PLEASE CHECK THE DESCRIPTION FOR AN IMPORTANT FOLLOW UP FROM THE DEVELOPERS I INTERVIEWED after you are done watching the video. :) Corrections: - Sega Magizin is actually German, not Danish. My apologies. - EA got NBA endorsement for Lakers versus Celtics and the NBA Playoffs in 1989, predating NBA Jam. So Jam is actually not the first video game with the NBA license, making my sentence at 10:01 straight up false. It might have actually been the first *arcade* game to get the license, and the first to have all NBA teams. - Injury stats have no effect on the arcade machine, though it appears they do impact players on console.
@@DemiGodX That would make sense, since those seedy joints were such a major concern of the league. Probably not an issue for those smaller console games.
Extremely good video! Thoroughly enjoyed it! I love NBA jam, I have the cabinet here in the uk with nba te, hangtime, showtime pcbs. Fun fact: I’m 10 min away from where iguana was, and my aunt was the cleaner there, she says she left the place clean , and couldn’t believe within hours it looked like a bomb had gone off, she is sure they didn’t eat, but only drank fizzy pop, coke I think she said, and empty cans would be piled up everywhere, with cds laid about with hand written scribbles on them. She recalls a life size statue in the corner which she believes was Spider-Man. I was about 13 at the time and was always promised that she’d take me down if possible, unfortunately it never happened.
Oh and i did convert rob northern, i converted the code from the 68K version on genesis to R3000.. At the time Rob did not have a PS1, the devkits were very very rare!
What’s up Chris! Yeah, Snake did concede in a follow up email, I have it posted in the description. Thanks again for agreeing to chat with me, your story really adds a lot to the history of this game.
Hey, not sure if you will see this but I wanted to try to clarify some of the details of the dev team. I was the lead developer at Iguana Entertainment in the UK on the Sega Genesis version and the Sega Saturn versions. I worked with Chris Kirby and Daz Tunnicliffe. Here are the full credits for the various versions we developed. NBA JAM and NBA JAM TE Sega Genesis: Lead game programmer: Neil Hill Frontend/UI: Steve Snake SNES: Lead game programmer: Jason Falcus Frontend/UI: Steve Snake Sega Saturn: Lead Game Programmer: Neil Hill Additional Programming Darren Tunnicliffe Sony PS1: Lead Game Programmer: Chris Kirby Additional Programming Darren Tunnicliffe Sega 32X: The 32x used the main game logic from the Genesis version. I (Neil Hill) updated the background scroller for this version but Steve Snake did all the heavy lifting for the port. Sega Gamegear: Chris Kirby If you are interested in any further information on the development of the game DM me.
Hi Neil, thank you so much for clarifying those details, and for taking the time to post this. I hope you enjoyed the video, despite some of the slight misunderstandings. I will be messaging you here in a little bit. If you don't hear from me by this weekend, feel free to email the address in the about page of my RU-vid channel. Thank you so much for your historic work on these fantastic ports of NBA Jam!
Hey Neil, just leaving another reply in this thread to let you know that I can't seem to DM you on RU-vid. Feel free to email me at nick@segasaturnshiro.com Thanks again!
[Coury] I'm reeling from how good this is... absolutely incredible work. I can't imagine the research that went into this. I was so into the NBA in the early 90s, and that opening montage had completely hooked. Your editing is so on point, but your writing and especially narration delivery kept me invested for the duration.
Fully co-sign this. Most video game reviews suck. And don’t cover the time and place around the game’s heyday. This is masterfully insightful, THOROUGH, and spot on. Genuinely supreme props, my dude. 🤙🏽
I can’t believe the sheer amount of detail, craftsmanship and work that went into this review of NBA Jam for the Saturn. It’s not a review. It’s a documentary of the history of the game and it’s ports. It was a pleasure to watch. Can’t wait for the 3 hour review of College Slam.
Thank you! College Slam should be a fun one. Will it be this long? Longer? Shorter? I don’t even know really, but three hours seems like a safe guess at this point. 🤪
Absolutely amazing feature Sir, I've never been able to sit through a 2 hour retrospective on RU-vid before, but the time breezed past watching this!!! Kudos!!!
dude been on youtube since 2008 and i swear i always see ya in the comment section even on non gaming videos lol, hello again old friend who you've never met! still watchin and lovin your videos as well!
