NBA Jam may have been released 24 years ago, but an unofficial fan update brings a 2017 roster update to the game via an SNES ROM hack, which even includes Harambe.
It's easy for sports titles to become outdated faster than any any other genre since teams are always actively signing and trading players. Most games keep their rosters updated for some time until the next title, but inevitably, all sports games fall to the test of time. Even in less-serious games like NBA Jam this rings true – but a website named Hogs With A Blog has now brought a 2017 roster update to the original NBA Jam, which makes the new lineup update a staggering 24 years in the making.
Now, the likes of Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley have been replaced by LeBron James and Kevin Durant, though some of the legendary players are still available as classic throwbacks. The new roster hack updates every single team included on the game, though it keeps the original logos and names of those teams (so the Oklahoma City Thunder are still called the Seattle SuperSonics, for instance). Teams that weren't founded by '93 have also been included, so fans of Toronto, New Orleans, and Memphis can still join in on the action.
Gamers can take a look at the NBA Jam 2017 roster edition video below:
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The YouTube page for Hogs With A Blog shows that several months of work has gone into the project, where the creator behind the refreshed rosters' ROM hack shows that he painstakingly went through and updated everything from player jerseys to the star-studded starring screen. As if that wasn't enough, players can also play with a variety of secret characters like Donald Trump, Kanye West, and Harambe – that is, the recently deceased gorilla who also had planets named after him in No Man's Sky. One of the more noteworthy returning characters is an aged Hillary Clinton, who was actually featured in the original version of NBA Jam as well.
It's been about five years since the NBA Jam franchise received a new official entry to the series, with the On Fire Edition bringing back the wacky antics of the series to both PSN and Xbox Live as a downloadable title. While EA Sports promised to update the rosters for that game after its release, we don't think anyone who wasn't keeping a close eye on the series would have predicted a fan-made roster update for the original 1993 version of NBA Jam.
Given that Nintendo will be featuring a Games With Gold type of online service that offers Nintendo Switch owners free games for a month, there's no telling if Nintendo will move in to shut down SNES ROM hacks such as these. The company has a brutal reputation for protecting Nintendo products, and recently shut down several fan projects like Pokemon Uranium and Pokemon Prism. For now, though, it looks like players are free to shout, "Boom-shaka-laka!" and enjoy the fan-made update.
The NBA Jam 2017 roster hack is available now, though players will need to grab themselves a SNES emulator to play it.