NBA Jam

NBA Jam Description

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Cabinet Information

Cheats, Tricks and Bugs

• MJT Mar 22 - Mark Turmell, lead designer (and the most powerful character in the game)
• SAL Feb 1 - Sal DiVita, artist
• SL_ Jun 24 - Shawn Liptak, programmer
• TWG Dec 7 - Tony Goskie, animator
• RJR Jan 17 - Jamie Rivett, programmer
• WIL Jan 1 - Willie "Air" Morris, player model
• HOW Jul 15 - Stpehen Howard, player model
• SNO Jan 3 - Sheridan Oursler, Midway staffer

  Since Mark Turmell is a Detroit Pistons fan, he sweetened the arcade code to give them a slight advantage over their regional rivals, the Chicago Bulls. Turmell said in an interview, "If it boiled down to a last-second shot, forget about it -- the Bulls would never score."

  Conversion

  The NBA Jam hardware became the cornerstone for Midway's action sports games. This cabinet can be upgraded to NBA Jam Tournament Edition, NBA Hangtime or Maximum Hangtime, Open Ice 2-on-2 Challenge, NFL Blitz and its two upgrades, and NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC. (Blitz and Showtime use 49-way joysticks.) This cabinet will also run 4-player JAMMA boards by other manufacturers (e.g. Captain America, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many more).

  Game Introduction

  Players choose an NBA team, each with two or three superstar players (or at least their digitized faces), and play a side-scrolling basketball game, split into four quarters (each new 3:00 quarter is a buy-in). Players can also enter their initials to keep track of their progress, which encouraged repeat business. In addition to high-flying dunks and rainbow three-pointers, players can push each other to the ground without being called for fouls -- much like Midway's earlier game, Arch Rivals.

  Game Play

  If any one player scores three consective baskets, he or she is considered "on fire" -- a fire animation accompanies each shot, the peron's Turbo meter does not diminish, goaltending is never called, and his or her accuracy goes way up. This continues until a player on the opposite team scores a basket, or until the computer decides the hot streak has gone on too long.

  Miscellaneous

  RELATED: NBA Jam Extreme (Acclaim)

  VAPS Arcade Census

  GAMES OWNED, WANTED, or FOR SALE BY MEMBERS OF THE VIDEO ARCADE PRESERVATION SOCIETY

  Very Common - There are 112 known instances of NBA Jam owned by one of our 900 members. Of these, 24 of them are original dedicated machines, 17 of them are conversions in which game circuit boards (and possibly cabinet graphics) have been placed in (and on) another game cabinet, and 71 of them are only circuit boards which a collector could put into a generic case if desired.
  
  Of the 57,121 video games (3,420 unique) tracked by the Video Game Preservation Society, this game ranks a 52 on a scale out of 100 (100 = most commonly seen, 1=least common) in popularity based on ownership records.

  Wanted - There are 5 VAPS members currently looking for NBA Jam. There are 2 VAPS members looking for NBA Jam board sets.

  For Sale - There are 2 VAPS members with NBA Jam machines for sale. There are 2 VAPS members with extra NBA Jam circuit boards for sale. VAPS members are totally independent of VAPS and the International Arcade Museum, and we are unable to recommend, endorce, or guarantee any person or company selling games or game parts.

  Rarity is NOT necessarily an indication of value. Some common games show up as very rare here because collectors don't want them (they are common because arcade operators might be sitting on tons of them in warehouses), while some fairly scarce games are grabbed by collectors every time they show up. Additionally, some games made in the last 5 years are still making money for operators and are thus not yet affordable to the typical collector. For a clue to value, compare how many people have this game vs. how many people want this game and then click on the eBay links to help determine an accurate price range.

  Technical

  There are seperate connectors on PCB for the third and fourth player controls. The same hardware is used for this games as in other games of this era, like Mortal Kombat. A seperate audio board is required for sound.

  Trivia

  NBA Jam was the first licensed sports coin-op video game ever. Originally, the NBA was not keen on the idea, as they did not want the wholesome NBA logo to be seen in "seedy" coin-op locations like bars or strip joints. However, once the Midway team showed them some preliminary footage of the game, they were thrilled and gave it a green light. The success of "Jam" paved the way for future officially-licensed sports arcade games.

  During its original arcade run, NBA Jam earned profits of $1 billion dollars -- roughly three times the take of the movie Jurassic Park!

  The high-flying dunks were performed by Willie Morris Jr., a bouncer at a Chicago club. Morris has returned to do motion capture/video tape work for Midway's other two basketball games as well.

  Due to his seperate and expensive licensing agreement, Michael Jordan is not in the game, and has not appeared in any Midway basketball coin-op to date.

  The game was a big hit with the players themselves -- Shawn Kemp and Shaquille O'Neal own or owned machines. After the success of the first game, Gary Payton sent his photos to Mark Turmell and asked to be put into the next game!

  The addition of the designers as secret players was merely an in-joke with the design staff, but ultimately became a huge part of the game's appeal and earnings. "We had to chop the heads off the models we videotaped to put the real NBA plauyers' heads on," said Turmell in a 1994 interview with SLAM magazine. "So we thought, 'Shoot, we might as well paste our own heads on there, too.' It was supposed to be just for us when we play at home or in the office -- we did not intend for it to become a selling point. But it did." Turmell's own secret character is "tall, I'm as fast as Spud Webb and I can shoot as good as Pipped."

  There were rumors about the cheerleaders being playable characters in the original Jam. On the record, Turmell said they are in there, but their codes were intentionally complex and their existence did not please the NBA, so the information has never been released. To date, no valid codes to play as female characters have been found. However, there are cheerleader codes for NBA Jam TE.

  Since the name "NBA Jam" is owned and controlled by the NBA, Acclaim later aquired the license and made a 3D coin-op version, NBA Jam Extreme, which was not successful. Acclaim still uses the "Jam" name for its line of home console NBA games.

  The original NBA Jam cabinets with the ver 1.0 code contains a secret Battlezone-style that can be played without using money! This secret was deemed unethical by many of the video game magazines of the time and magazines like EGM and Gamepro we specifically asked not to publish this code, both magazines agreed and to this date it is the only video game code that is considered "taboo" by the press.

  This mini-game was removed in the next update of the machine code.

  eBay Listings

  Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for the NBA Jam Videogame machine and items related to it.
  
  Click here to automatically search eBay's Arcade, Jukebox, and Pinball categories for machines and parts made by Midway.

  Alternatively, check out the IAM/KLOV custom report of the hottest coin-op machines on eBay, powered by Ace.com (updated throughoutthe day).
  

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  Legacy

  1. NBA Jam
  2. NBA Jam Tournament Edition
  3. NBA Hangtime
  4. NBA Maximum Hangtime
  5. NBA Showtime - NBA On NBC