Review: NBA Jam (iPhone)

The NBA Jam reboot of 2010 has found its way over to iOS devices with EA’s release of the game in early February 2011. All of the game’s trademark dunks, shoves, and turbo running are there, but is our pocket the ideal place for NBA Jam? Is is possible that the game works better on a small touchscreen than on an HDTV with a multi-button controller in your hand? The answer to both of those questions is unequivocally yes.

Graphically, NBA Jam on the iPhone looks just as good as the HD version on the Xbox 360 and PS3. On such a small screen, this is no simple feat and EA deserves to be commended on making the game so pretty on iOS. Both quick play and Classic Campaign modes are available, so whether you’re looking to hop into a game or take on the league’s 30 teams plus a few basketball legends, you’ll have plenty of reason to keep coming back. Thankfully, you can quickly resume a game if you have to exit the app for a call, meeting, or whatever comes up in your life, so you don’t have to worry that you need a block of time to sit down and play.

The controls take a few minutes to get used to in the iPhone version of NBA Jam. The standard virtual analog stick on the left is used for movement with three buttons on the right to control your player: shoot, pass and turbo (shoot and pass change to jump and steal when on defense). Some swipe maneuvers are required for massive dunks and shoving on defense - you’ll have to press turbo and swipe up or left to get to the shoot or steal button to perform the turbo moves. It’s not hard to do, but will take a few minutes for you to get the hand of things. Once you do, though, it’s smooth sailing.

One thing that surprised me was the lack of either Remix Mode or any form of multiplayer in NBA Jam for iPhone. I never really had a desire to play much Remix Mode on consoles, but being that it was EA’s big selling point for the reboot, I’m surprised nothing of the sort made its way to Apple portable devices. More importantly, playing a friend has been the hallmark of NBA Jam since its inception, so I expected to at least have some local Bluetooth multiplayer, but nothing is in the first iteration of the game. Hopefully it’s something that gets added down the line. Also, EA’s way of paying for unlockables makes it way over as you can spend money to unlock all the legendary characters instead of playing through the Campaign. I prefer unlocking things myself, but I can see people dropping an extra $2.99 to get everything from the start.

Right now, NBA Jam is the game I keep going back to on my iPhone. Whether I’m sitting around or between meetings, I sneak in some time with Big Head Mode enabled to throw down some thunder dunks and break some backboards. The game is a steal for $4.99 given the amount of time you’ll put in. If you’ve already played the console reboots, you know how addictive the game is. If you haven’t played the game since time in old school arcades in the 90′s, you’ll definitely want to pick this up too. Screw it, if you have a pulse, you should buy NBA Jam. It’s that damn good.