NBA Jam Tournament Edition is a game I am sure most arcade sports fans know. It was one of those games that sold well and was great for parties. Who would have thought making a basketball game more action based would be a hit? Midway of course. There was plenty of reason to like NBA Jam Tournament Edition. More characters, improved graphics, more of just about everything, something Capcom was stingy with when it came to their Street Fighter franchise. I am not bitter, just pointing out the facts here. Anyhow, back to the game at hand. It just received a major update by fans, like a stupid number of new things.
Born in arcades, kept alive by fans at home
NBA Jam Tournament Edition was not a true sequel to the original NBA Jam. It was more like Midway’s version of “Super Street Fighter II” and the myriad of additional words Capcom would later add. It was basically the original game with new additional content.
Fans have taken that base game and updated it to NBA Jam 2k22 Tournament Edition. What does this entail? Let’s look at the update list –
First, this is using version 2.0 of the Mattrizzle Player Engine which allows for more changes beyond just roster updates. Graphics are updated, fonts, palettes, etc. This improves the courts and player sprites, bringing everything closer to the arcade original.
Next, you can now break backboards, a feature that was removed for some reason. No worries, fans have put it back in.
New Spectate mode is available. If you are a fan of Tecmo Bowl, you know this is a mode that will allow you to simply watch a game. Great for those fantasy matchups that you wish would happen in real life but never did, or never could.
More additions:
- Battle from worst to first, based on the latest season standings and playoffs.
- Injury stats max out at a whopping 50. No shove, no love!
- Konami codes from previous hacks get you easy access to expanded rosters, plus the special teams.
- Secret players are accessible in campaign mode, with their records available to save.
- Cycle both forward AND backward through players on the team select screen.
- “Greyscaled” uniform portraits allow for more seamless future roster swaps.
- Updated court colors, uniform colors, logos, and banners are all over the game.
- New and extended announcer sound clips put more Kitzrow in your ears.
- Bug fixes from past hacks keep the pushin’ and shovin’ “professional”.
Fans have not stopped there
There is a ton of additional content such as an MSU-1 mod (better music for one), and bonus content such as the Tampa Bay Raptors being sent back to Toronto for quarantine.Want to check out NBA Jam 2k22 Tournament Edition for yourself? Head over to ROMHacking.net to grab the patch. I cannot link to the original ROM so well, Google is your friend.