NLSC Your source for basketball video games.
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at Fast Break, a PC basketball game developed by Accolade
Over the years, thousands of classic video games have been made available to buy digitally. Game preservation is important, and it’s fantastic that GOG (and to some extent, Steam) are keeping retro favourites alive. Of course, securing the rights to certain games is tricky when the studios that made them cease operations, or they’re bought out by other companies. When it comes to sports games, licensing makes it even more difficult. These two factors are why we don’t see too many old basketball games being re-released on digital platforms; especially those that are NBA-licensed.
However, there is one “ancient” basketball game that – as of writing – is available to purchase on GOG and Steam: Fast Break. Developed and published by Accolade for MS-DOS and Commodore 64 in 1988, and Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Mac in 1989, it’s a contemporary of Electronic Arts’ Lakers vs. Celtics and Jordan vs. Bird. The rights to Fast Break and other Accolade titles ended up with Ziggurat Interactive, who re-released it in 2021. So, what is Fast Break like, and how does it compare to other pioneering basketball video games? Let’s take a look back…way back…