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Our Favorite Old-School Arcade Games

NBA Jam (1993)
I'll never forget the first time I played NBA Jam while at a birthday party held in an arcade in Connecticut. One particularly pale and unsavory-looking gamer had commandeered the only cabinet with this 2-on-2 hoops game. (I think he was training for a tournament or something.) But since I was 12 years old and exceedingly small, he begrudgingly accepted my innocent request for a game. Not knowing the controls, the first thing I did was pull down a rebound with David Robinson and launch a full-court shot — nothing but net! My opponent quickly forgot my age, unleashed an insane tirade about how ''f---ing unrealistic'' it was that Robinson would make a full court shot, and proceeded to destroy me. It just goes to show that in NBA Jam, anything can happen. — Chris Schoenberger