My dude this is next level. It's almost as if you took the existence of a Saturn port to create a high effort, fully produced documentary about this. I can't wait to see how this spirals into a Peter Jackson-esque epic trilogy for your Sonic Jam video
I'm so grateful for this video. I didn't care about sports at all when I was a kid, so I never played Jam when it was contemporary. But now that I'm older and have a bit more appreciation for sports (and an undying passion for the SEGA Saturn), I decided to pick this one up and have had so much fun with it, since.
You've really outdone yourself, you made a freaking full length movie. Did I miss where this landed on the quality chart? Thank you sir, and thank you Craig Stadler
Listening to the bit about how the original NBA code was all written in one single enormous file made me laugh a bit. I'm currently making a Castlevania SotN game on the Megadrive/Genesis, and my code for that is currently all in one single file too. As a beginner, it's reassuring to hear that even some of the professionals back in the day were just as sloppy when it came to neatly organising their code! Hats off to the guy in charge of the Saturn port. Not only did he have to deal with this massive, disorganised monster of a file, he also had to contend with the usual lack of Saturn development documentation. Even reading the few thousand lines of my own code gets confusing, I have no idea how he managed to decipher someone elses. Great video, as usual.
What an incredible documentary this was. I can’t get over just how good this channel is, absolutely stellar work and entertaining throughout. Thank you so much.
Like any good interviewing journalist, if you let people interested in talking tell their story, you'll hear things you never would have even thought about before you started! This series makes me very glad I jumped into the Saturn rabbit hole - lots of great games to hear about coming up!
I've been following this series since the Hi Octane episode. It's great to see the human element behind the making of the games on the Sega Saturn. It was interesting to learn how NBA Jam came into being and how the Sega Saturn version compared to the other ports. A great way to spend Halloween!
Didn't have time to watch it all in one sitting, but finally made it through today. My god dude, you've really outdone yourself. The amount of work that you put into your videos is absolutely mind blowing. Your videos have gone beyond reviews, and become more like historical documentaries.
Absolutely made my day, fantastic work! A proper epic length video. To quote the mighty Walrus: "Just remember, you're never gonna make it leaving it short."
Holy f*ck, this was AMAZING. I was really sad when it ended. Almost 2 hours of complete retro bliss. I said it before, and I'll say it again: you make me feel like I'm in 1995 in a way no other channel does. You deserve all the praise and much more. Lots of big, high profile YT channels tried to compare the 32-bit versions of NBA Jam TE, and no one mentioned most of the differences you did. Amazing interviews and research as well. Thank you. Thanks a lot.
How the hell is this channel under 5k subscribers? You made a nearly 2 hour documentary about NBA Jam to feature a review of the Saturn port for your overarching project of everything every North American Saturn game. And the documentary was fantastic on top of it despite the insanity of building a 2 hour documentary around what would have been a comparatively simple ask of simply reviewing Jam on Saturn. DF Retro brought me here talking about the awesome NBA Jam episode. After watching this I binged all of the other episodes of Reviewing Every U.S. Saturn Game. This is an awesome series
I'm only 23 minutes in at the moment, but I have to say that this is already amazing. I was expecting one of your shorter reviews, but I was stunned when I looked at how much time was remaining after about 15 minutes. Great job on this video. I feel as though Mortal Kombat got so much more attention with respect to its creation, and a lot of this stuff is new to me, so I'm glad you featured it here. Easily one of your best videos yet, if not THE best.
Dude I cannot tell you in words how great this is. I'm just concerned for your health and wellbeing if you put in this amount of work into every US Saturn game
I finally took the time to watch this and was absolutely blown away by the quality and attention to detail. If there’s a Oscar for RU-vid video game documentaries, this deserves to be nominated!
Your reviews don't stop getting even better. They're fun and full of character with high quality research. You're bringing fascinating stories from the actual developers that could've been lost to time. Great, great job!
This is amazing man. Seriously, these are among the very best video game related videos I’ve ever watched. Documentary level and then some. The production value and content is off the charts. Never stop making these!
