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A playthrough of Mandingo's 1994 license-based hip-hop basketball game for the Super Nintendo, Rap Jam: Volume One. Played through the championship mode with Queen Latifah (with Sticky Fingaz and LL Cool J as teammates) on the default difficulty setting. Much like Interplay's The Lord of the Rings Volume One that was released two months earlier, Rap Jam Volume One mistakenly the hedged the bet that it would succeed well enough to justify a sequel. No matter the optimism (read: obliviousness) with which these games were named, they both make it crystal clear that the cheese always stands alone. There is so much that could be said about this title, yet few seem to have something to say. Is this a reflection of how repellant the game is because of its poor gameplay mechanics? Its wasteful use of several 90s hip-hop stars? The shameful way it exploits stereotypes to appeal to its target marketing demographic? Yes, I believe so. The name contains the word “jam,“ and this is a good contextual anchor - it clearly wants to be identified as part of the wave that brought us NBA Jam, Space Jam, and Barkley's Shut up and Jam! On a likely unrelated note, it also evokes the timeless simplicity and deliciousness of jam sandwiches. I like jam sandwiches. The mid 90s was huge on combining the worlds of hip hop and pro basketball, so the idea behind Rap Jam makes sense. The execution, however, is a complete brick. The game features the “likenesses“ of all sorts of 90s hip hop artists like Warren G, Naughty by Nature, LL Cool J, and Public Enemy, among others, and any of these musically-inclined folk can be chosen to join your team. Padding out the ranks is a group of random made-up people, including several small children and a few ladies that look like they make their livings in disreputable ways. However, the oddly inappropriate mixture of people to play as aside, it doesn't really matter who you pick. Everyone plays identically to one another, and the in-game characters never even try to look like the stars they're supposed to be. If you pick three black guys for your team, no matter who they are, you'll have three identical sprites of a black guy for a team. The same goes for the white characters (just palette swapped to have yellow hair), women, and children. I picked Queen Latifah, and I never recall her being a tank-top clad 5'10“, 110 pound surfer girl with a wig running halfway down her back. In-game she looks like an African-American version of Kelly Kapowski, and apparently nobody on the development team thought that there was anything wrong with that. The graphics are pretty mediocre. The backgrounds are reasonably well done even though the colors tend to blend too well with the character sprites, but the animation is jerky and stilted and everything is really dark and dreary. But the sound is the one place you'd expect a game named Rap Jam to excel, right? Maybe some digitized trash talk soundbites, or even cheesy SNES-style renditions of popular songs? Woah, now, let's not get too carried away! Outside of the few droning loops you hear in the menus, the game has no music. The only sounds you get in-game are the expected selection if repetitive grunts, shouts, taunts, and ball sounds. And finally, rounding out this roundball travesty is the gameplay itself. There's no depth to the 3-on-3 gameplay whatsoever, largely thanks to the braindead AI. Passing is broken - it always thrown to the nearest player (whether or not it is your teammate) - leaving you to do everything by yourself. This isn't a difficult task though. Since it is street basketball, there aren't any penalties or fouls. Just rush the other team while thrashing the steal button and then shoot. The controls are sloppy and delayed, but the game is so forgiving that you'd have to set down the controller and actively not play for half a game to seriously be at risk of losing. I'll say this much: if you don't win everytime in Rap Jam, you're trying much too hard. Games don't get any easier than this. The idea behind Rap Jam wasn't a bad one, but when NBA Jam is tearing up the arcade and console charts, they probably should have tried a bit more to create a decent basketball game. And when you license the rights to the likenesses of some of the music industries biggest stars, you should probably do more with them that merely include their pictures on a menu screen. Following Bebe's Kids, Rap Jam: Volume One was the second and final release by publisher Mandingo before they went bust. The lesson here? No matter who your target audience is, exploiting pop culture will only get you so far. People don't appreciate spending their money on garbage. For Bebe's Kid's, look here: _ No cheats were used during the recording of this video. NintendoComplete () punches you in the face with in-depth reviews, screenshot archives, and music from classic 8-bit NES games!
