RETRO REBOOT | Jordan vs Bird: One On One (NES)

I'm not a basketball fan (grew up more with hockey, which it was relatively rare sight to see a black kid in the suburbs of Ohio rooting for the Minnesota North Stars), and by the time I tried watching legitimately watching the sport, Larry Bird had been long retired, and Jordan was playing for the Wizards. The most I knew about any athlete is I was formally introduced to Michael Jordan through the 1991 cartoon ProStars, a superhero action series featuring he, two-sport all-star Bo Jackson, and Wayne Gretzky, a few years fresh off his trade to the Los Angeles Kings fighting crime with gadgets centralized around their preferred sport, and Space Jam. Larry Bird, I never saw played, and mostly recall he had a cameo in Celtic Pride, a 1996 sports comedy about Dan Aykroyd and Daniel Stern playing disgruntled Celtics fans who kidnapped Damon Wayans so they could win a playoff series. I don't remember much else about the movie, but I'm certain it's likely far more interesting than this stupid game banking off two popular names.

Developed by Electronic Arts and Rare (for the NES) and released on a decent variety of platforms (Commodore 64, MS DOS, NES, Game Boy, and the Genesis) in 1988, Jordan vs Bird: One on One pits two of the sport's biggest stars against each other in a paltry selection of B-ball minigames. I'm reviewing the Nintendo game, which is the one I grew up playing the most. Perhaps the concept may have been intriguing, but outside of having no appeal to me as a kid (I'd legit rather watch Pro Stars), it's also a terrible basketball game.

As aptly named, the main game is a 1v1 basketball...uhh...duel, or something, where you can go against a human opponent or the CPU. There's also a 3-point shooting contest, where you exclusively control Larry and bury buckets. And rounding the features out is the Slam Dunk Contest, with MJ. I'll give credit where it's due, it's certainly ambitious to include multiple modes to flesh out the content. But this is also a pretty thin concept to begin with.

The controls are awful and unengaging, with terrible collision detection, making the One-on-One feel incredibly unbalanced. Regardless of how I time my shot, it's a total crapshoot on whether it misses or makes. Bird is a better shooter, and Michael is best driving to the paint and trying to dunk, so the entertainment factor is already handcuffed by the lofty concept. There's no variables.

Trying to steal the ball feels stiff, it's even harder to try and block shots. And I'm trying to be as fair as possible with what Jordan vs Bird is going for. But Konami's Double Dribble was released two years before this, and is a substantially better feeling basketball video game. Hell, even Basketball on Atari 2600 offers more nuance. There's little need to apply any strategy or play style, just chuck 3-pointers with Bird, if you're playing him.

The 3-Point Contest is probably the most fun the game gets. Pretty self explanatory and straightforward, it can be a little bit entertaining to go back and forth with a buddy to beat each other's score. Timing the release feels a little bit janky and unpolished, but considerably more stimulating than the dunk contest.

This Dunk Contest takes the cake for completely unresponsive implementation. Over the years, I never actually figured out how this was supposed to work or how the judges score it if you make it. From what I was able to understand, after selecting the dunk (which I'm assuming are Jordan's signatures?), you jump from a particular spot on the paint or the key, and then hit the A button when he's near the rim. It's definitely progressive, and it wasn't until NBA Live 2005 when a dunk contest would appear in a basketball video game. Maybe there was another, feel free to correct me. The dunks don't even look cool, but at least the icons provide some creative amusement.

The graphics are okay for what they are. There really isn't a lot to look at. Jordan and Bird look distinct enough, I guess, even though the animations are fairly boring. But staring at that same bland cyan blue half court with the crowd full of creepy dopplegangers really starts to make the vision swim. As far as the audio goes, there aren't a ton of tunes in the game, but they're alright. The OST was produced by David Wise, more known for his work on the Donkey Kong Country series. Nothing memorable, but I've heard worse. And I've heard better.

Jordan vs Bird: One on One feels like one of those Nintendo games that may have been in most kids' library at one point as a formality. I feel like even if you were a fan of basketball or either athlete, the enjoyment factor is fairly thin and the novelty will wear off fast. There's just not enough going on here to keep me engaged. The modes have surface level content, the controls aren't stimulating or satisfying enough to warrant playing longer than 15 minutes. And while it's a game designed to be best played with a human opponent, I'd feel like your partner will be asking if there's anything better in the shoebox.

I legitimately had more fun researching Celtic Pride and ProStars while trying to remember redeeming qualities about this game. And I learned that Michelangelo himself Townsend Coleman was the voice of Gretzky. Skip Jordan vs Bird on NES. It's not very good and never was.