It's 1994. Midway Games' NBA Jam is the dominant basketball game of the mid 90's, and was quickly followed by a slew of rival imitators that tried to ride off its success, to the point where NBA superstars like Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley, after appearing in Jam, ended up getting their own basketball games, to mixed success. However, despite the stacked and accurate rosters of Jam, there was one glaring omission: Michael Jordan. Indeed, despite unquestionably being the most famous and popular basketball player in the world, Jordan never officially appeared in NBA Jam, its sequels and spinoffs, or any other basketball sim in the 90s, with a handful of exceptions.
You see, right around the time the original Jam was in development, Jordan had not only gone into his first retirement, but the NBA had changed its rules to allow players to individually pull out of the NBA's blanket licensing. This meant that as soon as Jordan opted out, he could easily charge an arm and a leg to appear in any media; prompting Midway to abandon the idea of including him, and consequently led to the removal of Charles Barkley and Shaquille O'Neal from later revisions of Jam, due to them also pulling out of the association's licensing.note
But while Midway wasn't willing to pony up the extra cash for Jordan's likeness, Electronic Arts was. And the end result was Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City, a Metroidvanian-esque platformer for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, released on November 21, 1994. This was EA's third game to feature Jordan (not counting his appearances in the NBA Playoffs series), and the second after getting the rights to his likeness, succeeding both Jordan vs. Bird: One On One, and Michael Jordan In Flight.
The overall plot is slightly Ripped from the Headlines: The game takes place right before Jordan is set to participate in a charity exhibition game organized by his former teammate Scottie Pippen. However, when Jordan arrives at the arena for practice, the arena is empty despite the players' gear being in the locker room. As Jordan mulls over what could've happened, a basketball crashes through a skylight. Picking it up, he sees a note scrawlled on it from Dr. Maximus Cranium, telling Jordan to head to the Egyptian exhibit in the Field Museum of Natural History at midnight if he wanted to save his teammates, and to come alone. Lacking any other options, Jordan manages to convince a security guard to sneak him into the museum. Once inside, he finds a hidden door in the wall of the exhibit, and stumbles upon an underground prison. What follows is Jordan going all around Chicago and the surrounding areas to save his fellow players from becoming part of Maximus Cranium's experiments.
We really couldn't make this plot up if we tried. Did we mention this came out a solid two years before Space Jam hit the theaters?
Although the game ultimately bricked in sales, it actually got mostly decent reviews, with the only major complaints being the difficult controls, annoying Product Placement, and an overall waste of Jordan's license, the latter of which got it put on Nintendo Power's 1997 "Ten Worst Games of All Time" list. Coincidentally, EA also published Shaq Fu, another game featuring an NBA star that made that same list, nearly a month before Windy City was released. After this, Jordan wouldn't appear in another EA game until NBA Live 2000.
Notably, this game was the debut for Amy Hennig as a lead designer, getting the job after the original designer quit. Hennig later became famed for her work on the Legacy of Kain series with Crystal Dynamics, and both the Jak and Daxter and Uncharted franchises, as part of Naughty Dog.
Tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Features: When you slam dunk a hoop with one of the special basketballs, no ammo is spent on it and you instantly get it back. This prevents players from wasting ammo and forcing to switch back to the normal ball and breaking the pace.
- Arc Number: "23", fittingly, since it was Jordan's playing number for the majority of his basketball career, with some rare exceptions.note The "23" hoop makes time freeze, and '23' Icons are extra lives.
- 1-Up: '23' Icons award you an extra life.
- Acid Pool: Factory has green pools of acid that should not be fallen into.
- Amusement Park of Doom: Chicago's Riverview Park is the final area and Dr. Cranium's base of operations. Originally torn down, Dr. Cranium re-built the park into his own twisted and maniacal fortress.
- An Ice Person: The Freeze Basketball powerup will freeze any enemies it touches for a few seconds upon contact, and coat the floor in ice.
- As Himself: Jordan not only provided his likeness, but actually recorded voice clips for the game.
- Asteroids Monster: The spiders split into three smaller spiders that are harder to hit. The green glob monsters in the Factory level also split into smaller globs when hit. Mike can dispose of them easily with the Iron ball or the Golden Seeker Ball.
- Badass Normal: Powerups aside, this is just regular old Michael Jordan you're playing as. No MacGuffin, enchanted items, or powers; it's just MJ, a basketball, and his wits getting him through all the craziness Dr. Crainium throws his way.
- Bandit Mook: The Cyborgs attack with a Grappling Hook arm that will steal Jordan's ball if it hits. It's not so bad if Jordan has equipped his normal ball (since those are infinite), but one of the power up basketballs will be permanently stolen from him.
