College Slam

If Jame is your favorite game and you love college basketball, Slam's a match made in heaven. If you already own Jam, though, there's no need to buy the same game twice.

While it's as fast and furious as Jam, Slam's anonymous players don't bring home the star quality of the NBA. All you're really getting is the same arcade-style game with NCAA-licensed logos. If you're not a Division I college-ball hog, skip Slam entirely and go pro.

OK, what we go here is NBA Jam, only with college players. While you can enter your own names for players and edit their stats, the players pictures aren't available to change, so you never quite get the feeling of being the actual college team. It's you call...

The perfect college basketball computer game remains undiscovered. But now that the tournament is over, don't take it so seriously. College Slam certainly doesn't.

If, for some reason, you can't live without more Jam, then by all means, go pick this game up. But come on, is there any real reason to get this game? By the way, cool title screen, huh?

There's nothing really new to say about this game. It's another NBA Jam: TE with college players. The new features are funny to watch, but the gameplay does get repetitive after a while. The only way to make College Slam fun as if you have the multiplayer adapter and hook up with some friends.

It's difficult to recommend College Slam unless you've never played NBA Jam or NBA Jam T.E. and are hankerin' for some fast arcade action. Even college hoops fans won't find much to like other than the teams and tournament play. Yet you can't deny the amount of fun that this game can offer, especially with four players. Yet it's exactly the same amount of fun as you'd find in 1993's NBA Jam or 1994's NBA Jam T.E. Call me crazy, but more should be expected from a 1996 release.

Both the graphics and sound suffer. While the stiff sprites are good-sized, the weak color palette makes it easy to confuse your team with the opposition. The music is okay, but the effects are weak. The player control is descent, but it's annoying to use the Start button for Turbo. In brief, don't play ball on this court.

Simply replacing the NBA players with college players sounds pretty easy (and lame), but Acclaim couldn't even get that right! Players are identified by number, but Acclaim didn't bother making them look or play as they do in real life! Don't be surprised if your favorite player is inexplicably wearing goggles or isn't the correct skin color! My friend Eric is a die-hard college basketball fan, and he was totally disgusted with College Slam. In the one-player mode, you can't even select your opponent - the computer chooses it randomly! The crowd is a bit more defined and there are some cheerleaders on the sideline, but the gameplay is still a poor man's NBA Jam. There's really no good reason to purchase this pathetic rehash. Note: At Best Buy, this game initially came with a free "so-bad-it's-funny" video called "Slams, Rams, and Jams" featuring a few minutes of old grainy footage of unremarkable plays. As low quality as it was, it actually had more entertainment value than this game.