IGN Review 9/10 editors choice award
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/119/1197452p1.html
8.0 Presentation
Streamlined menus make it easy to dip in and out of multiplayer matches, the Jam Store and more.
8.5 Graphics
Fluid animations plus neat graphical effects that really pop - right down to the flaming footprints you leave behind when you're on fire.
8.5 Sound
A whole bunch of hilarious new lines for the commentator and a far more varied list of Jam Trax than in last year's game.
9.0 Gameplay
Same-screen four-player gaming doesn't get much better than this, plus there's plenty to do if you're playing solo.
9.0 Lasting Appeal
Near limitless replayability with friends, but even on your own there's a healthy number of challenges to complete.
9.0
OVERALL
Amazing
(out of 10)
If you take a bowl of fruit, boil it down to chunks of pulp and add a little sugar, you get jam. Similarly, if you take the sport of basketball, boil it down to chunks of dunks, douse it in kerosene and set it on fire you get NBA Jam, arguably the greatest arcade sports series in the history of awesomeness.
The latest, downloadable-only addition to the franchise is NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, which builds upon the foundation laid by 2010's series-rebirthing NBA Jam, yet this is a far greater expansion on the formula than you may have been expecting – particularly at this price point. Rather than merely refreshing the rosters and adding a few new one-liners for the wisecracking commentator, the developers at EA Canada have made a surprising number of gameplay-balancing tweaks and additions, as well as overhauling the career mode and throwing a far more compelling unlock system into the mix.
Check Out the NBA Jam: On Fire Edition Launch Trailer
The most obvious changes have occurred on court. For starters there's the new 'team fire' ability, which is activated by nailing three consecutive alley-oops before the opposition can score. The difference between team fire and old-fashioned solo fire is that aside from the fact that both of your players are momentarily endowed with unlimited turbo and the ability to throw down ferocious rim-rockers from stratospheric heights, the fire isn't easily extinguished by your opponents breaking your scoring run. Instead, you get 20 seconds of team fire that can only be broken by your opponent nailing a single alley-oop of their own.
A near-guaranteed period of fire may make team fire seem like the no-brainer option to go for at all times except for one caveat: alley-oops are now incredibly vulnerable to blocks. Unless the lane is clear you'll likely be knocked out of your opponent's house faster than a horny teenager caught with the farmer's daughter, so trying to get both your players on fire is a risky proposition that requires plenty of off-the-ball shoving to minimize your chances of being denied the basket.
The other gameplay additions are more subtle, but still very much welcome. With the ball in your hands you can now counter a defensive shove by performing a pivot, which throws your opponent off balance and gives you a brief window to drive. In single-player there are also dedicated buttons to both call for an alley-oop or direct your teammate to shove the opposition player guarding you, and the game defaults to Tag Mode which means you can switch control between players at will rather than being locked into one – hugely beneficial if you're shooting a fadeaway for three and you want to switch to your teammate in close to crash the boards.
Overall the gameplay just feels a lot tighter than in last year's release – likely because this one has been created specifically for 360 and PS3, rather than being ported from a Wii version.
"They call him 3DFX because that was Unreal!"
Fans of the previous game's Remix Tour might be a little disappointed as it's been nixed for On Fire Edition: no more half court matches, no more Mario Kart-esque power-ups, no more boss battles. Personally, I'm glad this decision was made – EA Canada has clearly put its energy into fine-tuning the core NBA Jam gameplay rather than cluttering the experience with the decidedly un-NBA Jam game modes featured in last year's Remix. Besides, there is an option for DLC in the game's menu so perhaps some of the better Remix modes like the Backboard Smash game type could be offered as additional content at a later date.
Even without the Remix modes, the career mode is still a diverse experience. It's dubbed 'Road Trip' and it has you working your way through the six divisions, beating bronze, silver and gold challenges for each team. Bronze challenges are all straight two-on-two games on the easiest difficulty, with silver and gold not only getting progressively harder but also mixing up the individual match settings and forcing you to adapt your play style – one game might change the value of dunks to three points and three-pointers to two, another might inflate the value of three-pointers to four points and drop dunks down to one.
The best feature of Road Trip is that it doesn't lock you into using the one team for its entirety. You can switch teams at any time and any progress you make will count towards the one overarching completion tally - plus almost everything you do will be rewarded with Jam Bucks that you can spend unlocking teams, players, cheats and more.
