NBA Jam (SNES) - RetroAchievements

Game #12 is another one of my favorites as a kid, NBA Jam. I had both NBA Jam and NBA Jam Tournament Edition on SNES growing up, and I played the Tournament Edition a lot more. But, I figured I should do the original first (I'll do Tournament Edition down the road).

How much of a nerd am I when it comes to NBA Jam? Well, when I was little, there was a small basketball hoop in my basement (probably like a 7 foot hoop with a 9 foot ceiling), and I used to blast music and shoot hoops on it while pretending I was the announcer with lines from the game. I learned the players pretty well also.

Anyways, this achievement set was about what I expected. It's mostly just a grind beating all 27 teams.

The 200 points achievement at the end was definitely the hardest. That said, as you can tell by watching, I didn't realize at first you could turn on cheats, so I ended up turning on the always on fire cheat on top of turning off computer assistance. Even then it was a bit tough, but we eventually got it.

The rubber-banding in this game is obviously insane though. For those who end up doing this set, the best advice I can give is:

1. Once you build at least a 3 point lead in the 4th quarter (or if you have a huge lead earlier in the game), just stand at halfcourt or further away once your CPU teammate inbounds the ball to you. The defender isn't programmed to come and try to steal the ball from you until the shotclock get to like 8 seconds or so. Once you get to that point, immediately start driving toward the basket, but do it on like a 45 degree angle toward one of the corners when you initially start. The defender will run in a line at you, and that angle will allow enough space so he can't push you over. It should be an easy run to the basket by doing this.

2. Alternatively, you can try and manipulate where the defender goes by standing at around the halfcourt line at the same point where your CPU teammate is running through. If you do that, there's a good chance the CPU teammate will actually push over the defender who is guarding you. Once he does that, you can just drive straight to the basket.

Obviously, if you are playing with a huge lead though, you still need to pray you don't miss the dunk with both #1 and #2 strats lol. But, the big benefit to doing these is you're wasting time to limit the number of possessions in the game, and you should get a clean opportunity at a dunk.

3. Another general strat you can do is when your CPU teammate inbounds the ball to you, hold the shoot button but don't actually release it. You'll notice both opponents will jump and try to block your shot. When that happens, then just pass the ball to your CPU teammate and he will have a free run at the basket, or you can have him shoot a 3 and you can easily outrun the two defenders to rebound a potential miss.

Anyways, not much else to say other than it was fun coming back to this game.

List of NBA Jam achievements: https://retroachievements.org/game/593

RA Profile: https://retroachievements.org/user/it...
_____
Also, I've noticed the recording quality with NES and SNES (more so SNES) games for some reason has been a little choppy at times (N64 and modern games have looked completely fine to me).

Some NES/SNES games are fine, but some others have occasional video choppiness, especially with NBA Jam sadly. Although, when I look at other people's uploads of the games I have had some choppiness with (including NBA Jam), they often look the same way. So, it could just be me nitpicking it, and it's just the way it is with recording older games with modern technology?

I might need to look at some other SNES cores (I've been using Snes9x), or maybe I need to tweak something with the FPS settings. This isn't exactly my strongest area of expertise, but I've noticed with specifically NES and SNES games that when there's a lot of changing of movement/pace happening on the screen, it can get choppy for a little bit.

Other than using Snes9x (and Mesen for NES), most of the video settings are set to the defaults. I am using a 1080p 360hz monitor, and the refresh rate is set to match that at specifically 360.113hz, so maybe that is playing a role? The resolution is set to 1920x1080 as well to match that. It's running at 60 FPS.

For recording settings, I'm using 1920x1080 for both base and output, and I have common FPS values set to 60. I also have a high bitrate of 20,000 Kbps. I mainly have it this high for Rocket League clips I do on the side, so I'm not sure if this needs to be tweaked. But generally, these recording settings have worked just fine in the past.

I don't think it's the biggest deal in the world, but if someone has any suggestions on how to make it better so the occasional choppiness is removed/reduced, I'd love to hear it.

0:00 NBA All-Star
4:12:16 Block Story
4:23:35 You Don't Wanna Be That Guy Again
4:33:50 Breaking Records attempts
4:47:25 Breaking Records
5:03:03 Mastery of NBA attempts
5:43:15 Mastery of NBA