NBA Hangtime is the best basketball game of all time

[SlickVic]

NBA Street Vol. 2 & NBA 2K11 are the undisputed kings for me

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Yeah if I had to pick a favorite arcade and sim style basketball game, respectively, these would be it for me.

So many good memories of playing Street Vol 2 and pocketing the gamebreaker for the perfect moment, or executing those crazy trick dunks. I can't say I was particularly good at the game, but was still probably my favorite multiplayer game back in the PS2 days.

2K11 I'll always remember for the Jordan Challenges. It's honestly been a long time since I've sat down and played a recent NBA 2K game for more than an hour or so, but 2K11's Jordan Challenges were something I really enjoyed at the time, including their presentation of those iconic moments.

 

[poptire]

OP you are correct. All these people saying Hang Time isn't the best, well... they can jam with the rest.

You can't play as a beefy Santa Claus, or a 4' tall skinny alien in some stupid Dreamcast game.

 

[Alexandros]

Absolutely! Me and my brother completed multiple seasons with custom characters, the game play is truly incredible. Arcade perfection.

 

[HustleBun]

I'M IN THE ZOOOONE

OP is correct. The 4player mode is godlike. Kept us occupied during pizza feasting all-nighters back in the late 90's.

 

[halcali]

Not even best 90s arcade basketball game. Preferred Run and Gun (and run and Gun 2).

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I bet this is what NBA players preferred too.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

I bet this is what NBA players preferred too.

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Objectively wrong. Shaq famously toured with an NBA Jam arcade cabinet during the season:

Shaq used to have arcade cabinets of 'NBA Jam' placed in his hotel rooms on the road

Sports Illustrated recently put together an outstanding oral history of NBA Jam, featuring makers of the video game and its contributors sharing stories of how the arcade classic came to be. Among the awesome stories was one about Shaquille O’Neal’s obsession with the game, which was released in...

thecomeback.com

Turmell: Shaq told me the players would hang out and gamble on it.

Shaq: Penny Hardaway was good. I used to play as Chris Mullin or Reggie Miller all day. *All day*.

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they interview multiple NBA players here, who say they felt like if you were in NBA Jam, you had arrived:

NBA Jam Oral History

When Midway released NBA Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars to recount how the phenomenon came to be.

www.si.com

 

[dreamfall]

Vol.2 & NBA 2K11 for me, always.

 

[Shaneus]

I've got NBA Hangtime up and running right now waiting for a challenger, first person to DM me gets a link to join the game. You can join from any web browser, including edge on the Xbox, no steam required.

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Does that run at 60fps or is it another one of those Midway titles that is at 54.2 or whatever? It's my biggest barrier to playing the arcade emulated versions, having to screw around with refresh rates so it's not jerky.

PS. I like Showtime, but I've never really played Hangtime enough to say which I'd prefer.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

When it comes to arcade style fun, yeah I agree. Hangtime is great fun. For more sim style, I'd go NBA2K11.

 

[kubev]

Yep!

I had it on both the N64 and Genesis. It was one of my first N64 games and oddly enough I got the Genesis version after the N64 version

I actually would play the Genesis version more often, despite being a lesser version, because it has a save battery for custom characters. I didn't have an N64 save pack

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I only ever played this on Genesis, but I was really impressed with the graphics (especially given how smooth the animation is) on that version.

 

[regenhuber]

Vol.2 & NBA 2K11 for me, always.

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Same-ish here.

For me, arcade and simulation bball are seperate categories. That's why I would never ever call Hangtime my favorite bball game of all time.

For me all NBA 2K games from ca. 2K10 to 2K14 are not only the best basketball games ever, they are also among my fave sports games ever.

 

[halcali]

Objectively wrong. Shaq famously toured with an NBA Jam arcade cabinet during the season:

Shaq used to have arcade cabinets of 'NBA Jam' placed in his hotel rooms on the road

Sports Illustrated recently put together an outstanding oral history of NBA Jam, featuring makers of the video game and its contributors sharing stories of how the arcade classic came to be. Among the awesome stories was one about Shaquille O’Neal’s obsession with the game, which was released in...

thecomeback.com

they interview multiple NBA players here, who say they felt like if you were in NBA Jam, you had arrived:

NBA Jam Oral History

When Midway released NBA Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars to recount how the phenomenon came to be.

www.si.com

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ok, I'm just going on my experiences at the arcades. Most of the NBA guys came to play Run and Gun, but maybe because it was open and NBA Jam was too crowded (?)

