NBA Jam is a fast-paced basketball game that lets you play two-on-two arcade basketball with players from all the NBA Jam teams. The gameplay is action-packed, with few rules, no fouls, and deliberately unrealistic jamming. Players are rated on eight ability categories, from steals and blocks to dunks and 3-pointers.
The game allows up to four human players to take part, each controlling a single player for their team, and AI for missing players. This allows for four players to face each other in teams of two, or for two players to team up against a third player with a CPU team-mate.
The Tournament Edition ups each team's roster to three players, 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. Aside from the usual secret characters and cheat modes, the T.E. also includes four new additions you can individually enable from the special options menu: Hot Spots , Powerup icons that convey temporary arcade-like benefits when picked up, "Juice Mode" which increases the speed of the game up to 4x, and "Tournament Mode" which disables all other modes, special characters, and cheats, and challenges you to defeat all the NBA Jam teams.