Welcome to another edition of The Friday Five! Every Friday I cover a topic related to basketball gaming, either as a list of five items, or a Top 5 countdown. The topics for these lists and countdowns include everything from fun facts and recollections to commentary and critique. This week’s Five is a list of five of my best retro pick-ups as a basketball video game collector.

Expanding my basketball video game collection in recent years has been immensely satisfying. Sometimes I don’t like to think about the cumulative cost, but as I’ve said in previous articles and on our podcast, it’s always my goal to strive to be as savvy and frugal as possible. I’m not going to overpay just to get a game that I want right away, unless it’s particularly rare and difficult to get hold of. Even then, I’m still going to shop around and balk at any price tag that’s straight-up gouging. My advice to any would-be video game collector is to not overspend on your retro pick-ups.

Although snagging some bargains is definitely a part of what makes some of my retro pick-ups so satisfying, I don’t just collect for the sake of completion, or the thrill of the hunt. I want to play these games and create content about them, so it’s been a joy to finally get my hands on titles that I overlooked, couldn’t access, or simply didn’t know about years ago. Unsurprisingly, some of them are more challenging than others to obtain years and indeed decades later, especially without paying more than they’re worth. These five games are among my best and most satisfying retro pick-ups, as it took some good deals and good fortune for me to snap them up for my collection.

1. College Basketball Games on PS3

Although I’ve never been as keen on college basketball as I am the NBA, I’ve always had a casual interest in it. College basketball video games were certainly tantalising for me, as since I’m in a PAL region, they were perpetually out of my grasp. Indeed, I recall reading about the planned features for an upcoming NCAA March Madness game in the early 2000s, and feeling wistful that a) NBA Live didn’t have something similar, and b) I had no way to play imported NCAA games. A few years later, I had a chance to snag a free copy of the latest March Madness when I was at an NBA Live community event, but as I only had an Xbox 360, there would’ve been no use in that.

About six years ago however, a friend who was looking to get rid of clutter and knew that I’d been seeking an affordable PlayStation 3 to import games kindly gifted me his old console. With that in hand, I began scouring eBay for college basketball games! The selection on PS3 is limited to College Hoops 2K7, College Hoops 2K8, NCAA March Madness 08, NCAA Basketball 09, and NCAA Basketball 10, but that still gave me a couple of really strong titles to check out. Over the next year or so, I was able to track down all of those games at reasonable prices, allowing me to finally play and create content about them. Collectively, they’re some of my best retro pick-ups!

2. Lakers vs. Celtics PC

For a time, the PC version of Lakers vs. Celtics was my white whale as I added to my basketball video game collection. Of course, it has been floating around the internet as abandonware since the late 90s, but aside from the dubious legality of that, a proper copy is a far more enjoyable collectible! With that being said, given its age, there are fewer copies in circulation compared to sixth and seventh generation basketball titles, or even NBA Live games from the mid to late 90s. That does invite higher prices on eBay, especially for a complete-in-box copy. All of the listings that I found were from sellers in the United States, adding expensive shipping costs since I’m in Australia.

Funnily enough, when Dee obtained up his copy of the game, I’d been watching the very same eBay listing and mulling it over! As such, he ended up adding Lakers vs. Celtics for PC to his collection first, but a few months later, I saw a complete-in-box copy going for a reasonable price. I jumped at the opportunity, and was able to add it to my collection as well. The most satisfying retro pick-ups are the ones that you’ve been craving and patiently remained on the lookout for, so that you can finally get them at a fair price that doesn’t break the bank. It’s probably why I’ll never own a copy of NBA Elite 11, but in Lakers vs. Celtics, I picked up a much better EA hoops game!

3. Jordan vs. Bird PC

Speaking of PC basketball games from Electronic Arts, I was also delighted when I found Jordan vs. Bird at a reasonable price. Like Lakers vs. Celtics and so many other PC games from the late 80s and early 90s, the abandonware scene had preserved it before the turn of the millennium, but it’s special to be able to own an original copy. Jordan vs. Bird was also released for the NES, Game Boy, Genesis, and Commodore 64, but those weren’t options for me. Out of all of those systems, the NES is the only one I own, but strangely the NES version of Jordan vs. Bird was exclusive to North America while the Game Boy release wasn’t. Therefore, for me, it was PC or bust!

Fortunately, a couple of years ago while browsing eBay for games that I didn’t yet own, I encountered a copy that wasn’t too expensive to import. I’m not sure if Jordan vs. Bird for PC had an Australian release – the apparent lack of local copies suggests that it didn’t – but thankfully, floppy disks and PC CD-ROMs aren’t region-locked. Still, it does mean that I have to look abroad to collect certain games, and again, postage between the US and Australia isn’t cheap. As I said, the best retro pick-ups aren’t prohibitively expensive, and even though it’s an older and somewhat rarer release that can demand a higher price, I got a good deal on Jordan vs. Bird PC.

4. Slam City with Scottie Pippen

When it comes to FMV games, Slam City with Scottie Pippen doesn’t get mentioned alongside titles like Dragon’s Lair, and understandably so. It’s an interesting concept and can be fun if you’re open-minded, but there are better ways to get your virtual basketball fix! I wasn’t aware of it until I saw the Angry Video Game Nerd episode covering the Sega CD, which I didn’t (and still don’t) own. To that end, I figured it was a game that I probably wouldn’t ever add to my collection. Upon further research though, I discovered that there was a PC release, so it joined the list of potential retro pick-ups. I passed on a couple of pricey listings before picking it up in January 2021.

As far as retro pick-ups are concerned, I’ve definitely collected better games! I enjoy adding oddities to my collection though, and I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting from the AVGN video. Nevertheless, as a rarer game that could’ve cost far more than what I paid for it – complete-in-box no less – it was fun to collect. What really makes it stand out as one of my best retro pick-ups is that I was actually able to source it here in Australia, which I didn’t expect! Avoiding high postage is obviously a win when collecting through eBay, but it was a novelty to see that the PC version of a somewhat forgotten basketball video game made its way to Australia at some point.

5. NBA 2K12 Game of the Year Edition

The standard edition of NBA 2K12 is no trouble to collect. In fact, it isn’t too difficult to find copies featuring the alternate Magic Johnson and Larry Bird covers, and I’ve even managed to snag a review copy that made it out into the wild for less than $10 AUD! Perhaps not surprisingly however, the Game of the Year edition is considerably tougher to collect. If you go hunting for it, you’ll encounter a ton of listings for the standard release falsely claiming to be the Game of the Year edition, while genuine copies are quite expensive. It’s not the worst example of gouging given the rarity and appeal of the game, but unless all of the collectibles are included, it can be a bit much.

Ironically, given that it’s only an honourable mention on my list of all-time favourite basketball video games, NBA 2K12 is probably the game that I own the most copies of, thanks to collecting those alternate covers for 360 and PS3 alike. There’s a reason why I was eager to add the Game of the Year edition to my collection though, and that’s the inclusion of the Legends Showcase DLC. The copy I found wasn’t in quite as good a condition as advertised, as I had to clean the disc to get it to work on my PS3. It’s all working now though, so the DLC that I’d long-figured I’d missed out on is now readily available to me. That easily makes it one of my best retro pick-ups so far!

Fellow basketball video game collectors, what are some of your best retro pick-ups? Are there any white whales on your wishlist? Let me know in the comments, and as always, feel free to take the discussion to the NLSC Forum! That’s all for this week, so thanks for checking in, have a great weekend, and please join me again next Friday for another Five.

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