Barkley Shut Up and Jam!

Barkley Shut Up and Jam!
North American Sega Genesis cover art
Developer(s) Accolade
Publisher(s) Genesis
SNES
Producer(s) Danny Pisano
Designer(s) Charles Barkley
Programmer(s) Bob Smith
Fred Mack
Tony Hsieh
Artist(s) Kathy Ells
Composer(s) Dominique Messinger
Rick Rhodes
Series Barkley Shut Up and Jam
Platform(s) Sega Genesis, SNES
Release Genesis
SNES
  • NA: June 1994
  • JP: 30 September 1994[1]
  • EU: December 1994
Genre(s) Sports
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer (up to four players)

Barkley Shut Up and Jam![lower-alpha 1] is a basketball video game originally developed and published by Accolade for the Sega Genesis on North America in 1993 and later in Europe on April 1994. It is the first entry in the Barkley Shut Up and Jam series, featuring former NBA MVP Charles Barkley prominently and as one of the playable characters.

Featuring arcade-style gameplay similar to Midway's NBA Jam but closely following the rules seen in street basketball, players compete with either CPU-controlled opponents or against other players in matches across various cities of the United States. Originally known as Charles Barkley Basketball during development and initially released on the Genesis,[2] it was later ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and first released on North America on June 1994 and this version was released months later in both Japan and Europe on the same year by Den'Z and Sony Electronic Publishing respectively.[1]

Barkley Shut Up and Jam! received mixed but positive reception when it was released on both platforms, with reviewers praising the graphics, sound and multiplayer, while others criticized the controls, lackluster animations and gameplay, with critics also comparing the game with NBA Jam. Ports for the PC and Atari Jaguar were in development but never released.[2] A sequel, Barkley Shut Up and Jam 2, was exclusively released for the Genesis in 1995.

Gameplay

Gameplay screenshot showcasing a match in Miami (Genesis version).

Barkley Shut Up and Jam! is a two-on-two street basketball game where players take control of either former NBA MVP Charles Barkley or one of fifteen fictitious basketball players in a progressive series of matches on outdoor courts across different cities of the United States, with the exception of Phoenix, which takes place in a indoor court.[3][4] Though very similar to NBA Jam in terms of gameplay and controls,[5] the game provides a faster and more aggressive pace by contains less basketball play regulations and never penalizing a player, which emulates the looser and rougher nature of casual, urban basketball.[3][4][5] The court locations has no effect on gameplay, while each of the playable characters has a unique set of status skills, encouraging players to figure out which character fits their play style the best.[3][4] Despite that, Barkley has the best stats overall.[5]

Like NBA Jam, players has access to a turbo function that allows the characters to move faster and steal easier.[3][4] The player starts with the ability to use turbo six times but must earn each use back by performing well.[5] Unlike NBA Jam, the player can not control their teammate, who is instead controlled by the computer. A stable mechanic in Barkley is that your opponents have a very high chance of performing a difficult shot in the final seconds of the match, scoring their team three of four points, if they have the ball at the time, requiring the player to plan around this as the match is coming to an end.[5] Aside from the main single-player game mode, there is also a series mode as well as a tournament mode that allows up to 16 players.[3][4][5] The game has no save feature and utilizes a password system to keep progress through tournament mode. There are no major differences between the Genesis and Super NES versions besides graphics and sound, while each version of the game features support for up to four players with the Sega Team Player and Super Multitap adapters respectively.[3][4]

Release

Barkley Shut Up and Jam! was first released for the Sega Genesis on North America in 1993 and Europe on April 1994 by Accolade, in addition being released in Brazil by Tectoy. It was then ported to the Super Nintendo in North America on June 1994 and was later released in Japan by Den'Z on September 30 of the same year under the title Barkley's Power Dunk,[1] and lastly in Europe by Sony Electronic Publishing on December of the same year as well. A PC port of the game was in development and planned to be released on the same period as with the Genesis and SNES versions but it was never released for unknown reasons.[2]

Atari Jaguar version

Gameplay screenshot from the unreleased Atari Jaguar version of Barkley Shut Up and Jam!, showcasing a match in Chicago.

In November 1993, Accolade signed an agreement with Atari Corporation to be a third-party developer for the then-recently released Atari Jaguar and licensed five titles from their catalog to Atari Corp. in order to be ported and released for the system, with Barkley Shut Up and Jam! (under its original development title) being among one of the five licensed games and it was first announced in early 1994.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] The port was later showcased by Atari in a early playable state at WCES '95, featuring redrawn sprites and digitized graphics, with plans for a Q2 1995 release but was later rescheduled to be published on September 1995.[17][18][19][20]

