can score some slick-looking super dunks to get your team going. There's also alley-oops and some decent defensive plays, but that's really about it. The game does have a good challenge to it, although like NBA Jam games in the past, the computer has an annoying way to build points up in the closing seconds to try to take the game away from you. You'd think that Acclaim would've removed this little annoyance by now, or maybe they wanted to keep it in to keep you from dominating the game too much. Whatever, it just gets a little frustrating when the Denver Nuggets are trailing by 12 to the 76er's and all of a sudden have more talent than they possess and come back.

The game has a number of modes to help it along. You can challenge up to three friends in multiplayer mode, and that's really the best way to enjoy this game, with a bunch of friends. You can also tackle Jam mode and challenge the entire NBA league with your chosen team to become the champions. The real treat lies in Legends mode, where you take on all sorts of NBA classic players from the 70's and 80's. Take on the 70's matches and you'll get some great looking players, like classic Larry Bird, along with the commentary stylings of good ol' Bootsy. The game also features a Jam store where you can buy unlockable goodies (courts, outfits) as well as new options for play, including "no goal tending" which, trust me, you'll want to buy.

So, with all this, can NBA Jam compete? Sorry, but the answer's no. Acclaim's kept the formula old-school but the fact remains is that today's basketball market has evolved beyond old-school, and Acclaim now needs to take the step beyond and modify the game to keep up with EA and Sega; but without going overboard and turning the game into something it's not. It can be done, just a little tweaking here and there would do the trick. Also, would it have killed Acclaim to add online play? This would've been a major weapon against NBA Street Vol. 2 and would've made for some interesting regatherings of frat boys of old across the US, but alas, it did not happen.

Still, better to be somewhere on the middle of the stairway to basketball greatness than still in the gutter with a simulated mess. Acclaim's to be commended for re-visualizing the NBA Jam process, and seeing it back to at least a respectable level. But now it's time for them to take the game into overdrive and make it a competitor, make it something worthy of Saturday night beer-and-pizza gatherings again. For now, NBA Jam's worth at least a rental, if only to check out some old-school flavors and get your Bootsy fix. Yes, I said Bootsy fix.