Nostalgia Firday: SNES College Slam

Back in the heyday of the SNES, one game ruled the basketball scene: NBA Jam TE. This was before NBA Live dominated the scene because people just weren’t interested in having realistic stat tracking and game play mixed in with low quality 16 bit graphics. NBA Live was known as NBA Showdown at the time, and that’s when gamers realized that if you want to portray realism in every sense, graphics had to be up to par too. That’s why silly games like NBA Jam were created.

If you don’t know what NBA Jam is, I feel very very sorry for you. What kind of childhood did you have? You probably were that kid that couldn’t score an SNES because a) your parents wouldn’t let you buy one, or b) your parents were total dicks and forbade you from such childhood discoveries such as video games, temporary tattoos, and those gums that looked like cigarettes.

NBA Jam also capitalized on the on going crazy of arcade styles sports. It paved the way for such classics as NBA Blitz and Daytona USA, sports games that in no sense of the way portray realism. I highly doubt at the real Dayton speedway, if you crashed, your car would just harmlessly flip in the air and you’d only have a few dents to show for it.

NBA Jam was a great game too. 40 ft slams, balls being lit on fire, elbows being thrown around like it's a Lakers-Suns game and Raja Bell was in, yup, the game had it all. A little known fact though is that Midway and Acclaim, trying to capitalize on the slamma jamma craze, released somewhat of a sequel called College Slam.

Basically, College Slam was NBA Jam with different teams. Video game companies used to do this a lot, you know. I can remember the countless versions of Street Fighter that were essentially the same game, only to be released as a completely new game. Turbo edition my ass. College Slam let you choose from 32 different teams, and low and behold, Cal was one of them!

If you’re familiar with the NBA Jam format, College Slam is no different. You get two players on the court and its no holds barred. Thus, you had a choice of 2 Cal stars to choose from. However, just like every other NCAA game out there, players’ names were not licensed, thus you had to fill it in yourself. This had its ups and downs. The ups being you could fill your Cal squad with a Cal legends team with players such as Jason Kidd, Shareef Abdul Raheem, um, Rod Benson. Or you could be totally immature and put in a bunch of fake names like Ass Wipe, Amanda Hugnkiss, Hugh Jass, etc. If you’re like me, with the mind of a 10 year old, you’ll choose the latter.

College Slam in every respect was a fun game, but it was no NBA Jam. It just wasn’t fun knowing you couldn’t dominate everyone with the likes of Horace Grant and Latrell Sprewell (pre choking days). Oh well, it’s worth a check out if you have the opportunity.

For those of you expecting a Cal post, expect one Monday. That is all.