Once you've beaten all the gold challenges in a single division you unlock platinum challenges, which are played against ruthless Jambots that record your best moves and throw them back at you. The developers have incorporated the R.E.A.L. A.I. engine used by EA's Fight Night series, and it works extremely well here - if you can't find a game with friends at home or online, the R.E.A.L. A.I. is intended to present the most human alternative possible. And it does, although coupled with the A.I.'s generally superior spacial awareness and magnet-like ability to snare rebounds and loose balls, it's closer to superhuman to be honest, but if you're a Jam veteran and you're after a challenge then you'll definitely find one here.
"FYI this is an IYF: In Your Face!"
Yet NBA Jam isn't meant to be solely played against a CPU, it's intended to be an experience shared by four players on the one couch talking trash and backing it up with more violently delivered facials than at an earthquake-stricken beauty parlour. This experience is as present and as enjoyable as ever - online play is there if you need it (and fleshed out with all manner of stat tracking and leaderboards) but same-screen multiplayer is still where NBA Jam shines brightest.
For the price of a few beers (or one beer if you're at an airport), you get all of the above plus weekly online challenges in the Jam Arena, stacks of secret characters to unlock including the Seattle Supersonics, internet meme-inspired Lolcats and Faith from Mirror's Edge, plus plenty of new 'Razzle Dazzle' moves to really rub your opponent's nose in it when you're in front. Yet even without all the extras, the fact remains that there are few more satisfying moves in the world of gaming than a swirling, spinning, on-fire dunk in NBA Jam that leaves the backboard glass as a jagged jigsaw puzzle scattered across the hardwood. If you're yet to come on board with the series, there's never been a better time.
Closing Comments
That this is the definitive version of NBA Jam is undeniable: it plays better, looks better and lasts better than any of the previous games in the series' history. The fact that it's a mere 1200 Microsoft Points only makes it an even more irresistible proposition – you couldn't get more bang for your bucks outside of a halftime fireworks show in Milwaukee. Just how On Fire is it? To return to the analogy that opened this review: this Jam is so hot that if you were to spread it on bread it would turn it into toast. Buy it.
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/119/1197452p1.html
8.0 Presentation
Streamlined menus make it easy to dip in and out of multiplayer matches, the Jam Store and more.
8.5 Graphics
Fluid animations plus neat graphical effects that really pop - right down to the flaming footprints you leave behind when you're on fire.
8.5 Sound
A whole bunch of hilarious new lines for the commentator and a far more varied list of Jam Trax than in last year's game.
9.0 Gameplay
Same-screen four-player gaming doesn't get much better than this, plus there's plenty to do if you're playing solo.
9.0 Lasting Appeal
Near limitless replayability with friends, but even on your own there's a healthy number of challenges to complete.
9.0
OVERALL
Amazing
(out of 10)
If you take a bowl of fruit, boil it down to chunks of pulp and add a little sugar, you get jam. Similarly, if you take the sport of basketball, boil it down to chunks of dunks, douse it in kerosene and set it on fire you get NBA Jam, arguably the greatest arcade sports series in the history of awesomeness.
The latest, downloadable-only addition to the franchise is NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, which builds upon the foundation laid by 2010's series-rebirthing NBA Jam, yet this is a far greater expansion on the formula than you may have been expecting – particularly at this price point. Rather than merely refreshing the rosters and adding a few new one-liners for the wisecracking commentator, the developers at EA Canada have made a surprising number of gameplay-balancing tweaks and additions, as well as overhauling the career mode and throwing a far more compelling unlock system into the mix.
Check Out the NBA Jam: On Fire Edition Launch Trailer
The most obvious changes have occurred on court. For starters there's the new 'team fire' ability, which is activated by nailing three consecutive alley-oops before the opposition can score. The difference between team fire and old-fashioned solo fire is that aside from the fact that both of your players are momentarily endowed with unlimited turbo and the ability to throw down ferocious rim-rockers from stratospheric heights, the fire isn't easily extinguished by your opponents breaking your scoring run. Instead, you get 20 seconds of team fire that can only be broken by your opponent nailing a single alley-oop of their own.
