Apologies to the legacy of No Dumb Games for using this site purely for file hosting, but Mama needs a new gif. Also, at least it's sports related, geez. And besides, look at those ups! T-Rob is newsworthy just by being himself.

NBA Jam Challenge: The Quest for 140 (with new Addendum)

Ok, so I wasn't very clear about the challenge I had proposed in the previous post. Here are the guidelines.
Number of human players: 2 (on same team)
Game: NBA Jam for the Sega Genesis game system. No emulators, no tournament edition, no earlier arcade versions.
Difficulty: 3
Speed: 3
Tag mode: on
computer assistance: off
quarters: 5 minutes.
Send us a video that shows a score of 140 points or more and we will post the video and give you a signed copy of NBA Jam.

New Addendum!!!!

As it has come to my attention that it is perhaps more important to Quest and to Jam than it is to be a purist. As such, I have decided to allow Emulator play and single player games to count in The Quest For 140. If any player is able to score 140 points alone, without the aid of another human player, that player is clearly worthy of the World Record. While I am skeptical of Emulation, I wish to fully promote this challenge and given consideration to the age of the Sega Genesis system, I realize that not everyone will have one around, or wish to purchase one. The challenge remains however. Hushed voices in back alleys behind game stores in the suburbs are beginning to grow louder, and players around the globe are pressing A + B with fiery passion. Go forth, score a lot of points!

NBA Jam: The Quest for 100 - A Dream Realized and a Challenge Issued

...

"Can't BUY a bucket!" The sports caster's voice rang out through the packed stadium.  The game had been over for nearly 4 quarters but all the fans still waited with baited breath to witness what might just be the greatest miracle in Jam history. The ball bounced from the rim, up, up... too high for Grant's early jump but Mitch came down with the board, completely unaware of what was at stake. The score was 98-8 with fifteen seconds left in the fourth, the good guys needed two more points and they just lost possession.

Pippen, who had been on fire for the last 3 quarters just missed his second 3 in a row, and now it was time to play defense. Pippen rushed toward Mitch Richmond pushing furiously, missing wildly.  Mitch took the ball up the floor and managed to sneak past Pippen at half court. 5 seconds left. 

In the NBA, 5 seconds is an eternity. But here, on this court, 5 seconds isn't even 5 seconds, it's like 1.5 seconds and there's no way to stop the clock.

Pippen kicked it into high gear while Grant dropped back to clog the lane and guard against the easy bucket off the pass. Pippen caught up with Richmond, and pushing with all the fury in his 16-bit heart managed to knock the ball away from him. Somehow in the chaos, Grant, having abandoned his spot in the post, and in the kind of moment he has prepared for his whole life, scraped the ball off the hardwood, lights flashed, dreams seemed attainable, 1 seconds left, Bulls possession. Grant took one step toward the basket, but there was too little time, he had to shoot. Somewhere behind half court, with 1 second left on the clock Horace Grant chose to take a full form jumper. He went up, froze in mid air, and the dream Andy X and I shared was shattered once again.

Chicago Wins.

final score: 98-8

"Noooo!" I screamed. I had actually been screaming that for the last 10 seconds, fearing the worst.

"Goddamm it!" yelled Andy X, and threw his little black three-button to the floor.

Statement of intent.

Andy X and I intend to play on the same NBA Jam team and score 100 points against any opponent during normal regulation play.

Game System: Sega Genesis 

Team of choice: Chicago Bulls

Quarter length: 5 minutes.

Game speed: 3

Game difficulty: 3

Computer assistance: off

 This goal shall be known as The Quest For 100, and we won't stop playing until we have succeeded.

When we first started "The Quest", the most we could ever score in a single game was like 60 points. By now, the previous two times we played we had gotten nerve shatteringly close to the golden number, but 98 was the farthest we had reached yet.

Andy X and I, feeling a little bitter at one another, unable to shake the feeling that we both let one another down in one of the worst single quarter performances either of us could remember, decided to take a break to eat some cereal or something. I honestly don't remember what we did besides stave off tears of shame, and disappointment.  By the end of the third quarter we had scored 88 points and looked poised to shatter the 100 point mark. 98 points was a monstrous failure, a break-down of the highest order, and a point of shame for both of us. It would be two days before we took up the quest again.

:Two days later:

"Let's score 100 points in NBA Jam," Andrew said.

"ookay," I said, reluctant to be so openly confident after the debacle of two days earlier.

"We're going to do it."

I wasn't sure that I believed him.