- Battle Boomerang: The baseball powerup serves this role. They can damage several enemies at once, and will always return to Jordan. They can also grab items from out of reach.
- Big Bad: Dr. Maximum Crainium is capturing basketball players all over and wants to conduct freakish experiments on them.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The Haunted House area in Riverview Park, where bats and animated skeletons lurk.
- Blob Monster: Green blobs make an appearance in Factory.
- Boring, but Practical: Compared to the power-up balls, some of which have homing properties, freeze enemies, or set foes on fire, The normal ball are just run-of-the mill basketballs with no special features, but they have infinite ammo, have a solid firing rate, and do decent damage.
- Chest Monster: The "Ball-Bot", a robot enemy that disguises itself as one of the Basketball power-ups. When you approach it, it drops to the ground and starts to attack. Defeating it awards you with the Power-Upnote .
- Chicago: Where the entire game takes place in. It isn't called Chaos in the Windy City for nothing.
- Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: In Laboratory, there are malfunctioning power poles that emit bolts of electricity. There are also pairs of nodes with electric current constantly flowing between them. These ones can be switched off by throwing basketball at the lever nearby, if there is one. Finally, there are wires where electric arcs quickly travel upwards and have to be avoided.
- Creepy Circus Music: Riverview Park's soundtrack is filled with this, fitting for its theme of an Amusement Park of Doom.
- Death Throws: Jordan shrugs his shoulders and falls off the screen whenever you fall into a bottomless pit, a pit of molten steel, a vat of acid or touch the acid water.
- Eternal Engine: The Factory Area is the third main world. It takes place in Dr. Cranium's factory where Mike has to overcome various mechanical hazards and dangerous obstacles like molten steel and acid pools.
- Expressive Health Bar: MJ's head in the HUD changes expression based on how much health the player has. With ranges from him smiling at full health, grinning, neutral, angry, tired, then finally unconscious when losing a life.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: Factory levels have flame emitters that shoot out something that are borderline jets of flame and fireballs.
- Giant Spider: One of the most common early game enemies are large spiders that come in yellow and grey variety.
- Grimy Water: Acid (which looks like glowy green water) appears in a few of the Factory levels. Mike has to hit the levers to lower the Acid level which allows him access to further areas in the level. Touching the Acid instantly kills you.
- Harmless Freezing: Subverted: While first contact with a Freeze Basketball won't hurt an enemy when it freezes them, hitting them with a second one will shatter them.
- Hearts Are Health: There are two heart-power ups in the game. The Red Heart with an "MJ" insignia, which fully restores your health when you collect it, and the much rarer Golden Heart, which permanently extends your life meter.
- Heart Container: The Golden Hearts permanently extends the health meter by one. They're very rare and tricky to find, but it makes the effort to get them worth it.
- Hollywood Acid: Acid appears as an obstacle in the Factory level and in two flavors. The Acid Water which shares the same graphic as the water only in a grimy green color, and vats of glowy green acid. Acid instantly kills you if you touch it.
- Homing Projectile: The Golden Seeker Ball homes in on nearly enemies. Dunking one sends out three different balls that seek out enemies.
- I Know Madden Kombat: Jordan wasn't exactly known for throwing hands during his heyday, after all, so tossing and dunking basketballs is his only form of attack. Powerups scattered across various levels will give Jordan basketballs with special abilities to combat enemies who can block his normal attacks.
- This also serves a practical purpose: Throughout the game, basketball hoops are littered across levels for Jordan to dunk on. Most of these hoops grant items, while certain ones will either act as a checkpoint, or as a dunk-activated Smart Bomb. Jordan can also use his basketballs to flip certain switches to get through a level.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Factory levels have conveyor belts that lead Michael to various hazards.
- Invincibility Power-Up: The Sneakers Power Up renders Jordan temporarily invincible to everything for a few seconds. His sneakers glow and sparkle for the duration.
- Kill It with Fire: Flaming Basketballs essentially act as your fire arrows in this game. They can set certain enimes on fire or do extra damage, and performing a slam with one will blow enemies up along a straight line.
- Lava Pit: Factory has numerous pools of lava that should be avoided.
- Law of 100: Jordan collects Basketball-shaped coins that come in two flavors. Silver coins which are worth one each, and gold coins which are worth five. Collecting 100 coins gives you an extra life.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo:
- EA had the rights to Jordan himself, but not the Jordan brand, which is used for his shoe and clothing line. As a result, whenever the "Jumpman" logo appeared, it was modified to resemble Jordan's in-game jumping sprite.
