Double Dribble

US arcade flyer.

Double Dribble is a basketball video game developed and published by Konami, originally for the arcade in 1986, ported to Famicom Disk System, NES, and PlayChoice-10 in 1987, the Amiga, Commodore 64, and MS-DOS in 1990, and the Game Boy in 1991. In the game, the player plays a game of basketball against another person or the computer's AI while viewing the court from a slightly raised side-view perspective. The game's gimmick is to show a large zoomed-in graphic of players when they dunk the ball.

Personal

My older brother was a fan of basketball growing up, so he got this game for our NES. I remember playing him in 2-player vs mode, and uncharacteristically doing better than him at it. I had discovered that, if you hold down the shoot button longer while you're in the air, it increases your likelihood to make a basket. My brother, on the other hand, would simply press the button and frequently miss. I remember silently hoping that he wouldn't notice my slower, but more accurate, shooting ability, and kept racking up baskets. He eventually got so frustrated rage-quit the game. Later, I practiced the game on my own and got good enough to beat the bronze level AI. I tried several times to beat the silver level AI, but failed every time. One day, on a lark, I tried bumping the AI up to gold level just to see how bad it would beat me, and I ended up winning! After that, I kept trying to beat the silver level AI until I eventually did just to say I could beat all three difficulties. I did this sometime in the early 1990s.

Status

I don't own this game, but I have beaten the NES port on all difficulty levels.

Review

4	5	3	4	5

Best Version: NES?

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The large player animations during dunk shots were pretty impressive at the time.
• Having speech in a game was still interesting at the time.
• The game plays several short musical themes commonly heard at basketball games, which helps create a professional basketball vibe.

Bad

• In most versions of the game, the graphics aren't very good. The human animation is very stiff, especially with the cheerleaders and mascots, and the backgrounds are ugly.
• At least in the NES port, the AI cheats by having the ability to pass the ball to players that are not on the screen, something human players cannot do. This gives them a big advantage by allowing them to pass the ball all the way to their basket before any of your defenders can block them.
• The music is quite lackluster.
• It would have been nice to have 2-player co-op.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Box Art

• 

  North American arcade cabinet.

• 

  North American arcade marquee. Two white men... sure.

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  North American arcade side art.

• 

  The Famicom Disk System cover uses Western art style, which isn't too unusual considering basketball was still primarily an American game at the time. The painting is adequate, the lettering is pretty good, but why is the white guy towering over the black guy?

• 

  The NES box has a skillfully painted depiction of another white guy dunking over a black guy. The lettering is hard to read, but I appreciate what they were going for.

• 

  The US PlayChoice-10 topper finally puts the focus on a black man. It's a bit boring, and the logo is still hard to read.

• 

  The design used for the Amiga, Commodore 64, and DOS uses the same art as the NES release, but simplifies the logo.

• 

  The Japanese Game Boy cover uses an Eastern cartoon style with two Asian players. The lettering is a bit dull.

• 

  The North American cover has a painting of deformed basketball players roughly playing. What the hell happened to his wrist? The flag on the logo is done right on this layout.

• 

  The European Game Boy box has a black man dunking over his opponents and shattering the glass. This is probably my favorite cover.

Documentation

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  Arcade manual, USA.

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  Arcade flyer, Japan, front.

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  Arcade flyer, Japan, back.

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  NES manual, USA.

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  Game Boy manual, USA.

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  Konami ad for sports games.

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  MS-DOS ad.

Videos

Longplay - Arcade, hardest difficulty.

Longplay - DOS, easiest difficulty.

Longplay - Famicom Disk System, hardest difficulty.

Longplay - Game Boy, USA, hardest difficulty.

Longplay - NES, hardest difficulty.

Game play - Amiga.

Review - PlayChoice-10.

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English	Double Dribble
English (Game Boy, Europe)	Hyper Dunk
English (Game Boy, North America)	Double Dribble: 5 On 5
Japanese	エキサイティング　バスケット	Ekisaitingu Basuketto	Exciting Basket
Japanese (Game Boy)	コナミックバスケット	Konamikku Basuketto	Konamic Basket

Links