Tag Archives: Yinka Dare

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m revisiting the rosters in NBA Live 96 PC.

Have I mentioned that old basketball video games can be interactive almanacs? I believe I have, once or twice! It’s one of the things that I enjoy the most about retro basketball gaming, on top of the nostalgic throwback gameplay of course. As I’ve noted on several occasions, sim titles capture a snapshot of the league at the time they were released. This includes interesting trivia such as phantom stints, familiar faces in unfamiliar places, and familiar faces back in familiar places, to name just some of the examples that I enjoy keeping my eye out for.

I’ve previously revisited the rosters in NBA Live 2002, NBA Live 95 (both PC and Super Nintendo), and NBA Live 99 PC (with the official update). Those were fun trips down memory lane, but I’m even more excited to revisit the rosters in NBA Live 96 PC. It’s one of my all-time favourite basketball games, and while I sunk countless hours into it playing with my 1998 season roster, I also spent a considerable amount of time with the default lineups. It’s also helped me out with modding, and even in answering trivia all these years later! Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m investigating a mystery that surrounds the portrait used for Yinka Dare in NBA Live 96 PC.

Just when I think I’m done talking about portraits in NBA Live 96 PC for Wayback Wednesday, another topic comes to mind! It helps that I’ve connected with Dee to play the game over Parsec on a number of occasions, and even felt compelled to whip up a couple of minimalist roster mods for it to celebrate March Modness earlier this year. NBA Live 96 PC is one of my all-time favourite games, so between all of those hours playing it when it was new, and revisiting it in the years since, I feel as though I know the game inside and out.

Of course, I thought the same thing about NBA Jam Tournament Edition PC and NBA Hangtime for the Nintendo 64, yet I discovered oddities and had them pointed out to me over two decades later! A vague memory of a court bug in NBA Live 96 PC also prompted me to investigate further, and confirm that it wasn’t my imagination or a modding error. Since I’ve been playing NBA Live 96 PC and messing around in its rosters in recent months, I was reminded of another mystery, this time involving the portrait that was used for Yinka Dare. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in some nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content. This week, I’m taking a look back at some players that I remember because of video games.

In response to my retrospective of NBA Live 95 for our 25th Anniversary of NBA Live celebrations, our own Q noted that the game helped him form opinions about NBA players. I can certainly say that video games were one of my main resources for learning about the league and its players when I was first getting into basketball, and I know a lot of other 90s kids can say the same. I’ve wondered if that still applies to the younger gamers these days. NBA 2K’s success has unquestionably made the genre mainstream, but the Internet has also made the NBA itself more accessible than ever.

I’ve previously joked that you know you’re a long-time hardcore NBA fan when you can name benchwarmers from over a decade ago. Trading cards and video games are also a reason that I remember a lot of lesser-known players from the 90s and 2000s, and a few of them will often spring to mind thanks to the virtual hardwood. For this week’s Wayback Wednesday, I’m recalling some of those players who stuck in my mind due to their video game counterparts. Let’s take a look back…way back…

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This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! In this feature, we dig into the archives, look back at the history of basketball gaming, and indulge in nostalgia. Check in every Wednesday for retrospectives and other features on older versions of NBA Live, NBA 2K, and old school basketball video games in general. You’ll also find old NLSC editorials re-published with added commentary, and other flashback content.

Today, I present you with a game of NBA Jam Tournament Edition on PC, featuring Yinka Dare. Now, NBA Jam TE is one of my all-time favourite basketball video games, and in my opinion, one of the best arcade hoops games ever made. Conversely, and with all due respect, the late Yinka Dare’s ranking among NBA alumni isn’t quite as stellar. As I’ve mentioned before, his ratings in the PC version of NBA Jam TE are some of the most insulting you’ll ever find in a basketball video game, having been severely nerfed from the Super Nintendo version. Outside of his Dunking, Blocking, and Power ratings, there isn’t a lot to work with.

However, despite ratings that are mostly made up of ones and zeroes, it’s possible to dominate with Yinka Dare in NBA Jam TE. In fact, not even a Clutch rating of zero can prevent Dare from getting the job done in crunch time! Don’t believe me? Well, let’s take a look back…way back…

Check it out here on our YouTube channel if you can’t see the embedded video. While it’s a little easier to accomplish feats like this in arcade basketball games, even in sim titles it can be a lot of fun to have big games with players whose ratings shouldn’t normally allow it. In that respect, it’s kind of like watching an unlikely player erupt for 50 points in real life. In any case, I hope you enjoyed the video; be sure to check in each and every Wednesday for more videos, retrospectives, stuff from the archives, and other Wayback content!