Double Dribble (NES) Quick Review
So you want to be a basketball star back in the good ol' 8-Bit days, huh? There were quite a bit of options for shooting hoops on the original Nintendo, ranging from Jordan vs Bird : One on one, and even Tecmo had an NBA game. However, another developer had some sporting options as well back then : Konami. Released a little over a full year before their hockey hit, Blades of Steel, let's find out how their dip into the realm of basketball stands up.
The Good
- Voices. This is something that was pretty uncommon back in the NES days. Hearing voices, actual legitimate voices and not just programmed 8-bit noises made to sound like voices, were hard to come by. But, Konami found a way. When you first enter the main menu from the title screen, a voice will say the name of the game. And once you're into the game you'll also hear "Jump Ball" and "Free Throw" when the situations are appropriate.
- Unique Menu System. This is actually a really cool feature, and my first time playing the game I hadn't been expecting it. Before starting the actual gameplay, you're brought to a menu where you get to select the length of the period (for some reason not called quarters), which team you'll play as, the difficulty of your opponent team, and finally starting the game. Each of these options has a hoop next to it, and the way you select through the different options is by pressing A, and an animated player on the bottom right will shoot a ball into the hoop next to the item you're trying to change. The basket sinks and the next option is chosen. It's a bit slow and makes the menu drag out a bit longer than it should, but it is still a pretty cool way to theme the menu to the game.
- Dunking Animations. Once you run in towards the hoop, holding down the shoot button (B), your player will fly through the air towards the hoop. After getting close enough, the game shifts to a frame-by-frame animation of a player completing the dunk, whether you make it or miss it. The other cool thing about it is there are a few different animations for this too, so you won't always see the same motion.
The Bad
- Shared Buttons. While on defense, the A button acts as your steal button, and your jump/block button. It's normal in older games to combine a couple of different options into the same button due to limited buttons to begin with. However the downside of this is that the game won't allow you to jump until your opponent has already started jumping for his shot. This results in you effectively not really being able to play defense, as by the time you've reached a good height where you could block the shot, the ball is already sailing past you towards the hoop.
- Everyone Runs at the Same Speed. The best chance you have of stealing the ball in this game? Pure luck. There's no speed variation between any players so you'll never be able to make up any ground down the court. What's more, you can't switch through your players at will, the game only let's you switch to whoever is closest to the ball. So you can't even take control of someone who's already setting up in the paint to get a jump on the ball coming down.
Is it Worth it?
Now, I haven't played any other basketball games on the NES, so I can't really stack this one up against another. Even so, you could most definitely live without Double Dribble in your collection. There are some pretty cool features in this one, but they aren't really in the game itself, and it's definitely not worth the $4 value of this game just to watch an animated basketball player shoot some hoops to scroll through your menu options. I will continue the hunt for a worthwhile basketball game on NES, but for now you can just pass this one by.
The Good
- Voices. This is something that was pretty uncommon back in the NES days. Hearing voices, actual legitimate voices and not just programmed 8-bit noises made to sound like voices, were hard to come by. But, Konami found a way. When you first enter the main menu from the title screen, a voice will say the name of the game. And once you're into the game you'll also hear "Jump Ball" and "Free Throw" when the situations are appropriate.
- Unique Menu System. This is actually a really cool feature, and my first time playing the game I hadn't been expecting it. Before starting the actual gameplay, you're brought to a menu where you get to select the length of the period (for some reason not called quarters), which team you'll play as, the difficulty of your opponent team, and finally starting the game. Each of these options has a hoop next to it, and the way you select through the different options is by pressing A, and an animated player on the bottom right will shoot a ball into the hoop next to the item you're trying to change. The basket sinks and the next option is chosen. It's a bit slow and makes the menu drag out a bit longer than it should, but it is still a pretty cool way to theme the menu to the game.
- Dunking Animations. Once you run in towards the hoop, holding down the shoot button (B), your player will fly through the air towards the hoop. After getting close enough, the game shifts to a frame-by-frame animation of a player completing the dunk, whether you make it or miss it. The other cool thing about it is there are a few different animations for this too, so you won't always see the same motion.
The Bad
- Shared Buttons. While on defense, the A button acts as your steal button, and your jump/block button. It's normal in older games to combine a couple of different options into the same button due to limited buttons to begin with. However the downside of this is that the game won't allow you to jump until your opponent has already started jumping for his shot. This results in you effectively not really being able to play defense, as by the time you've reached a good height where you could block the shot, the ball is already sailing past you towards the hoop.
- Everyone Runs at the Same Speed. The best chance you have of stealing the ball in this game? Pure luck. There's no speed variation between any players so you'll never be able to make up any ground down the court. What's more, you can't switch through your players at will, the game only let's you switch to whoever is closest to the ball. So you can't even take control of someone who's already setting up in the paint to get a jump on the ball coming down.
Is it Worth it?
Now, I haven't played any other basketball games on the NES, so I can't really stack this one up against another. Even so, you could most definitely live without Double Dribble in your collection. There are some pretty cool features in this one, but they aren't really in the game itself, and it's definitely not worth the $4 value of this game just to watch an animated basketball player shoot some hoops to scroll through your menu options. I will continue the hunt for a worthwhile basketball game on NES, but for now you can just pass this one by.
