Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! (Genesis/Mega Drive)

By 1993, Charles Barkley was already one of the biggest stars in the NBA, not only because of his skills on the court, but because of his memorable personality. Despite having the nickname of Sir Charles that implies a bit of sophistication, he was confrontational, prone to outbursts and fights, and even made sure to emphasize that he shouldn’t be a role model to anyone’s kids. Barkley was a perfect fit for the kind of basketball game that would tell you to shut up right in its title, and rather than just having the headliner add a bit of attitude to the game’s name, the whole experience was made to focus on 2 on 2 street ball with players with names like Spike, Wildman, and T-Bone.

Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! may have an in your face title, but despite trying to ride the wave of more extreme basketball games at the time like NBA Jam, it also feels like it’s not willing to get too crazy with things. During a game of basketball you’ll play as one character on a two person team, the actual court fairly small so it’s easy to constantly cross it and score points fairly consistently. Passing, shooting the ball, and dunking are single button actions and fairly reliable unless the opposing team is blocking you, and while it seems like a decent balance has been achieved in trying to intercept the ball at the net, actually trying to swipe the ball on court can feel a bit hit or miss as it’s hard to tell why it works one time but not another. The little extra flavor Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! adds to the equation though are its power moves, the player able to press C to expend some energy on special maneuvers. This can help you hit shots more reliably, give you speed perfect for barreling through other players, or allow you to pull of a super dunk that is harder for the opposing team to block.

Energy recovers fairly regularly and the impact is usually fairly minimal since it mostly just guarantees a team scores a point, but it can add up through frequent use and helps you overcome point deficits in a pinch. It’s at an acceptable middle ground where you can keep activating it without it feeling like it will automatically guarantee success. It also lets you push hard in moments where you might not otherwise have an answer to an aggressive defense or can’t afford for the opposing team to get a missed shot on the rebound. They aren’t overly exciting though, even the super dunks sometimes seem rather unambitious in their visual design. Going a little higher or having extra hang time before a dunk don’t feel like their really brimming with the attitude the game exerts elsewhere, but they do add a little bit of energy to the usual back and forth. You do get some of the street ball mindset coming through in how you play though since most penalties have been removed. The only one still intact is a goaltending penalty that grants the team shooting for the net a point if a player grabs the ball on its way down in order to prevent net guarding, meaning you are completely free to bully other plays and knock them to the ground for a bit more of that aggressive play the title implies.

The power moves are mostly just a way to get a little bit more out of the basic basketball that is otherwise on show, and if you have a game against another human player or set a single match as a race to a set amount of points, you can have a decent time with Barkley: Shut Up and Jam!. The game moves at a constant speedy clip and your offense and defense options are simple yet serve their purpose. However, issues do arise if you start to investigate the game’s other modes. If you want to play the game’s tournament mode or even want to play a game of basketball where you play for a set amount of time instead of attempting to get a certain score first, you’ll run into one huge issue: the game’s AI. If you play basketball normally, the AI will try to do some expected tactics, seeing if they can sweep the ball away from you, trying to find a good place to shoot from, and even peppering in some power moves. However, if you have control of the ball and just stand off to the side, the game will never attempt to approach.

You can stand near your net or the opponent’s net, and the AI players will stand in place waiting for you to make a move. There is no shot clock so there is absolutely nothing preventing you from getting even the smallest of leads, standing off to the side, and pressing nothing as you wait out the quarter’s timer. There are some unsafe places to stand since the game will pretend its keep one player active by defending your partner and they might trigger something if they notice you, but both ends of the court are absolute safe zones a few seconds after the ball is in play. This trivializes tournament mode, and it’s one of those things that is hard not to take advantage of when you realize it. Even if you choose to play the game normally, if you’re going to attempt a shot, why not wiggle your way into a safe situation before attempting it?

