NBA in the Zone 2

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 NBA in the Zone 2 by Konami.

I’ll freely admit to being a bit snobbish about my basketball games when I was much younger. Sim was sim, arcade was arcade, and never the two shall meet. Sure, it was fun to have an arcade setting in NBA Live, but Acclaim’s attempt to combine the two genres of hoops games in their continuation of the NBA Jam series was a bust. I’ll take a deep dive into those games at some point, but there have been some great sim-arcade hybrid releases. As I said when I covered the first NBA in the Zone, Konami arguably perfected the genre as Midway did pure arcade basketball with NBA Jam.

That of course began with Run and Gun, an arcade-only release that didn’t feature any real teams or players. Upon acquiring the NBA license, Konami ported the game to Super Nintendo as NBA Give ‘N Go, which they followed up with Run and Gun II in arcades and NBA in the Zone on PlayStation. The latter spawned a series of annual games, which brings us to NBA in the Zone 2. Released in November 1996, it went head-to-head with 1997 season titles such as NBA Live 97, NBA Full Court Press, and NBA ShootOut ’97. Can it hang with them? Let’s take a look back…way back…

Read More »

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #498 of the NLSC Podcast!

After revisiting NBA in the Zone 2 over Parsec last week, we recap a fun showdown as we took on the Nuggets with the SuperSonics, while reflecting on the sim-arcade hybrid approach and comparing the game to NBA Live 97. We also played NBA 2K13 using the 1993 season roster from URB, which leads us to compare the attention to detail in retro mods to the lack thereof in MyNBA Eras. Speaking of inaccuracies, the WNBA Players Association called out NBA 2K24’s terrible player likenesses, a move that we wholeheartedly support. We also imagine the ideal gameplay for NBA 2K and NBA Live by combining our favourite mechanics from previous games in both series, and give a heads up on a great PC gaming deal.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:10:30 — 48.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

To get involved with the mailbag or to provide any feedback on the show, hit us up in the comments, reach out on social media, or post here in the NLSC Forum! For more information on the NLSC Podcast including episode guides, check out this page in our Wiki. You can also find the show on our YouTube channel, along with the rest of our video content. As always, thanks for tuning in, and go get buckets!

Dee and I have been able to line up our schedules and connect more often as of late, which means more virtual hardwood fun on an international scale! This past week, we connected to play NBA 2K13 and Konami’s NBA in the Zone 2, and highlights from our session with the latter are up now on our YouTube channel.

As you can see, we took on the Denver Nuggets using the Seattle SuperSonics. While the Sonics were the much better team at the time, the Nuggets proved to be worthy adversaries here, in no small part thanks to the ferocious rebounding and putbacks of Tom Hammonds! Less unexpected threats such as Antonio McDyess, LaPhonso Ellis, and Mark Jackson also ensured a competitive game. Fortunately, we had the trio of Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton, and Detlef Schrempf at our disposal, but our bench players also came up huge, particularly Craig Ehlo and Jim McIlvaine. Watch how all of the action unfolded in this highlight reel, put together by Dee!

NBA in the Zone 2 is a great sim-arcade hybrid, and in addition to these highlights, Dee and I will be discussing our session with it on the next NLSC Podcast. In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the NLSC YouTube channel for more basketball gaming content, and as always, feel free to hit us up with any suggestions of games that you’d like to see us play.