Also just to want to throw out there, I believe this is the very first time ever on the internet where it was said or demonstrated that the Japanese NBA Jam has fixed AI. I’m surprised nobody has ever discussed this before, and with how few people discuss PSX NBA Jam’s super aggressive AI. Quite a useful piece of original research. Enough for me to whip out my xstation and replace my copy. It actually makes the PSX version better than SAT. Very glad Steve Snake reached out to you. He is a genius and a childhood hero of mine. For real, I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. His games and especially emulators are a key thing that set me down the computer science path I went down. I’ll never forget the first time I launched KGEN. I had to know how it worked. My first emulator experience ever. You’re getting some real heavy hitters here.
PHENOMENAL! The amount of effort put in this video (along with how long it is) is insane. I didn't know anything about this game before watching this, and now I REALLY wanna play it. You took us on a journey, man. Get some rest if you haven't yet, you've earned it!
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, you bring in a 2-hour documentary that is extremely entertaining and informative. This is seriously the best retro content on RU-vid. And with all these interviews, one of the most important gaming preservation efforts. Truly amazing.
Watched this channel pretty much morph from Sega Saturn reviews to just full blown documentaries. By the time you get to the end of the Saturn's life I have the feeling you will be giving Ken Burns a run for his money and run time ;) Finally getting to watch this one while I fight a bout of pain induced insomnia but you never fail to impress me with how much research you have been putting into this series, cant wait to see what your next video will be. Keep it up!
Another tour de force! PandaMonium triumphs again! Well done. So much great information and little known details. Great to hear a lot of this right from the people putting their fingers to keyboard! Bravo!!! Now I need to revisit the excellent Craig Stadler remix previous released on this channel. :)
Absolutely fantastic documentary review video, as usual. You deserve to have millions of subs with the insane high quality work you do. Love you. Keep it up!
What a nice surprise to see your message in my inbox today when I woke up :) This and Tim Roger‘s Cyberpunk review coming out within just a few hours makes me so happy.
This video is absolutely amazing!! I mean the in depth coverage of this game's history is incredible!! What an outstanding job, loved every minute!!👍👍👍👍
Oh man what a great video. Loved chatting to you about Jam and if i ever get hold of DazT i will push him your way.. Oddly i noticed the highscore screen has my initials "CHR" and my then girlfriend now wife of 25+ years "CSR" Amazing!!
Oh and the differences was probably because code was shared by throwing a disk across the office. Source control DID NOT EXISIT! And dazT was 4 or 5 cubicles away from me! A tricky throw!
@@chriskirby312 That’s quite an arm you got there! 🤣 Thanks again for sharing your valuable stories with me for this video. In the off chance we ever cross paths, I owe you a beer.
@PandaMoniumReviews … just finished, and I realized your voice and delivery sound an awful lot like whoever did the voiceovers on “Michael Jordan Come Fly With Me” VHS. Suitable AF. MF truly wonderful work. A thousand salutes.🤙🏽
An almost two hour video of PandaMonium on NBA Jam? Is it my birthday? No it isn't. But damn close. Cheers dude. Gonna watch this on my Sunday morning and have a great start of my day.
The level of your investment is amazing. The interviews, the background research, it all adds to it and tells the entire story. I just finished watching The Last Dance series, so this came at the right time for me too. I mainly played the SNES version, and was able to play the arcade version on a retro expo. There I was able to get the tank mini game!
Panda, I just wanted to say. I’ve been a Saturn-head for a long time. I got my Saturn when I was 13 years old. I just turned 25 and I celebrated it with a ten player game of NBA Action ‘98. Yes, I had ten people, ten controllers, and two multi taps. My point is that there are many people out there like us keeping Saturn’s legacy alive. In my option you are doing divine work. So please, keep it up! Also my first Saturn game was Sonic 3D blast because I thought the special stages looked cool.
I swear these reviews became something even more magical, they remind me of G4's documentary series Icons/Game Makers, but done faaaaaaaaaar better. Thank you for all of your hard work and the entertainment, already on my 3rd rewatch lol.
I don't comment on many videos, but this one was so excellent I had to. Your videos are so awesome and I am always excited when a new one drops. Keep up the great work. Also "Kill the Panda man!" had me cracking up 😂. I love that you can still throw some humor into these.
Well - as I expected, this was amazing - I prefer this to most professionally funded retro game documentaries I've watched. You have a serious talent and drive for tracking down devs - please keep it up, gaming archives and the gaming world needs you!
