The evolution of basketball video games mirrors the evolution of the sport itself. Just as Wilt Chamberlain broke barriers by becoming the first NBA player with a $100,000 salary, but pales in comparison to the $60 million that Lebron James pulls in annually, so too do some video games appear less impressive than their modern-day versions. Video games are constantly changing and developing, with talks from creating video game betting options on classical sports betting sites to developing robots to ‘play’ the game. Many of the great games of the past, however, proved to be hours of fun prior to the invention of online play and HD televisions.
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Basketball For Atari
There’s any number of reasons to consider Atari’s “Basketball” to be a great innovation in the history of gaming. For starters, it let you bring the action of a game into your own home for the first time ever, provided you owned an Atari 400 or 800. Vintage Computing notes that it also introduced the first-ever black video game character of any platform. Beyond the milestones, however, the original Basketball was just plain old-fashioned one-on-one fun.
NBA Jam
Retro games often hold a place in gamer’s hearts, and sports video games are no different. Football fans point to the original Madden, hockey fans to NHL 94, and basketball fans to NBA Jam. Jam moved the goalposts considerably: players could play it on either Sega or Nintendo, could switch between players in-game, could use entire team rosters, and had that all-important turbo button to blaze past the competition. It also included an (extremely enthusiastic) announcer, who loved to tell us when a player was on fire.
Mutant League Basketball
Sometimes, a great game doesn’t take itself seriously. Such was the case with Mutant League Basketball, a title that let anyone with a sense of humor take to the court with aliens, robots, zombies, and all matter of unorthodox protagonists. Mutant League Basketball had a loose semblance of a plot — you won games and made money for your spaceship upgrades — but mostly let gamers enjoy themselves.
NBA Courtside 2
The turn of the century proved to be a great time for sports video games. NFL Blitz let you tackle a quarterback with the entire team; Gretzky 99 let you drive an ambulance through the crowd. The gem of basketball video gaming would be NBA Courtside 2, a lesser-known title but a big barrel of fun. In addition to the standard game mode, players could do an arcade mode including a monster dunk segment where they could jump to the top of the arena.
NBA 2k14
Want a pair of LeBron’s new shoes? Get the sneak peak at them, promises NBA 2k14, just by buying the game. 2k14 is not only the first basketball game available for the new generation of consoles, but it also lets you be the player, the coach, or the general manager in different modes. In game mood swings factor, too: a player being frustrated will go cold, a player with a good night becomes harder and harder to stop.
