At least that’s what was told to us at EA’s Studio Showcase event yesterday. The game continues to impress with creative levels that involves everyone’s favorite NBA Jam staple, breaking the backboard and the newly unveiled boss battles. But the game’s new career mode, Remix Tour, takes the cake and I love cake.
Every time I get additional hands-on time with this game, it gets better. With the newly traded and signed players, including Lebron James and updated team logos like the Warriors all in there, it’s hard to believe that the classic franchise is truly coming back. With an updated build shown to me inside EA HQ’s “Tim’s House” Basketball Gym, EA Sports creative director Trey Smith demo a new career mode: The Remix Tour. His explanation of the new gameplay mode was definitely something I couldn’t get out of my head during the demo: “NBA Jam’s Remix Tour is like NBA Jam meets Streets Fighter.”
Comparing EA Sports’ October-bound NBA game to Capcom’s legendary fighting game series, Smith’s demonstration of the objectives in Remix Tour’s level styles further validated his claim. Here are a couple of the new levels I played in Remix Tour:
Backboard Smash: Getting its roots from its olden NBA Jam days, this new kind of gameplay style pits a 2v2 matchup with the simple goal of trying to break the other team’s backboard. Three pointers, short jumpers and layups will lower the “enemy lifebar” meter. But nothing will hurt your opponents’ backboard more than showstopper dunks and being “on fire”. It becomes an endless frenzy of trying to block each other’s dunks, while the backboard slowly starts to shatter, eventually catch on fire until its life meter is depleted. It’s a fast-paced type of game that will test the streakiness of players. Remember, Street Fighter 2’s car-breaking minigame? Here’s its sports equivalent.
Boss Battles with NBA Legends and Celebrities: Probably one of the most exciting aspects of NBA Jam I’ve seen thus far were the 1v1 boss battles against NBA Legends. The Remix Tour will have certain level tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold, etc.) that lead up to this boss battle and I had the opportunity to play against Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson. Naturally, I chose the much controversial Miami Heat player Lebron James.
Like most boss battles, this boss can only be beat by taking advantage of a certain exploit or weakness, usually related to the boss’ special move or pattern. Punch-Out! especially comes to mind. Magic Johnson is known to be a great passer during his career, and his “cheap” special move had the NBA Hall of Famer passing alley-oops to himself in mid-air, where he would teleport high in the air to complete the dunk.
The only way to beat him was to perfectly go for a block at the time when Magic would go for the dunk in this sequence. And it was ultra-satisfying flicking the Wii-mote back and forth trying to time it perfectly. In the end, I came back from a 14-0 lead from Magic to beat him 22-20 with a Lebron James signature dunk. To my surprise (or not), Smith mentioned to me that I was second person outside of EA Sports to beat the boss on the first try. Naturally, a Golden State Warriors fan like me (The new logo is in there!) would care beating the Lakers.
I can’t wait til Oct 5th, when NBA Jam finally drops. My only qualm? Its online-play which Smith mentioned to me “is going to be close” in having it ready in time for release. “I played the online mode recently and it’s still clunky, so we’ve got two guys working very hard to get it perfect,” he told me. Here’s hoping for the game-winner.
[Edited By Moderator]