Wow! That's all I have to say. You can be proud of your work! This is one of the most impressive videos I have seen on RU-vid. We are lucky to have people like you to go so deep into retrogaming! Thank you! :)
I was very young when NBA Jam came out. But I still remember what it was like being a kid in the 90's. This episode made me reflect on back when arcades were still relevant, Mortal Kombat was a hot commodity, and the Playstation and Sega Saturn blew away the old 16-bit consoles with how advanced they were.
I’d never find myself watching a documentary about a port of an basketball arcade game over the course of a couple of weekends because of its thicc amount of content. This has to be my favourite overview of any port job I have ever witnessed, helped me get through a couple of work shifts on weekends. Reminds me of a bonus feature from the criterion collection. Excellent work and greetings from the isle of British people. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be nicking yer kettle and chocolates now :D
Mind boggling video here. The production, pacing and story of not just the work but the unfolding events on how you sought out every actor involved just hooks you. I know finding them can be real tough, you're basically filling in the gaps with the lost history of the games industry. Has anyone ever declined to communicate? Most of these devs seem so enthused to talk about things they did 26 years ago.
Devs rarely decline. For the most part, this is reminiscing on “the good times” or at the very least, a time when game development was going through a wild transition. These were all small closely knit teams. The only times people have declined are if they didn’t actually do that much work on the game. I have had some people just not get back to me, though this is usually because the method of contact I used is something they don’t check anymore. No one has ever told me flat out, “no I don’t want to talk about it.” …No dev at least.
@@PandaMoniumReviews Hope it never happens! The positivity of the era is what keeps me coming back to it. Oh, and thank you for including my tweet at the end.
You are amazing. And hats off to the extraordinary work you've done here. I love your style of editing and good lord, was that a lot of info. But Hella entertaining and interesting. Didn't expect the wall with names at the end, so I still feel kinda important :D
Darnit! Ate up my only remaining bag of chips before seeing this linked in my inbox. At least I have something to look forward to when I'm done working tomorrow.
11/10!!! Outstanding... I've not enjoyed watching a retro video game review like this in years. God bless you PandaMonium, you truly are doing the lords (Segata Sanshiro's) work. HE'S ON FIRE!!!!!
I was happy to see a new video from you but then I noticed it says 1 hour and 50 minutes. So I have to stop and plan to watch it knowing it will be an absolutly epic episode. Thanks for continuing this every saturn game review from someone who never owned a Saturn. شكرا جزيلا
What an incredible video. I have to wonder if there are be ANY other Saturn games with one-person development teams. I'd always figured that model got eradicated after the days of the Atari 2600. I fear for how long the Virtua Fighter 2 video will be.
Awesome episode as usual. Your dedication astounds me, I dont like comparing people I watch because everyone does a great job but I will say your the most thorough without a doubt.
Man your videos are insanely good, and you keep making improvements after each one. I especially loved the addition of chapters in this one for better organization and makes it much easier to watch in multiple sessions. Great work panda!
My god Panda, all you had to do was churn out a quirky little review of Jam on the Saturn, you didn't have to produce the absolute most interesting and comprehensive videos on the console ports to ever grace the internet. For real though, you did an incredible job. How does this only have 12,000 views?
As a huge NBA Jam fan I must say this is an excellent video and retrospective! Keep up the great work, you earned a sub here for sure and my respect for the time and effort it must've taken to put into this video chock full of detail and love!
I don't give a quarter of a fuck about basketball but I watched the whole ass video just because it's made and presented so well. You don't HAVE to make feature-length documentaries on every Saturn game man. They're awesome and I'm glad to always learn new stuff from your videos even outside of gaming knowledge, but please don't feel pressured to make a 2 hour video on like Mr Bones or Bug Too
Glad you liked it Aorta! The length all depends on how much info I find, and this one happened to be RICH. I always joke about how people are gonna be pissed next time I upload a less than half hour vid, lol. Not all will be this long, but the Mr. Bones vid will absolutely be longer than an extended Lord of the Rings film. :D
Fan-freaking-tasting video! I’m watching this at 3:00 am and it’s totally worth it. One short note: the slower clock time in Saturn Jam always annoyed me, and it never occurred to me to just speed up the clock in the options menu. I’ll have to give that a try and play again.