The game started magnificently. Through the first quarter we had scored 30 points. Through the second the tally was 62 and were on pace for 125 points. By the third quarter we took off running, and through our blend of ferocious pushing, unflappable blocking, and the power of the On-Fire three-point shot, racked up 90 points by the end of the third. We had a single quarter to score 10 points. The last time we played, two days prior however, we were unable to score 12 points in a quarter, a paltry number to our usual 25+ point quarters. We knew what we were up against: fate. Would we ever reach the one hundred point mark? How much damage would The Quest for 100 do to us before we could finally claim sweet, personal, esoteric moral victory. What would be left of us?

The beginning of the 4th didn't look good. Pippen, who had been "on fire" for the previous three quarters lost his on-fire almost immediately. Our hearts were raddled, and our minds addled by the overwhelming fear of failure. We could do nothing right.  Finally we managed to drain two, two point buckets, and with a third shot from beyond the arc, get on fire one last time to set the score to 97 to six. Threatening to break our on-fire streak, Danny Manning drove down the court, unwittingly and knowingly participating in the greatest humiliation in his humiliating career on the Clippers. Pippen, our aggressive defensive mastermind caught up as he pulled up for the long jay. Pippen stole the ball and approached the three point line with terrorfied bravada.

"From Downtown!" Yelled the caster's voice.

Swish!

By the end of our careers we had nearly doubled our original 60 point marks, and eventiually reaching 118, with a glimpse at the upper most limits of NBA Jam scoring.  We predict that 140 points in a single game is attainable, however we posit that any significant point totals over 140 would be impossible due to the physical limitations of the game.  In the spirit of the quest for 100, we ask any fan of NBA Jam to present us with a video of a two-person team of players who have scored 140 points against the computer, and implementing the NBA Jam settings posted above in the "Statement of Intent." We will post your video on our page and give you a copy of NBA Jam signed by both Andy X and myself, D.L. Hughley Butler. Good luck. And remember, as Andy X says, "Lose yourself in the JAM!"

Well, I was wrong.

This is why sports writers don't make predictions like this right before they could potentially become irrelevant. It looks like the Nuggets won't be winning the championship after all.

Who are the 90's Bulls?

Ever since His Airness first ascended to the heavens (sometime during his on again, off again years in Chicago), talk of the second coming of Michael Jordan and the 90's Chicago Bulls teams has been derailing, confusing, and more or less saturating the discussion surrounding the NBA.  Vince Carter was MJ until it turned out he wasn't, Chris Webber was MJ right up until the point he couldn't be, Kobe Bryant might have been MJ until we learned we didn't like him, and we decided he was just Kobe, and now seriously, for real this time, Lebron is MJ, and to make things even more boring, the Cavs this year are the Bulls (srsly!)  We've been living with this discussion of who's the next Michael Jordan long enough that the backlash against it is just as much apart of the whole charade as the doe eyed participation.

When Lebron James made that 3-point buzzer beater at the end of the second game of the Orlando series it became official though, Lebron James is Michael Jordan. ESPN dot com ran about 100 special little videos comparing Lebron's buzzer beater to Jordan's "The Shot." After the game, Lebron James made the statement to the media, speaking to the Cleveland fans, "You guys don't have to worry about the old 23 in black and red no more, because the new 23 is in wine and gold..."

The new 23? Holy shit. This is serious... and LAME.

But here's my position: While Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers have picked up the needle and thread of the magic quilt of the 90's Bulls teams (kept in the basement of the NBA Folk Art Museum?), it is way less boring to draw that same thread through a different team, one much less "written in the stars": the 2009 Nuggets. And they're going to win the championship (crosses fingers.)

The other day, I was watching the Lakers/Nuggets series with some friends when my friend Michael posed the question to the group, "How much does Chris Andersen want to be Dennis Rodman?" The answer of course, is 100%. And why not?

The thing I remember most about the Chicago Bulls from the 90's wasn't their winning percentage, or Jordan's PER, what I remember most, and what I remember knowing and caring about most was how cool they were, how complete a story they told. When I talked with Andy X about the idea behind this article he looked at me puzzled and asked "you think the Bulls were the coolest team from the 90's?" I don't know, I was 10 in 1995, but to me they were like a comic book super-hero squad. And maybe 10 year olds today can look on Lebron and see what I saw in Michael Jordan. Maybe? In terms of effectiveness, the comparisons are there. In terms of prowess and dominance, yes definitely...but cool, style? I don't know, I'm not 10 anymore, but I doubt it.  And as for the rest of the Cavaliers, there's no discussion. Delonte West? Anderson Varejão? Ilgauskas? I mean, they're fine, I wouldn't have any problem with them if it weren't for this ridiculous victory lap of a season (which looks to be coming to an end, sans victory) and this pinheaded comparison to the Bulls.

