NBA Showdown

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 Showdown, with a particular focus on the Super Nintendo version.

As someone whose basketball fandom was solidified in the mid 90s, my introduction to the virtual hardwood came slightly later than other hoops gamers my age. My first basketball video games were NBA Live 95 for Super Nintendo and the PC version of NBA Jam Tournament Edition, with NBA Live 96 PC also being an early favourite. To that point, I didn’t grow up playing any games in the NBA Playoffs series; the forerunner to NBA Live. As such, while I’ve always respected their contributions to the genre, I don’t have the same nostalgia for them as I do the early NBA Live titles.

Indeed, I’ve found the NBA Playoffs games quite difficult to get into, as they lacked many of the innovations that began with NBA Live 95. They are intriguing of course, and as I’ve added some of them to my collection, it has been fun and illuminating to spend some more time with them. Although they have their quirks, I’ve come to better appreciate them, and it’s been fun noticing early versions of features that later became staples of NBA Live. NBA Showdown was the final release before the re-brand and revamp, and the Super Nintendo version has captured my interest lately. In a way, it bridged the NBA Playoffs and NBA Live series. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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In last week’s NLSC Podcast, Dee4Three and I discussed revisiting NBA Showdown 94, which was EA Sports’ precursor to NBA Live 95. As always, Dee made sure to record our gameplay, and put together another great highlight reel for our YouTube channel!

I’m not as familiar with NBA Showdown 94 and other titles in the NBA Playoffs series (though I do own some of them), since as I mentioned on the podcast, NBA Live 95 was my entry into EA’s basketball games. I do want to spend more time with them though, as it was a lot of fun going head-to-head with Dee in NBA Showdown. As you can see, Clyde Drexler was unstoppable in the paint, while I probably should’ve brought Steve Kerr off the bench earlier! The classics remain a blast to dust off and play today, as I’m sure these highlights will demonstrate.

Another reminder that Dee has been spearheading an initiative to create more video content for the NLSC, from gameplay highlights to the weekly Top 10 Plays. There’s a lot more we’re looking to do with the NLSC YouTube channel including tutorials and more Parsec tournaments, so check it out and please subscribe! We’re also open to suggestions for classic basketball video games to revisit since we both have extensive collections, so please let us know what you’d like to see us play, and hear us discuss on future podcast episodes.

From courtside of the virtual hardwood, it’s Episode #448 of the NLSC Podcast!

After circling back to our plans to revisit NBA Showdown 94, we connected on Parsec for a head-to-head game. Although it was a lot of fun, we can’t help but reflect on what a massive jump NBA Live 95 made in just one year. We also recap our other basketball gaming sessions from the past week, which included another co-op game of NBA Live 2003, and a devastating injury in NBA 2K14 MyCAREER. Additionally, we discuss our future plans with NBA 2K23, and feeling more inclined to play old favourites instead as of late. In this week’s mailbag, the community tells us which retro hoops titles they’d pick up if they had $20 to spend.

Download or play on your mobile device/tablet: CLICK HERE (Running time: 1:15:31 — 52.2MB)

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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!