Hey everyone, you know what time it is? That’s right, it’s time for some…Coiiibat basketball? That can’t be right.
One of my all-time favorite weirdly specific game genres is “weird, one-off basketball games.” Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball is a hallmark of that genre! This was developed by Hudson Soft, who are much better known for the Bomberman and Adventure Island games, but they’ve made a couple of forays into sports. This might be their most notable one.
In the years before Michael Jordan established complete dominance over the league, the NBA’s top team was the Detroit Pistons, sometimes known as the “bad boys.” That reputation was in part due to Bill Laimbeer, an excellent big man who had a reputation for hard fouls aggressive play. That made him the perfect choice to be the namesake for a game like this.
The game somewhat resembles basketball, albeit with some major differences – most notably, you can (and should) should shove players to the ground whenever you like, and their are explosives and other obstacles on the ground. These differences are explained in the game by noting that Laimbeer took over some futuristic league, and subsequently removed basically all of its rules and, perhaps most importantly, its officials. You can basically do anything you want, though god help you if you commit a backcourt violation.
In practice, Combat Basketball doesn’t often feel much like basketball. The players typically move quite slowly, and the amount of over-the-top shoving can lead to lengthy sequences where possession of the ball changes repeatedly with neither player being able to get off a decent shot. It honestly feels a bit more like soccer at times – the player ‘radar’ on the lower left also contributes to that a bit, too. The game can be a big sluggish as a result, but like soccer, it can make the occasional scoring outburst a bit more exciting.
There are a few other things that bugged me about this game as well, especially the control scheme. The SNES controller has a half dozen buttons, and somehow this game pretty much only uses one of them – on offense, the ‘B’ button will pass if you’re moving and shoot if you aren’t. As a result, it’s pretty easy to move, think you’ve stopped, and then pass instead of shoot by pushing the button too soon. It works okay once you get used to it, but it’s so completely unnecessary.
Among my favorite things about this game is its campaign mode, in which the player must make his way up multiple tiers, not unlike the levels of English soccer, in order to ‘complete’ the game. This is a great way to slowly ramp up difficulty and give a little more meaning to what’s essentially playing the same game over and over. In addition to that, the team names are pure, 24-karat gold:
Blood Axes! Megacity Boys! And you know we’ve got the damn Palmer Squad. And if you thought I only took one picture of amazing team names, you were sorely mistaken:
Mega Plague vs. Mechajam is such a sweet matchup. There’s also a team named for Beta Pavonis, a star in a constellation only visible in the southern hemisphere, because that’s just how Bill Laimbeer rolls.
While the controls and pace of play are far from ideal, I kinda enjoyed Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball. If you’re like me and like quirky and unique sports games, it’s certainly worth a look, and probably won’t cost you more than $5. Plus, do you really want to make Bill Laimbeer mad?
As for Laimbeer, his career thankfully lasted just long enough for him to appear in NBA Jam, a game that amusingly kinda reflected his real-life playing style. He’s made a great career in basketball after his years as a player, as well – he’s been a coach in both the NBA and WNBA, and won three titles in the latter as coach of the Detroit Shock. He’s currently the coach of the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces.
We’re heading back to the NES for next week’s game, a prehistoric platformer that I’ve always had a real soft spot for. See you then!