NBA Jam, which featured 2-on-2 basketball, is one of the first real playable basketball arcade games, and is also one of the first sports games to feature NBA-licensed teams and players, and their real digitized likenesses.
A key feature of NBA Jam is the exaggerated nature of the play – players jump many times above their own height, making slam dunks that defied both human capabilities and the laws of physics. There are no fouls, free throws, or violations except goaltending and 24-second violations. This meant the player is able to freely shove or elbow his opponent out of the way. Additionally, the game has an “on fire” feature, where if one player makes three baskets in a row, he becomes “on fire” and has unlimited turbo, no goaltending, and increased shooting ability, until the other team scores (or the player has scored four consecutive baskets while “on fire”).
The game is filled with easter eggs, special features and players activated by initials or button/joystick combinations. For example, pressing A five times and right five times on any Sega Genesis controller would activate “Super Clean Floors”. This feature would cause characters to fall if they ran too fast or changed direction too quickly. And players can enter special codes to unlock hidden players, ranging from US President Bill Clinton to Hugo the Charlotte Hornets mascot. Early versions of the sequel, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, allows players to put in codes that allow people to play as characters from Mortal Kombat, but the NBA, uneasy over the controversies surrounding Mortal Kombat‘s levels of violence, forced Midway to remove these characters in later updates. On the arcade machine, there is also a hidden ‘tank’ game that allows you to run around a 3D wireframe field. In order to access this mode however, you were required to be able to toggle the on/off switch located behind the machine. While the game was powering back on, you would hold Up + all buttons on player 1 and Down + all buttons on player 2.
The documentation provided appears to be the game manual! Grab it HERE!