Internal documents from Atari Corp. revealed that Ringler Studios was behind the conversion and it was listed as still being developed on August 1995.[21] It was later previewed by Ultimate Future Games magazine in their supplementary issue from October of the same year dedicated to the Jaguar, now featuring digitized sprites instead of the hand-drawn sprites from both Genesis and SNES versions, and was slated for a late 1995 release.[22] Other internal documents from Atari still listed the port as in development on December of the same year and was last previewed by GamePro magazine in 1996.[23][24] The port was ultimately never officially released during the commercial run of the system, which was discontinued by Atari on April 1996 before merging with JT Storage in a reverse takeover during the same month.[25][26] According to ex-Atari producer Faran Thomason, the port was almost complete.[14]

On May 14, 1999, Hasbro Interactive released the patents and rights of the Jaguar into public domain and declared the system as an open platform, opening the doors for homebrew development and allowing independent publisher and developers to release unfinished titles from the past life cycle of the system.[27] A beta build of the Jaguar version of Barkley Shut Up and Jam! was released by B&C Computervision on July 2002 for US$60.[28][29] The Jaguar version of the game features digitized graphics and sprites along with the same gameplay, modes, stages and number of playable characters as with the 16-bit versions, however, the roster (with the exception of Charles Barkley) are unique to the port.[24] This version also features support for up to four players with the Team Tap adapter.[30] Also unique to this version is a Pong minigame that can be played during the loading screen after selecting a court to play due to the compressed graphics.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings(SNES) 64%[31]
Review scores
PublicationScore
CVG(Genesis) 56 / 100[32]
GamePro(Genesis) 16.5 / 20[33]
(SNES) 15.5 / 20[34]
Mean Machines Sega(Genesis) 74 / 100[35]
Mega Fun(Genesis) 77%[36]
Play Time(Genesis) 83 / 100[37]
Total!(SNES) 4+[38]
Video Games(Genesis) 73%[39]
(SNES) 73%[40]

GamePro gave the Genesis version a positive review, citing the variety of distinctive playable characters, the multiple gameplay modes, and the "distinctive urban look" to each of the seven courts, though they did criticize the controls as being inconsistent in their responsiveness.[33]

A reviewer for Sega-16 was more critical overall, countering much of GamePro's positive opinions. Sega-16 took offense with the "incomprehensible" voice samples and called the music hit-or-miss as well as too often reused for different locations. They took a stance that the controls were responsive and tight, but were disappointed by the size of the roster, when NBA Jam, the game's foil, had been out already and had more than three times as many characters to choose from. They did agree that the visual details and overall urban-street atmosphere were both surprisingly a treat, and consistent.[5]

Legacy

A sequel, Barkley Shut Up and Jam 2, was released in 1995 exclusively for the Sega Genesis.