A near-guaranteed period of fire may make team fire seem like the no-brainer option to go for at all times except for one caveat: alley-oops are now incredibly vulnerable to blocks. Unless the lane is clear you'll likely be knocked out of your opponent's house faster than a horny teenager caught with the farmer's daughter, so trying to get both your players on fire is a risky proposition that requires plenty of off-the-ball shoving to minimize your chances of being denied the basket.
The other gameplay additions are more subtle, but still very much welcome. With the ball in your hands you can now counter a defensive shove by performing a pivot, which throws your opponent off balance and gives you a brief window to drive. In single-player there are also dedicated buttons to both call for an alley-oop or direct your teammate to shove the opposition player guarding you, and the game defaults to Tag Mode which means you can switch control between players at will rather than being locked into one – hugely beneficial if you're shooting a fadeaway for three and you want to switch to your teammate in close to crash the boards.
Overall the gameplay just feels a lot tighter than in last year's release – likely because this one has been created specifically for 360 and PS3, rather than being ported from a Wii version.
"They call him 3DFX because that was Unreal!"
Fans of the previous game's Remix Tour might be a little disappointed as it's been nixed for On Fire Edition: no more half court matches, no more Mario Kart-esque power-ups, no more boss battles. Personally, I'm glad this decision was made – EA Canada has clearly put its energy into fine-tuning the core NBA Jam gameplay rather than cluttering the experience with the decidedly un-NBA Jam game modes featured in last year's Remix. Besides, there is an option for DLC in the game's menu so perhaps some of the better Remix modes like the Backboard Smash game type could be offered as additional content at a later date.
Even without the Remix modes, the career mode is still a diverse experience. It's dubbed 'Road Trip' and it has you working your way through the six divisions, beating bronze, silver and gold challenges for each team. Bronze challenges are all straight two-on-two games on the easiest difficulty, with silver and gold not only getting progressively harder but also mixing up the individual match settings and forcing you to adapt your play style – one game might change the value of dunks to three points and three-pointers to two, another might inflate the value of three-pointers to four points and drop dunks down to one.
The best feature of Road Trip is that it doesn't lock you into using the one team for its entirety. You can switch teams at any time and any progress you make will count towards the one overarching completion tally - plus almost everything you do will be rewarded with Jam Bucks that you can spend unlocking teams, players, cheats and more.
Once you've beaten all the gold challenges in a single division you unlock platinum challenges, which are played against ruthless Jambots that record your best moves and throw them back at you. The developers have incorporated the R.E.A.L. A.I. engine used by EA's Fight Night series, and it works extremely well here - if you can't find a game with friends at home or online, the R.E.A.L. A.I. is intended to present the most human alternative possible. And it does, although coupled with the A.I.'s generally superior spacial awareness and magnet-like ability to snare rebounds and loose balls, it's closer to superhuman to be honest, but if you're a Jam veteran and you're after a challenge then you'll definitely find one here.
"FYI this is an IYF: In Your Face!"
Yet NBA Jam isn't meant to be solely played against a CPU, it's intended to be an experience shared by four players on the one couch talking trash and backing it up with more violently delivered facials than at an earthquake-stricken beauty parlour. This experience is as present and as enjoyable as ever - online play is there if you need it (and fleshed out with all manner of stat tracking and leaderboards) but same-screen multiplayer is still where NBA Jam shines brightest.
For the price of a few beers (or one beer if you're at an airport), you get all of the above plus weekly online challenges in the Jam Arena, stacks of secret characters to unlock including the Seattle Supersonics, internet meme-inspired Lolcats and Faith from Mirror's Edge, plus plenty of new 'Razzle Dazzle' moves to really rub your opponent's nose in it when you're in front. Yet even without all the extras, the fact remains that there are few more satisfying moves in the world of gaming than a swirling, spinning, on-fire dunk in NBA Jam that leaves the backboard glass as a jagged jigsaw puzzle scattered across the hardwood. If you're yet to come on board with the series, there's never been a better time.
Closing Comments
That this is the definitive version of NBA Jam is undeniable: it plays better, looks better and lasts better than any of the previous games in the series' history. The fact that it's a mere 1200 Microsoft Points only makes it an even more irresistible proposition – you couldn't get more bang for your bucks outside of a halftime fireworks show in Milwaukee. Just how On Fire is it? To return to the analogy that opened this review: this Jam is so hot that if you were to spread it on bread it would turn it into toast. Buy it.
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