Slam City with Scottie Pippen
スラムシティ with スコッティ・ピッペン
(rapping intensifies) I’m Cory Roberts with another retro game, and I have a Sega CD1 game for you, this game features the basketball legend Scottie Pippen, ‘cause he represented the Chicago Bulls at the time. It was released in late ’94 and is the first FMV basketball video game, but I never grew up with the Sega CD… and it’s Slam City with Scottie Pippen!
In the game, players face various opponents in one-on-one basketball games, including Pippen himself. It is also available as an MS-DOS port.
The player plays a newcomer named “Ace” and must face the four toughest players in “Slam City” to earn enough “respect” to play against Scottie Pippen. The game is spread over four discs, with each of the first four opponents on a separate disc. Matches are interjected with video clips of “trash talk” from the opponents or commentary from spectators.
Matches consist of multiple video clips of the opponent, and the player must respond appropriately to the opponent's actions, such as defending against attempts to steal the ball or exploiting weaknesses in the opponent’s defense to attempt a shot or a slam. Ace appears overlaid on the video. The goal of each match is to earn more points than the opponent, and every basket is worth a single point. By default, the first player to reach seven points wins, though this can be changed.
Respect is earned during games by scoring, blocking shots, stealing the ball, rebounding the ball (after a missed shot), or running down the opponent’s shot clock. Respect is also gained after beating an opponent, with more respect gained when the score disparity is greater. Conversely, respect is lost when the opponent scores, blocks a shot, steals the ball, rebounds the ball, runs down Ace’s shot clock, or beats Ace. Tougher opponents award more respect. Opponents can be rematched to earn more respect, but the amount of respect earned decreases each time the opponent is played.
Opponents can be challenged in any order, except for Scottie Pippen, who can only challenged after accumulating 1,000,000,000 (one billion) respect points. Each opponent increases in difficulty and respect earned. Matches can be replayed to earn more respect. Fingers is on the first disc, Juice is on the second disc, Mad Dog is on the third disc, and Smash is on the fourth disc. Scottie Pippen is on every disc but must be unlocked first.
I’ve been listening to Special Ed’s “I’m The Magnificent” when reviewing this shindig. Digital Pictures, the game’s developer and publisher, was founded in 1991 by Lode Coen, Mark Klein, Ken Melville, Anne Flaut-Reed, Kevin Welsh, and Tom Zito. By the late 1990s, consumer interest in full-motion video games, which accounted for the majority of the game developer’s profits, was in decline before going belly-up in 1996. The game was not released in Japan, even though Takehito Inoue’s Slam Dunk manga was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump (but was not localized until Viz Media picked it up for licensing) at the time.
I’m outta’ here y’all, peace! (Don’t forget to hit the “Subscribe now” button.)
Known as the Mega CD outside of North America and Brazil.