14 DAY TRIAL // Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that all new copies of the upcoming and renamed NBA Elite 11 will come packed with a code that will allow gamers to download three game modes taken from the resurrected NBA Jam. The new modes that are brought over are Play Now, Online and Classic Campaign and will add a more arcade minded experience to the basketball simulation. NBA Elite 11 is set to be released on the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the Xbox 360 from Microsoft on October 5.
NBA Jam is a very lighthearted take on basketball, where players can jump from huge distances and where the ball itself can sometimes catch fire to show how heated a play is. The new game will use high resolution models for the bodies of the players and will have photographs for the heads of the well known protagonists. Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson will be the final bosses that players will face in NBA Jam and other players included are: Manute Bol, Clyde Drexler, Kevin McHale, Hakeem Olajuwon, Dennis Rodman, Detlef Schrempf, Spud Webb and James Worthy.
Jordan Edelstein, who is the vice president in charge of Marketing at EA Sports says, “NBA ELITE 11 is going to change the way basketball videogames are played. The addition of three free downloadable modes of the award winning NBA JAM is an unprecedented value add to a product that is already set to revolutionize the basketball videogame category.”
NBA Elite 11 version of NBA Jam seems to be smaller than the one that Electronic Arts will launch on the Nintendo Wii. The company seems to be interested in increasing the attractiveness level of their main basketball franchise by adding the NBA Jam code for those who pick up the game new. If the fan backlash is strong enough then NBA Jam might also be offered for a price for those who get the game used.