Waiting out the timer is practically encouraged by how much the game tilts things towards Charles Barkley as well. All of the individual players have unique stat spreads, and you can actually see AI players try to play to their strengths. I had a partner on my team who was always going for dunks since that was his strong suit, one opposing team consisted of two players who always were angling for threes since that was their specialty, and certain players will be a lot more aggressive by using their power boost to barrel through you as you try to defend. When you’re playing with or against the game’s fictional players like D-Train, Chilly, or Sarge, it can actually be a bit interesting to see how their approaches change and you can try to find a partner that suits your style as well. You AI teammate will even be a fairly reliable scorer, although they often seem to lack aggression and the urge to go for steals if they’re on a human’s team. However, Charles Barkley himself may not have perfect stats, but the AI sure plays him like he does. He’s much more aggressive, uses his powers more often, and lands his shots more often than any other player, and even if you’re doing a casual quick game, the AI loves to put him on their team if you don’t grab him yourself.

If you do grab Sir Charles yourself, you can expect the game to be easier, so it can feel like choosing between having the heavy advantage or possibly putting yourself in a situation where you’ll want to stand off to the side and dribble for five minutes instead of risk an AI Barkley grabbing the ball and going on a tear. Getting through Tournament mode and having to face him in the flashy Phoenix stadium certainly puts on that pressure to try and take the win how you can, but it’s not like a fair game against him is impossible to win either since the balance isn’t totally out of skew.

Outside of Phoenix, the other cities’ courts all play into the street basketball theme of the game. Heading to a place like Chicago, Oakland, or Houston will have you play in urban settings, places like Seattle even on a rooftop as a bit of a creative way to add an unexpected arena to the mix. Miami throws in a beach court, and while some of the street areas blend together even if they might nominally be a schoolyard or ghetto to differentiate them, the music featured in each one is repetitive and irritating. Mostly just a short looping beat played constantly, you can turn it off but the ambient sounds of basketball play aren’t exactly compelling either. It’s another little issue thrown into a game that can have some decent play, but it really feels like you have to whittle away a lot of important or potentially interesting features to get to some serviceable basketball.

THE VERDICT: Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! starts to build up to something promising with its power moves that affect play without being disruptive, players who have distinct preferred playing styles, and the only penalty in play being one to prevent legitimately unfair tactics. However, soon you discover the AI has gaping holes in its logic, the music is headache inducing, and no shot clock allows for incredibly effective stalling tactics that completely stand against the game’s attempt to focus on fast play. You essentially need to play against another human with neither side using Charles Barkley to have a fair game that will maintain its energy since almost every other option for play is going to hit some snag that ruins the potentially decent basketball.

And so, I give Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive…

A BAD rating. There’s a lot you need to peel away if you want to get to the parts of Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! that do work, but they are in fact present and it’s not like the game is particularly grueling even when you start seeing the holes in the AI’s strategies or run up against other little annoyances like the repetitive beat-focused soundtrack. Barkley is a dominant presence but not so overwhelming he breaks the game when he’s around, but he also encourages anyone who isn’t the NBA MVP to take advantage of flagrant oversights like the absence of a shot clock. Players being free to hold onto the ball for as long as they like couples poorly with an unreliable stealing system, and while it is much harder to play keep away with a human opponent pursing you, the fact the AI won’t even really try to mess you up if you play anything but the typical way makes it hard to get invested in the action. Having a little bit of attitude with its settings and original characters and a few flashy power dunks between the plainer ones isn’t going to rescue a game that feels like it only copied the basics of NBA Jam without adding in the excitement and polish.

Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! may have had one of the sport’s biggest names tied to it, but it won’t be remembered for its own quality or even its emulation of Barkley’s in-your-face personality. No, this unassuming sports game most people will forget after getting very little out of it found a strange new life as a fan game by the name of Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden presents itself as a comedic unofficial sequel to this title. Mixing together Space Jam references with role-playing game mechanics, the fan game’s creators even said they had never played the game they pretend their game is a sequel to. While Barkley: Shut Up and Jam! may not have given us much in the way of entertaining 2 on 2 street ball, it at least managed to have that unexpected legacy. Still, a parody fan game that only references it in name only doesn’t exactly make this anything more than a flawed sports game from a period in time where snagging a single big name for a sports title seemed more important to the creators than actually making that game play well.