Retro Gaming Australia

Prototype collecting website Nintendo Player has unearthed a rather amusing little piece of software which they’ve dubbed NBA Jam XXX.

It’s pretty much the same as the released version of NBA Jam, except that the commentator swears like a sailor.

The game was provided to Nintendo Player anonymously, but a note was included that described how the version of the game came about. “Due to the memory constraints of the 16-bit system, the long strands of voice samples from the classic arcade game had to be modified to fit a Super Nintendo cartridge. Tim Kitzrow, NBA Jam‘s memorable voice-over announcer, was called back into the studio to shorten his calls. During one of these recording sessions, a number of outtakes were saved as a joke, which served as the basis for a special, profanity-filled, in-house-only game–one that, if word ever got out about its existence, could have severely jeopardized Acclaim’s relationship with the NBA league and completely shut down NBA Jam‘s development for good.”

Source: Nintendo Player

Basketball was at the height of its popularity in the mid 1990s – and NBA Jam struck at just the right time to ride the wave of the sport’s success. The home versions were some of Acclaim’s most successful releases in the company’s history.

A mainstay during a misspent youth.

NBA Jam was a case of the right game at the right time. The popularity of basketball was at its peak and NBA Jam let you play as your favourite players (except the then temporarily retired Michael Jordan) and do all kinds of reality breaking dunks and lay ups. This ad is for the home release, which was wildly successful.

The legendary Bock, founder of SMS Power has posted a bunch of images from an unreleased port of NBA Jam for the Master System.

Little is known about the port, other than it appears to have been cancelled in 1994, and offers 2 player capabilities that were left out of the similar-but-actually-released Game Gear port. Bock is led to believe that the port was being created internally at Iguana Entertainment.

The prototype ROM will be circulated in the coming weeks through SMS Power.