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Time to put on the shoes and BOOM SHAKA-LAKA your way to victory on the court! Wait, this isn’t NBA Jam? Ah, well NBA Hangtime is so close to the Midway classic that you’d be hard pressed to know the difference. The developers (not the same as Jam’s) tried to make their game stand out a bit from such a long shadow, but the effort was mostly hit-and-miss.
Wimbledon may be over, but that doesn’t mean you can’t continue enjoying the tennis action of pros! As always, the Genesis has you covered, with Jennifer Capriati Tennis, a game featuring the bad girl of the sport. Suprisingly, this isn’t another one of those licensed shovelware pieces normally associated with a big name. There’s some real depth here, and the game is a lot of fun. It also has the creepiest title screen in all of gaming.
Evander Holyfield shocked the boxing world when he took the heavyweight championship from Buster Douglas. It was only Douglas’ first defense, and the defeat demoralized him so much that he retired from boxing. Holyfield, on the other hand, went to make history as the only man to win the belt four times. Along the way, he found time to endorse a Genesis game, which like his skills, was light years ahead of his predecessor. “Real Deal” Boxing featured great visuals and solid gameplay, and it had an interesting customization dynamic that is still fun to play today.
Staff writer Alex Burr has probably spent more time with the Genesis sports library than anyone in recorded history, and he’s decided to bring the word down from on high as to which games are still worth playing so many years later. It seems there are more than you would initially think, and you can read all about in The Ten Commandments of Buying Sports Games.
Epyx scored a series of hits in the late ’80s with its Games series, and the California edition was ported to every console ever conceived by man. Ok, maybe not that many, but it sure does seem like everyone had a chance to play California Games, no matter what console or computer they had. The Genesis got a port of its own, courtesy of Ecco wonder group Novotrade, but what could have been the best version of all turned out to be a major letdown. After spending time with this one and seeing all the lost potential, we think someone at Novotrade deserved to be smacked in the head with a solid steel footbag.