Disc Jam (PS4)

While I am aware of the Neo Geo darling Windjammers, a multiplayer sports title that mixes elements of air hockey with frisbee throwing, when I first heard of Disc Jam it didn’t register to me that it could have been inspired by Windjammers. Instead, when it was one of the free titles provided to PlayStation Plus members in March of 2017, I claimed it and forgot about it for years. However, when there was some time to kill between the longer multiplayer titles I play with my sister, I booted up Disc Jam to see how it would play… and now I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a regular fixture of our multiplayer nights.

 

Disc Jam looks a bit unassuming at first. The logo certainly isn’t exciting and the name is rather plain, and when you go into the game, it’s seems to be going for a mild sci-fi approach to stadium sports. The bright lights accentuating the disc you play with, the lasers that obliterate it when it’s removed from play, and the arm-mounted electrical shields your characters can bring up give it a futuristic feel but not much of a unique identity. The characters you can select from at least have some more personality to them. The overly muscled Stanton seems to be the flagship character despite just being a big guy, but the female lead Makeena brings a lot of attitude to the game with her taunts, Gator looks like a man pulled out of the trailer park to participate, Haruka is a female ninja, and Kahuna is a big burly islander. What’s more interesting then just their visual distinctions is the degree you can customize them with costumes, some skins making them look like they’re made out of wood or stone and others even giving them a reptilian or otherworldly appearance. The disc itself can be changed into all sorts of objects like a pizza, Simon electronic toy, or fidget spinner, and every character has a group of different victory poses and taunts to customize to make them more your character. The nicest thing might just be that in local play all of these are available for free, and while they have to be earned through online play to use them there, that allows the game to have skin rewards to show off without restricting the fun of couch multiplayer.

The big appeal of Disc Jam is of course the sport at its center. Playing in an arena that is similar in design to a tennis court, both players will have a behind-the-back view of the action as they play. To score points on another player, you need to have the disc either land before they can grab it or get past them to the back of the court. However, this isn’t just a bunch of simple frisbee tossing. While the game makes it sound a little daunting in its tutorial, when you prepare to throw your disc, the movements you make with your control stick will determine how it flies. Putting the right spin on it can make curl around the other player, slam into the arena wall repeatedly like a runaway buzzsaw, or ricochet off the sides repeatedly to keep your opponent guessing on where it will end up. Pressing different shoulder buttons to throw can give it more of a curve to the left or right, and it is possible to to grab the frisbee and lob it to the other side, sacrificing speed for the ability to throw it pretty much anywhere you like on the opponent’s half of the court. Mixing up the spin, speed, and direction of your throw is easy to do on the fly, the control stick motions surprisingly fluid to execute and natural once you’ve learned how your throw will react to it.

 

If you get a good volley going in Disc Jam, you’ll notice an interesting complication to play. Depending on how the disc has been moving and how often it has been caught and returned, the amount of points you earn for finally scoring changes. A service ace usually grants you ten, but after that the points are reduced down to single digits, building up gradually the better you and your opponent are doing. This means that a mistake early won’t harm you too much outside of the serve, but as a back and forth gets more and more intense, the price for messing up becomes greater and greater. It’s a very easy and effective way of scaling the stakes to make things more thrilling, and there are still more ways you can try and tip things in your favor. Throwing right after you catch the disc will give it more force, and doing it enough times will juice up your character with even more powerful throws. If you aren’t able to pull off perfect grabs though, you can activate your arm mounted shield. The move slows you down, but it is able to deflect the disc up into the air to make it easier to catch so you’ll have an easier time executing a perfect throw. Diving will take you surprisingly far across the arena, meaning that even if an opponent gets cheeky with a lob or strange curve, you can dive to grab it if you react quickly enough. Importantly, if you are standing in the right place as a disc that goes airborne is about to land, you can build up power to do a super move. These fiery throws that move in abnormal ways serve more as a punishment for the other player returning the disc in such a poor way though rather than rewarding you for reacting properly.

