NBA Jam is a fast-paced arcade basketball game that lets you play two-on-two with players from all the NBA teams. The gameplay is action-packed, with few rules and no fouls, making for an exciting experience. Players are rated on eight ability categories, such as steals, blocks, dunks, and 3-pointers.
You can play with up to four human players, each controlling a single player for their team and AI for missing players. This allows for different game modes, including teams of two facing off against each other or two players teaming up against a third player with a CPU teammate.
The Tournament Edition version of the game includes three additional players on each team and allows for substitutions between quarters. Shoving players now results in injuries, which lower a player's stats, encouraging you to sub them out and let them recover. The T.E. also includes secret characters, cheat modes, and four new features that can be enabled from the special options menu.
Some of these features include:
Hot Spots, which are randomized zones on the court that reward extra points for making a basket while standing within them.
Powerup icons appear randomly, giving you temporary arcade-like benefits when picked up. These can include instant "on-fire," enhanced 3-point accuracy, monster dunks from anywhere on the court, or a bomb that knocks all other players to the ground.
Juice Mode increases the speed of the game up to 4x.
Tournament Mode disables all other modes, special characters, and cheats, challenging you to defeat all the NBA teams to unlock extra players. Winning Tournament Mode also unlocks a higher CPU difficulty level.