As I said though, I'm not ten anymore, and Cleveland has spent their cultural currency this season buying imaginary cameras to take imaginary pictures of themselves during the Disney: Family style pre-game circus.

With what's left over, Lebron's been saving up to start his own private Michael Jordan Memorial Collection. After game two in the Orlando series, he bought "The Shot", but he's really hoping to get that first Championship ring, and take it to the next level.

David Drake, a friend and blogger at www.somanyshrimp.com who's been hyping Gucci Mane recently, wrote of Pac, Biggie and peek period Jay Z, 

"Their careers weren't dominated by thoughts of saving rap or some greatest-rapper/artiste-alive narrative that seems really important now to guys like Kanye & Wayne & late-period Jay-Z (never mind dudes like B.O.B. or Lupe or whoever else). One of the reasons I'm really enjoying new Gucci is that he's really having fun when he raps." 

You have to build your ideas of cool from the past, but you don't copy and paste and hype hype hype. Birdman suffers because of this, but at least he's imitating someone other than Jordan, at least he's digging a little deeper. We're fans, not statisticians.  Sure Bron is the best player in the world (don't even bring Kobe's name into this, and certainly no one's talking Melo in this contrived discussion) but that's not what I'm talking about.  These Nuggets are cool; Chauncey, Melo, JR. Smith, Birdman, Nene. ( Just a little shout out to Andy X and Freedarko for christening my love of Melo, Nene and J.R. Smith.) It's not just their personas that are attractive though, its their play. You can spot the moment Carmelo takes the team on his back and starts nailing all those corner J's.  You can tell when J.R. is taking the ball up the court that he's going to toss up a 25 foot 3-pointer in wildly bad taste, but hit it at a decent rate. When Billups is on the court, everything seems certain. One of the top overall point guards in the league.

And then there's The Birdman, and Nene, who compliment each other so nicely. Birdman, a recovering drug addict and white country boy with freakish athleticism and a passion for blocks and boards, and Nene the Brazilian in c'rows who battled back from testicular cancer last year, and is back playing his nimble seven foot basketball.  I'm not 10 years old anymore but these Nuggets are doing it for me, just like the Bulls in the 90's. (oh yeah, I meant it, they're going to win the Championship. Maybe.)

Red Dead Redemption Trailer

Here at NDG we don't spend a lot of time and energy (doing anything?) focusing on games that have yet to be released. We eschew responsibility to "break stories", or "make news",  or "take bribes" and have, all very intentionally and with great philosophical grounding, taken the stance to leave the maintenance of the game-hype-industrial-complex up to the forum hawks and news sites; the leaders in the inter-gallactic plot to turn gaming into a list of future promises, pics of Halo 3 collectors toys and stale "specs": graphics, features, control schemes, etc. 

Despite this, I was unable to avoid the first official trailer to Red Dead Redemption - a sequel to Red Dead Revolver -currently in production by Rockstar San Diego. While all Rockstar games have been relatively professionally produced, and more or less unique (at least in style and execution, if not in premise,) it has always seemed that the GTA series held a special place in their... budget. With the release of GTA IV last summer, this trend appeared only more glaring. What GTA IV made even more obvious however, was that Rockstar is no fucking slouch and GTA IV was no Missile Defense System and as a result, you may have heard, Grand Theft Auto IV made enormous amounts of money ($300 million on the first day, $800 million in the first week, and with current sales figures at somewhere over a billion.) Judging from the trailer to Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar has apparently thrown a bunch of those dollars at their  new "Sandbox" style take on the Red Dead series, and in doing, look poised to change this "GTA and the rest" character. More importantly however, Red Dead Redemption looks as hot as a panfried flapjack.

So what makes Red Dead Redemption look so good? The graphics, which are so legs open in the trailer, are very impressive, but honestly, lots of games look great these days. The gallant cinematic feel is nice for a trailer, but we all know we aren't going to be getting Western Gear Solid VI or Final Tumbleweed XXXIV.  What makes Red Dead Redemption seem so promising is the hope of a game world half as richly conceived and ecstatically executed as GTA IV, with a bow legged, hunched-back ambling gate, a subtle snarl and a slow drawl - the pace of freedom, boredom and Morrowind; the pace of stories by the camp fire, chewin' on straw, and walkin' a horse to water. Red Dead Redemption proposes to breath the air of the fantasy of the American frontier West, and from the looks of this trailer, you'll hear a low crackle at the back of its' throat from the hard years in the dusty desert. Gruff, quiet, tense, and terse - this trailer is sweet.

I don't think this answers the question it poses.

I don't know who the Birdman is. I do know, however, that if he got 30 minutes a game he'd be really, really fantasy relevant.