Video Game Vocal Trax: Slam City with Scottie Pippen (Sega CD 32X)
Thursday, May 19th, 2011
You probably don’t know what it’s like to own both a Sega CD and a 32X. Here’s a brief walkthrough.
It begins at Christmas, 1994. Your dad spends all of your mom’s savings on a 32X and a copy of Star Wars Arcade, and neither of them will be able to afford more games until next Christmas. All you have to play for the next several months are Star Wars, a copy of Doom you’d later get for your birthday, and whatever Sega CD and Genesis games you already had in your meager collection.
Odds are that Wonder Dog has lost its charm by this point, and the solutions to the three cases in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective remain exactly the same. But you’re loyal to the lot you’ve been given. You read EGM for the latest 32X news (there is none). You gaze longingly at the Sega CD 32X games available at the mall’s Electronics Boutique (there are five). And then next week, after those games mysteriously drop in price to $10 each, you buy every single one of them with your allowance money.
You buy those games, and then you play the hell out of them.
Okay, so maybe you wouldn’t. But I played the hell out of them.
I beat Fahrenheit. I got a perfect run in Night Trap. I even figured out how to finish Corpse Killer during a time of my life I’d rather forget. And I didn’t just complete but had mastered Slam City with Scottie Pippen, a timing-based, barely-interactive one-on-one basketball game presented entirely in full-motion video.
Actually, I was so good at Slam City that I saw a secret ending in which the game’s actors yelled at me because I out-basketballed Scottie Pippen so hard that I made him look bad. Swear to god, this is true. Slam City’s best ending is a guilt trip.
Unfortunately, my Slam City mastery has long since been overwritten by more important knowledge (like the names of obscure iPhone developers, and the lyrics to Infogrames’ corporate theme song), and I can’t even beat the easiest stage anymore. It’s a shame.
Anyway, that’s my Slam City story. Aside from ruining my life, Slam City is also notable for launching Scottie Pippen’s rap career, which began and ended with the game’s opening theme, “Respect.”