 

[KDash]

No lies detected. Really great game.

The N64 version is amazing, and basically arcade perfect. SNES version is pretty good, too. Own both. Played a bit of the Genesis version years ago, and it seemed solid there as well.

 

[345]

Objectively wrong. Shaq famously toured with an NBA Jam arcade cabinet during the season:

Shaq used to have arcade cabinets of 'NBA Jam' placed in his hotel rooms on the road

Sports Illustrated recently put together an outstanding oral history of NBA Jam, featuring makers of the video game and its contributors sharing stories of how the arcade classic came to be. Among the awesome stories was one about Shaquille O’Neal’s obsession with the game, which was released in...

thecomeback.com

they interview multiple NBA players here, who say they felt like if you were in NBA Jam, you had arrived:

NBA Jam Oral History

When Midway released NBA Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars to recount how the phenomenon came to be.

www.si.com

Click to shrink...

have you read this, reyan ali's book on NBA jam (and hangtime and beyond)?

if not, highly recommended

 

[Deleted member 12790]

have you read this, reyan ali's book on NBA jam (and hangtime and beyond)?

if not, highly recommended

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I assume you linked the wrong thing, but yes, I am friends with that author.

 

[345]

I assume you linked the wrong thing, but yes, I am friends with that author.

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d'oh, thanks. fixed the link!

and cool, yeah it's a great read

 

[japtor]

I'm curious, do people not like NBA Jam On Fire Edition? I played that with a buddy for an entire weekend straight. It will always have a special place in my heart. They did mess up the final roster update, but forever I'll be able to choose Yao + Lin tag team on the Rockets.

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I'm curious about this too...personally never bothered cause the controls looked dumb and overly complex compared to the elegance of the original arcade setup iirc. Like separate buttons for a lot of actions, vs being able to do everything with just the three turbo/shoot/pass buttons. But I never knew if you could set it up to just play like the original on a stick.

Maybe later this week I'll organize an actual play through topic and we can get 4 people connected and playing.

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Oh damn tempting, down if I'm available. Would be playing on a Mac if that matters at all, doesn't sound like a problem but just want to be sure. And hopefully my arcade stick can work through a browser.

Not in a world where NBA Street Vol. 2 exists. This is over the top basketball at it's peak. Gameplay has yearslight more depth than anything from the genre.

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While I enjoyed Street, it never got to the same highs for me. I think part of it is that while it's arcadey, it was never actually designed as an arcade game. Like the additional gameplay mechanics might give more "depth" for a console experience, but they're also just kinda unnecessary complexity and fluff compared to a true arcade game.

Objectively wrong. Shaq famously toured with an NBA Jam arcade cabinet during the season:

Shaq used to have arcade cabinets of 'NBA Jam' placed in his hotel rooms on the road

Sports Illustrated recently put together an outstanding oral history of NBA Jam, featuring makers of the video game and its contributors sharing stories of how the arcade classic came to be. Among the awesome stories was one about Shaquille O’Neal’s obsession with the game, which was released in...

thecomeback.com

they interview multiple NBA players here, who say they felt like if you were in NBA Jam, you had arrived:

NBA Jam Oral History

When Midway released NBA Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars to recount how the phenomenon came to be.

www.si.com

Click to shrink...

Hell iirc there's also a story of Jordan getting them to make his own version cause he wanted to play as himself but couldn't be in the normal game cause licensing.

 

[Traxus]

Totally agreed. Also holy shit Krejlooc you seem hilariously over-qualified to make this thread. Smacking down every argument with reams of knowledge lol

The arcadey sports games on N64 are fucking gold. Honestly if it's not NBA Hangtime, NFL Blitz, ISS '98, Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey, or MLB feat. Ken Griffey Jr., I just scavenge parts from it to make the rest of my collection look nicer.

 

[TheMoon]

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhh
ooooooooooooooooooh
ooooooohh

what cha wanna do

it's sad that nobody has made another game that can even hold a candle to this. NBA Jam 2010 was a nice attempt but fell flat in comparison

They never made a basketball game greater than NBA Hangtime.

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true fact

it's also one of the best overall N64 games, that's how good this is.