- Same thing applies to the players you rescue. They're clearly modeled after various real-life players Jordan played against, but no names are given at any point during the game.
- Lethal Lava Land: The Factory area has various areas of molten steel that must be avoided.
- Literally Shattered Lives: If you hit an enemy twice with the Freeze Basketball, they'll shatter into pieces.
- Locomotive Level: "El Train" stages that take place between worlds. Jordan rides the train while evading annoying Paparazzi. He can knock the reporters out easily with his basketballs.
- Logo Joke: In the game's intro, a basketball becomes the sphere in Electronic Arts' 1990s logo.
- Mad Scientist: Dr. Maximum Crainium, who wants to use Jordan's fellow basketball players for inhumane experiments.
- Mad Scientist Laboratory: Dr. Cranium's Laboratory is the second main area Michael visits, you start to see the extent of the horrific experiments the Doctor has been working on.
- Mecha-Mooks: Robot Gorillas, Cyborgs, Whistle Robots, are just a few of Dr. Cranium's henchmen Michael faces.
- Metroidvania: Has elements of the subgenre, from the various powerups, hidden heart containers, finding certain items to progress, and tons of backtracking. The only thing it really lacks are certain RPG elements and respawning enemies.
- A Molten Date with Death: Pits of Molten Steel appear in the second and fourth Factory levels. Falling in it kills you instantly.
- One-Hit Kill: Acid and Molten Steel in the Factory level kills you on contact.
- Poison Mushroom: Be careful opening certain doors in some areas. Some have enemies that lurk inside that will jump out and damage you when you open them.
- Power-Up Food: Bottles of Gatorade and Wheaties restore a bit of health.
- Product Placement: And lots of it, particularly from Wheaties and Gatorade, both of which Jordan was endorsing at the time. Boxes of Wheaties and Gatorade bottles appear throughout the game as health pickups.
- Robot Me: The Final Boss is a giant robotic version of MJ, piloted by Dr. Crainium himself; complete with Jordan's moves and aerial abilities, but not his speed.
- Saw Blades of Death: Circular saws act as an occasional hazard in Factory stages.
- Segmented Serpent: One of the enemies is a snake made of segments that are green basketballs.
- Smart Bomb: Two variants appear, and will kill all enemies on screen:
- The Explosion Net: A "manual" variant that requires Jordan to dunk on a hoop attached to an comic-like "Boom"-shaped backboard.
- Red Basketballs, which can be stacked up, unlike other basketballs, and can be used to do massive damage on bosses.
- Slippy-Slidey Ice World: An unusual case case, as they can be player-made here. Slamming a Freeze Basketball will cause the ground under you to freeze, and if Jordan touches it, he immediately loses his traction, and slides all over the place. A decent way to fast travel on some stages, and slip up some enemies, but it can just as easily bite you if you accidentally send yourself careening towards a bottomless pit.
- Smashing Hallway Traps of Doom: Crushers that move up and down appear in Factory as a hazard.
- Spikes of Doom: These appear in the Laboratory and Riverview stages. They're very dangerous, as they chop your health in half. Invincibility can protect you from them.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: Springboards are found throughout the game, giving Jordan jumping boost.
- Super Drowning Skills: Bodies of water are treated like bottomless pits in this game. Go into it, and you're immediately put into Death Throws.
- Time Stands Still: Yellow basketball hoops with a '23' when dunked, stop all of the enemy activity for 15 seconds. Enemies can still hurt on contact, however.
- Top-Heavy Guy: Mutant Basketball players with a massively large top body and comically small legs and feet. They block your attack head on with their hands, but are vulnerable to being dunked on. The base ball can pierce though their initial defense and strike them from behind.
- Underground Level: The Cells. The first area where Jordan's quest begins.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Emphasis on "loosely". A couple months before the game's release, Jordan, still retired at the time, really did participate in a charity game hosted by Scottie Pippen, which was the last basketball game ever hosted at the Chicago Stadium before it was demolished, and the Chicago Bulls moved to the current United Centre. Of course, there were no mad scientists or weird experiments going on prior to the game.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Anything that Jordan can't hurdle by jumping alone is solved by throwing a basketball at it.
- A Winner Is You: Once you beat the game, you're shown Jordan high-fiving every player he rescued up to that point as the credits roll, then... not much else as Jordan just sits there bouncing the ball through the credits, before running offscreen once they finish.
- X-Ray Sparks: Jordan gets these briefly when he gets hit by an electrical hazard.
