The fact you could pretty much just pick it up and start playing only made it all the more fun. While this game may have been from the ‘90s, there is no accounting for the fact that it has stood the test of time. It pitted the two best duos from each franchise and made players go at it like they would on the street courts. The game, itself, pretty much stayed true to the blueprint of its predecessor, but it wins placement over the original by giving players the opportunity to play on a team completely made up of three different Michael Jordans from different stages in his career.This game started as a 2-on-2 and was, at the time, the best representation of basketball on a video game console. 2 soundtrack definitely enhanced the overall experience thanks to Nate Dogg, MC Lyte, Nelly, and other hip hop masters. Though it doesn’t relate to actual gameplay, the NBA Street Vol. NBA Street completely revolutionized the way we look at basketball and basketball video games, building off of the influence of NBA Jam and taking it to a whole other level.Īnd then they released a sequel. Thus, NBA Street was born, which allowed players to make passes off of the backboard, jump high enough to sit on the rim and break ankles at a moment’s notice.

It was only a matter of time before someone decided to capitalize and make a video game where NBA players could pull off stunts they would never get away with in front of the likes of Joey Crawford.

In the early 2000s, the popularity of the flashy, awe-inspiring style of streetball grew to the point where it started showing up in NBA games. And in tribute to those games and the looming debut (September 20) of yet another NBA 2K game, here’s a ranked look back at the best basketball video games of all time.ġ2.

Visual Concepts’ NBA 2K franchise rules over all after finally inching ahead of EA’s long-revered NBA Live franchise, but from the simple days of Magic Johnson’s Fast Break on NES, there now exists a ton of fun games that will no doubt spark something in you if you’re a virtual hardwood veteran. And then NBA Jam hit arcades with over-sized photo-accurate headshots of players and otherworldly dunks, and things went up to a whole other level as factions split between arcade style and simulations.Ĭlearly, the sim-games won the war. All of a sudden, if you squinted hard enough, it felt like you were actually playing something that resembled real basketball. The ’90s weren’t, of course, the start of basketball video games, but they did bring a change to where five on five simulation-style play, tournaments, full-seasons, and stats became the norm. Did you ever wish you were a little bit taller? Maybe a baller? Just had a girl who looked good so you could call her? Well, we can’t do anything about the last one - maybe Skee-Lo can help? - but the flood of basketball video games that came in the early 1990s and afterward may have helped with the first two.

Best games of 2016 nba video