 

[rsfour]

Run n gun 2 all day.

 

[platocplx]

NBA Street Vol. 2 is my GOAT.

Its a damn shame EA sucks and we will never get a spritual sequel or hell just update the game to have a larger roster of players and modernize it. Thats all it needs.

 

[Host Samurai]

It's between Hangtime a d Street 2

 

[john2gr]

The problem with NBA Hangtime (and basically every Midway arcade game) is that the CPU cheats and the game does not respect its stats. Take a look at this for instance. Koncak had 7/12 3-points, even though his shooting stats were really low. Not only that, but he could keep up with my speed (my custom character has top speed stats). Again, this happens in all Midway arcade games (the CPU cheating) so those "RPG" stats are basically useless.

 

[Flex1212]

I loved this game on the N64 back in the day.

 

[Mugy]

I've got NBA Hangtime up and running right now waiting for a challenger, first person to DM me gets a link to join the game. You can join from any web browser, including edge on the Xbox, no steam required.

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How does that work, tell me more

 

[The Albatross]

Great thread. Love good, interesting takes.

BUT --

Disagree and I've played pretty much every basketball series made since ~1992.

I wouldn't have even though to put NBA Hangtime in my top 10 of basketball games. Might not make my top 20 or top 30. The game was fine, but it was an also-ran at the time, without a lot of improvements from NBA Jam and NBA Jam TE. Importantly, too, is that these console ports of NBA Jam/Hangtime cost usually $70-$80. It was a lot of money to spent on an iterative game that really didn't add much from NBA Jam TE and the basic formula was the same. There was also a lot of confusion at the time between what the right NBA Jam game was, with NBA Jam Extreme launching a few months before. The game also came out in, what 96 or 97 on home consoles, and a lot had changed since 1993 and 1994. In 93/94, you didn't have a lot of decent sim basketball games... but by 96/97 you had a ton of solid 5 on 5 home console games, NBA Live 95/96/97 (genesis, SNES, PC) , NBA Shootout 97 on PSX, Coach K 95, etc. We were entering the golden age of 5 on 5 basketball games from about 1997 to 2003, it's a crowded field and NBA Hangtime doesn't do enough to stand out then.

It's always hard saying one game is "the best" of anything. With a gun to my head if I *had* to come up with a list...

1. NBA Street Vol 2 (Playstation 2)
2. NBA 2K11 (PS2/Xbox)
3. NBA Live 96 (Genesis)
4. NBA Jam TE (SNES or Arcade)
5. College Hoops 2K8 (Xbox 360/PS3)
6. NBA 2K2 (PS2/Xbox)
7. NCAA Basketball (March Madness) 2010 (Xbox 360/PS3)
8. Jordan v. Bird One on One (NES)
9. Lakers v. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs (Genesis)
10. Double Dribble (NES)

Honorable mentions:

• NBA Shootout 98
• NBA In the Zone 2
• NBA Run and Gun 2
• NBA Live 2000 or NBA Live 2003

I also think NBA Street and NBA Jam deserve to be on a top 10 list but picked their "best" in the series. I picked 2K2 over 2K1 and 2K because I think going multiplat makes that one better than 2K1 or 2K, while still generally having all of the best features of NBA 2K.

 

[trevofour]

Just not the same without Tim Kitzrow.

 

[Lobster Roll]

The problem with NBA Hangtime (and basically every Midway arcade game) is that the CPU cheats and the game does not respect its stats. Take a look at this for instance. Koncak had 7/12 3-points, even though his shooting stats were really low. Not only that, but he could keep up with my speed (my custom character has top speed stats). Again, this happens in all Midway arcade games (the CPU cheating) so those "RPG" stats are basically useless.

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lmao there's something hilarious to me about you criticizing the game for cheating due to classic Midway rubberbanding when you've got a literal werewolf as Scottie's teammate.

 

[Falchion]

Imma let you finish OP but NBA Street Vol 2 is the best basketball game of all time.

 

[oldschoolpinball]

Imma let you finish OP but NBA Street Vol 2 is the best basketball game of all time.

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Mf facts!!

 

[Bard]

Man this is a tangent, but this thread just makes me wish NBA Jam On Fire was ported to modern consoles and PC. I had a lot of fun with it, even though I'm terrible at it.