Five points away from immortality

Screenshot courtesy of www.videogamecritic.net

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with basketball. Spent every quarter I owned on NBA Jam, then played the heck out of it on the Genesis. When that got old, I started renting other basketball games. Some of which sucked so hard (Jamnit, anyone?), while some of them, like NBA Showdown 94, were freakin awesome.

While I never bought it, I remember Showdown being one of my favorite realistic basketball games, having graduated from playing Lakers vs. Celtics and the NBA Playoffs. It was the perfect way to spend the weekend, especially during basketball-less summers (because baseball to me was not worth watching). I'd play the heck out of that game nearly every weekend when I got to rent one game. I'd make customized teams (the coolest thing in the world until I discovered Live 96's create-a-player mode), and stomp over the Washington Bullets with Shaquille O'Neal and Larry Johnson on the same team.

During this time, for some reason, I started to like the Minnesota Timberwolves, mostly because they sucked at the time and I felt bad for them. I thought I could take their video game versions to basketball glory.

And one night I did. Or came close to it.

One of the cool things about Showdown was being able to see how many points a player scored during the game at any time. Sounds archaic now, but having that option at beck and call was a pretty cool innovation back then. I can't remember who I was playing but I had the Minnesota Timberwolves, and Doug West was lighting the place up.

Screenshot courtesy of www.nba.com

It seemed like he made every shot. Details about the game settings are sketchy 17 years later, but I do know that he shot quite a few free throws, and the quarters being around 6-8 minutes long. Not too long but not too short.

So at the end of the game, I check the stats, as I had forgotten to do that mid-game. And I'll never forget Williams total points.

96.

Talk about frustrated! Mind you, that's the greatest video game accomplishment I've ever had. 96 points with Doug West! But I was frustrated because if I'd checked the stats with a few min left and saw West inching toward Wilt Chamberlain's numbers, I would have fed him the ball more.

I can't imagine a player getting 90 points nowadays and the team not putting forth a little more effort in feeding him the rock to crack Wilt's numbers.

I bought the game for $2 about a year ago, and haven't had the patience to play through a game (sports games for me don't age well at all). But maybe, just maybe, I can pull that off someday. It'd be a nice way to call it a career on the single life before my May 14 wedding.