With basketball season officially underway, we here at Old School Gamer Magazine down the most influential roundball games of all time. From the first basketball game of all time on the Atari 2600 in 1978 to today, dozens of developers have tried their hand at the genre, but only a select few have been truly influential. Do you know them all?
Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City and Shaq Fu: Sure, there were platformers, but they proved basketball stars were marketable. Basketball stars had their own games before this, but they were always basketball sims. Again, this showed the athletes themselves had star power.
NBA Shootout: Like what 2K sports did with their series and EA did on the Genesis and Super Nintendo, NBA Shootout was the best basketball game on the PlayStation when it was originally released. Fantastic graphics, solid gameplay and an NBA license, Shootout gave the system the early credibility out of the gate it needed.
Double Dribble: Konami has a rich history in basketball games, but most of them are mediocre. The spiritual precursor to NBA Jam, this was a fun game that has stood the test of time.
NBA Court-side With Koby Bryant: Like the aforementioned platformers, this wasn’t a fantastic game, but for Nintendo to take a chance on a basketball game, with virtually no experience in the genre, was a step in the right direction for the genre.
NBA Jam: The king of arcade basketball games and Midway’s cash cow for nearly the entire 90s. With a host of unlockables and fast, fun gameplay, it is truly a classic.
NBA in the Zone II: Konami’s best basketball game, it was fully loaded with options and had great, arcade style gameplay with a sim flavor. The visual look was different than other games on the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation-one at the time as well.
Bulls vs. Lakers: The first true NBA basketball-sim. With all the real players and a host of gameplay modes, Electronic Arts brought the genre to reality.
NBA Live 2000: The best basketball game on the PlayStation-one, this was and still is EA’s best basketball game.
NBA Street: Without NBA Jam, this game never exists. However, it filled a much-needed arcade-style basketball game void on nearly every console. Its success spawned a few mediocre copycats, but overall, the Street series is legendary.
NBA 2K1: Visual Concepts’ baby. This game changed the entire NBA video game landscape. Up until that point, Electronic Arts had a stranglehold on the genre. Nearly a quarter of a century later, the 2K series still reigns supreme.
