I’d have bet money that the Harlem Globetrotters were founded in the 1960s or maybe the ’70s, but nope: today I learned the madcap basketball exhibition team has been around for a solid century, formed in 1926 as The Savoy Big Five (and in Chicago, not New York).
To celebrate 100 years of baffling basketball trickery, the Globetrotters have unveiled a new game: Super Basketball Classics, a retro-style basketball game filled with trick plays and slam dunks. Here’s the teaser:
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“From playground rivalries to cheat-code-style moves, Super Basketball Classics Featuring the World-Famous Harlem Globetrotters reimagines basketball as both competitive arcade action and pure spectacle,” says developer Acclaim.
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“Whether players are running a full season, challenging friends head-to-head, or dazzling the crowd with over-the-top Globetrotter performances, every match is designed to feel like a show.”
Unfortunately, the teaser shows more of the real Globetrotters in action than it does actual gameplay, but the screenshots and gifs on the Steam page are promising: the throwback looks remind me of classic 16-bit games like NBA Jam, and Acclaim promises the game is filled with “over-the-top moves, alley-oops, half-court bombs, and dunk animations that feel straight out of a Globetrotters performance.”
That’s an easy layup for me: I never saw the Harlem Globetrotter’s live but when I was growing up they always seemed to be on TV, torturing the poor Washington Generals with their trick plays—and I’d jump at the chance to step into their shoes and do a bit of fancy footwork myself.
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