Over a decade later, a surreal role-playing indie fangame under the misleading title Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden was released in 2008 as an unofficial sequel to both the original Barkley Shut Up and Jam! and Space Jam.[41] Due to critical acclaim, coverage by several gaming journalism sites and its novel premise, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden and its upcoming sequel have dwarfed the official series by Accolade in both popularity and relevance.[42][43]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Also known as Barkley's Power Dunk (Japanese: バークレーのパワーダンク Hepburn: Bākurē no Pawādanku) in Japan on the SNES.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "SUPER FAMICOM Soft > 1994". GAME Data Room. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  2. 1 2 3 Kunkel, Bill (November 1993). "EG's Sports Special - Basketball, Barkley Style - Charles Barkley And Accolade Create A Dream Team". Electronic Games. No. 48. Katz Kunkel Worley Inc. p. 88.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Barkley Shut Up and Jam! game manual (Sega Genesis, US)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Barkley Shut Up and Jam! game manual (Super Nintendo Entertainment System, US)
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sponsel, Sebastian (February 4, 2013). "Sega-16 Barkley Shut Up and Jam! Genesis Review". sega-16.com. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
  6. ↑ "ATARI SIGNS 15 MORE NEW SOFTWARE COMPANIES; JAGUAR MOMENTUM ACCELERATES; TOTAL OF 35 AGREEMENTS SIGNED". Nine Lives. November 29, 1993. Archived from the original on 7 December 2004. Retrieved 2018-08-22.
  7. ↑ "Other Stuff". GameFan. No. Volume 2, Issue 1. Shinno Media. December 1993. p. 212.
  8. ↑ "ProNews: Atari Announces Jaguar Licenses". GamePro. No. 55. IDG. February 1994. p. 186.
  9. ↑ "News - Update - Sports Accolade". ST Format. No. 55. Future plc. February 1994. p. 86.
  10. ↑ "News - La Jaguar ronronne - On attend sur Jaguar". Génération 4 (in French). No. 64. Computec Media France. March 1994. p. 32.
  11. ↑ "News - Atari Lines 'Em Up for the Jag". Hyper. No. 4. Next Media Pty Ltd. March 1994. p. 9.
  12. ↑ "Warpzone - Demnächst für Eure Konsolen". Video Games (in German). No. 30. Future-Verlag. May 1994. p. 79.
  13. ↑ "Warpzone - Jaguar - Angekündigte Jaguar-Spiele". Video Games (in German). No. 32. Future-Verlag. July 1994. p. 32.
  14. 1 2 Reutter, Hans (February 2000). "Faran Thomason Interview". CyberRoach Magazine. No. 9. cyberroach.com. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  15. ↑ doctorclu (May 23, 2016). Interview with Faran Thomason about Bubsy on the Atari Jaguar. YouTube.
  16. ↑ Wallett, Adrian (September 3, 2017). "Faran Thomason (Atari/Nintendo) - Interview". arcadeattack.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  17. ↑ "Sports titles coming from Atari". TheFreeLibrary.com. Business Wire. January 6, 1995. Retrieved 2018-09-22.
  18. ↑ "Short ProShots - Jaguar - Barkley Shut Up and Jam!". GamePro. No. 68. IDG. March 1995. p. 151.
  19. ↑ "Feature - XT Generation Report - Atari Jaguar". MAN!AC (in German). No. 20. Cybermedia Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. June 1995. p. 40.
  20. ↑ Gore, Chris (August 1995). "The Gorescore - Industry News You Can". VideoGames - The Ultimate Gaming Magazine. No. 79. L.F.P., Inc. p. 14.
  21. ↑ Vendel, Curt (August 26, 1995). "Payment Schedule for Jaguar games to Developers" (PDF). atarimuseum.com. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  22. ↑ "Game On - Charles Barkley". Ultimate Future Games. No. 11 Supplement. Future Publishing. October 1995. p. 6.
  23. ↑ Dragon, Lost (July 5, 2017). "The Ultimate Jaguar Unreleased/Beta/Source/Dev Master List! - Page 5". atari.io. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  24. 1 2 "The Jaguar: A Hungry Cat Looking for Food - Charles Barkley Basketball". GamePro. No. Premiere Supplement. IDG. Spring 1996. pp. 116–124.
  25. ↑ "Atari and JT Storage Reorganisation Plan". onecle.com. Archived from the original on December 9, 2006. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  26. ↑ ATARI CORP Annual Report (Regulation S-K, item 405) (10-K405) ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
  27. ↑ Henry, Dana (May 14, 1999). "Hasbro Interactive Releases Rights To The Atari Jaguar Hardware Platform". Atari Explorer. Archived from the original on 18 August 2004. Retrieved 2018-09-17.
  28. ↑ Smith, Jason. "Atari Jaguar Timeline". jaguarsector.com. Archived from the original on 29 July 2013. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  29. ↑ Smith, Jason. "Jaguar Sector II Atari Jaguar Software Price and Rarity Guide". jaysmith2000.com. Archived from the original on 17 November 2013. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  30. ↑ "Atari Jaguar Lost Games - Charles Barkley Basketball". thejagzone.com. Retrieved 2018-09-19.
  31. ↑ "Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! for Super Nintenddo". GameRankings. Retrieved 2018-09-18.
  32. ↑ Ahmet, Deniz (April 1994). "Review - Mega Drive - Barkley Shut Up and Jam". Computer and Video Games. No. 149. Future Publishing. p. 42.
  33. 1 2 Supporter, Athletic (June 1994). "The Sports Page - Charles in Charge - Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! (Genesis)". GamePro. No. 59. IDG. p. 77.
  34. ↑ D. Rules, Ben (August 1994). "The Sports Page - Sir Charles Controls The Streets - Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! (Super NES)". GamePro. No. 61. IDG. p. 104.
  35. ↑ Steve (April 1994). "Mega Drive Review - Barkley Shut Up and Jam". Mean Machines Sega. No. 18. EMAP. pp. 86–87.
  36. ↑ Weidner, Martin; Girlich, Stephan (May 1994). "Test Mega Drive - Barkley Shut Up and Jam". Mega Fun (in German). No. 20. CT Computec Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. p. 108.
  37. ↑ Ippisch, Hans (May 1994). "Mega Drive Review - Barkley: Shut Up and Jam!". Play Time (in German). No. 35. CT Computec Verlag GmbH & Co. KG. p. 134.
  38. ↑ "Test - SNES - Barkley: Shut Up and Jam!". Total! (in German). No. 21. X-Plain-Verlag. February 1995. p. 38.
  39. ↑ Zengerle, Robert (May 1994). "Rom Check - Mega Drive - Barkley Shut Up and Jam". Video Games (in German). No. 31. Future-Verlag. p. 95.
  40. ↑ Zengerle, Robert (September 1994). "Rom Check - Super Nintendo - Barkley Shut Up and Jam". Video Games (in German). No. 34. Future-Verlag. p. 93.
  41. ↑ "Tales of Game's Studios Presents Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa". talesofgames.com. Retrieved 2012-01-23.
  42. ↑ McCormick, Rich (July 11, 2010). "You should play Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
  43. ↑ Schreier, Jason (November 28, 2012). "An RPG About Guns, Dwarves, And The Power Of Basketball". Kotaku. Retrieved 2017-06-09.
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