 

Different characters have different stats, so a character like Harooka does a flip to dive which it makes it stranger to time while Kahuna’s will take him farther. Of course, they might have other stats that aren’t as good as the other characters to make up for it, things like speed, strength, and the ease with which a character can curve a throw changing but it never being so drastic that the advantages and disadvantages feel immense.

All these simple mechanics come together wonderfully into a game that is addictive, fast-paced, and yet surprisingly accessible. Since your controls are mostly just the few different throws and moving the control stick as your character takes the brief moment to release the disc, its easy enough to pick up that a starting skill gap isn’t too wide. Learning the quirks of your opponent can mean you develop strategies like high speed ricochets, baiting players into being on one side of the court before throwing to the other, and drawing them towards the net so that you can hopefully get it past them on the next throw. Quick strategy, reflex, and reading the opposition are all rewarded but the systems aren’t too complex to get a hang of. It definitely feels like a game where a player can develop a rhythm or briefly lose their mojo though, but figuring out how you’re being played against can lead to adaptive tactics that get you back into the excitement of the game and lead back to those intense volleys where missing the disc could be devastating.

 

The regular form of Disc Jam is a one on one game, but there are 2 vs. 2 matches as well and the special Disc Dodger mode. While 2 vs. 2 is just a four player team version of the regular game, Disc Dodger puts barrier walls behind the players, the discs now more dangerous than ever. If it hits you in regular play without being caught it can knock you over and lead to lost points, but in Disc Dodger you need to avoid getting hit or you’ll be removed from play. This mode is also played in teams of 2 and players can still throw the disc if they catch it right, but the sad news is that Disc Dodger requires online play or a full four players locally to play. Every other mode can be played with a minimum of two players, although there is an interesting twist to how Disc Jam can be played offline even by a single player. If you aren’t able to find other players in the online mode, there is a Ghost Mode where the game will use the play styles of people who have played online to construct AI opponents for you. It’s difficult to tell how authentic this mimicry is, but you can definitely see differences in how these ghosts play. There might be one that likes crowding the net in 2 vs 2 or maybe the opposing player favors ricochets, although very few seem to use lobs since that is a more psychological tactic than one an AI can likely pick up on. They still put up an excellent fight though and you can rank up against them to fight stronger ghosts, so despite what seems like a dead community, Disc Jam still has appeal, especially if you have another real person to hit up and play with.

THE VERDICT: Disc Jam is a very simple sport that has just enough to its rules and controls that matches of it can become surprisingly intense and incredibly thrilling. Adjusting your throws works very well and it means you’re constantly able to mix up how you’re trying to get around your opponent, and the need to be reactive as they do the same keeps the game fast-paced and strategic. It could do with more modes and perhaps some heartier content for offline play such as 2 vs. 2 and Disc Dodger being more flexible in how they’re played with fewer players, but the core sport is accessible while remaining complex enough it’s easy to keep coming back to for more heart-pounding, disc throwing action.

 

And so, I give Disc Jam for PlayStation 4…

A GREAT rating. While perhaps lacking a distinct identity to hook players in with, Disc Jam’s mechanics are incredibly well tuned to make the multiplayer action exciting and energetic. Like a real world sport, you become tuned to the necessary actions and can adapt them into on-the-fly decisions with ease. The motion of the control stick becomes second nature, the mind picks up on the ricochet paths, and you learn when a dive will save you or not. The rising point value for a volley adds more pressure to keep it going while trying to devise a way to finally seize those points yourself, and both sides can begin to play off each other psychologically while also having practiced skill be important to avoiding being outdone yourself. Disc Jam could have used a few more modes of play or made them easier to play in a small group, but even without flashy gimmicks or a strong art direction, Disc Jam hits the nail on the head when it comes to making its sport enjoyable even as you play it again and again.

 

The depth of play may outshine the depth of content here, but Disc Jam is definitely worth a look despite its unassuming name and appearance. The tutorial may sound a little odd at first as well, but once things do finally click and the action finds its rhythm, it’s a superb little fictional sport that can definitely spice up a multiplayer session with friends. It may be too late for its online to recover even with this high recommendation, but if you’ve got someone you can play it with, it might just become a fixture in your multiplayer sessions as well.