Wayback Wednesday: Fast Break Retrospective

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 taking a look back at Fast Break, a PC basketball game developed by Accolade

Over the years, thousands of classic video games have been made available to buy digitally. Game preservation is important, and it’s fantastic that GOG (and to some extent, Steam) are keeping retro favourites alive. Of course, securing the rights to certain games is tricky when the studios that made them cease operations, or they’re bought out by other companies. When it comes to sports games, licensing makes it even more difficult. These two factors are why we don’t see too many old basketball games being re-released on digital platforms; especially those that are NBA-licensed.

However, there is one “ancient” basketball game that – as of writing – is available to purchase on GOG and Steam: Fast Break. Developed and published by Accolade for MS-DOS and Commodore 64 in 1988, and Amiga, Apple IIGS, and Mac in 1989, it’s a contemporary of Electronic Arts’ Lakers vs. Celtics and Jordan vs. Bird. The rights to Fast Break and other Accolade titles ended up with Ziggurat Interactive, who re-released it in 2021. So, what is Fast Break like, and how does it compare to other pioneering basketball video games? Let’s take a look back…way back…

Before I dive into the game, it’s worth touching on the history of Accolade. Founded in 1984, they developed and/or published the HardBall! series of baseball games, the Jack Nicklaus series of golf games, and the Test Drive series of racing games. They’re also the studio behind Bubsy, an infamous attempt to replicate the success of Sonic the Hedgehog and create a new “mascot with attitude”. Notably, they won a lawsuit with Sega over creating unauthorised games by reverse-engineering the Genesis’ boot protection. However, Accolade had numerous flops in the mid 90s, most notoriously Bubsy 3D. It sullied their reputation, and Infogrames ended up buying them in 1999.

Nevertheless, there was a time when Accolade was a prominent name in gaming, and attached to some great titles as a developer, publisher, or both. They weren’t exactly known for their basketball games, though. Indeed, apart from Fast Break, the only other hoops titles they developed were Barkley Shut Up and Jam! and its sequel. A couple of mediocre NBA Jam clones in the mid 90s – only one of which included the titular Charles Barkley as a playable character – didn’t fill me with confidence about Fast Break! Still, the bar is lower for basketball games from the 80s, as the genre was still in its infancy. As such, I’m judging Fast Break in comparison to its peers here.

Fast Break features full court 3-on-3 gameplay from a diagonal/isometric view, years before EA adopted it for NBA Live 95. It isn’t licensed, so there are no real players or teams. Instead, you play as either the Slammers or the Jammers – again, long before those monikers were used by NBA Live’s custom teams – and assemble a roster from a pool of fictional players. Each player has his own strengths and weaknesses, which are displayed in a scouting report as you’re picking your starters and reserves at guard, forward, and centre. In addition to selecting your six players, you’ll also choose your team’s playbook, which means picking the four offensive plays that you’d like to run.

There are 14 pre-designed offensive plays available to both teams, with the 15th play being one that you can design yourself using the Playmaker feature. When designing plays, you can have each player make up to four moves to a desired location on the floor. Obviously it’s nowhere near as deep as the custom play functions we’ve seen in much newer games, but it’s an impressive feature for an era where just being able to call a couple of preset plays was a big deal. Playcalling is activated by lingering near the halfcourt line, or dribbling into the key and then backing out to centre court. The action will pause, and both teams can choose an offensive play or defensive strategy.

It’s a primitive way to handle on-the-fly playcalling, and pausing the action obviously slows down gameplay. Once again though, it’s a commendable effort in an era when simply being able to call a play was a novelty. There’s also a practice mode where you can get acclimated to the gameplay and controls, though somewhat frustratingly it’s a two-player mode. The quarter length can be set to three, six, nine, or 12 minutes, with six as the default. Apart from that, there are no difficulty levels or other settings that you can change, which isn’t surprising as basketball games weren’t that sophisticated yet. Likewise, there’s no season or tournament play; only an option for a single game.

In terms of gameplay depth, each team has six timeouts – three per half – which can be called after a basket. Substitutions can be made during timeouts and quarter breaks. The three-point line is in effect, and you can dunk when you’re close to the hoop. On defense, you can steal the ball and swat shots. There are defensive and charging foul calls, with players fouling out on their sixth foul. The 24-second shot clock and 10-seconds-in-the-half rules are in effect, but you can’t dribble or pass out of bounds, nor can you double dribble or go over-and-back. There are no free throws, as the manual says they’re for wimps (or they were too difficult to implement; take your pick here).

All in all, that’s a solid approach to video game basketball in the 80s, with a couple of features that are ahead of their time. To that point, you’re probably expecting to hear that there’s a catch, and you are correct! Fast Break was released at time where single-button joysticks were still common. As such, there’s one action button for everything. Pressing it will pass the ball on offense, while holding it down will attempt a shot. It’s also used to jump for rebounds at both ends, though most boards are flat-footed. On defense, it’ll switch players, or jump to block if you’re near an opponent. Steals are performed automatically by touching the ball handler, as long as they’re facing you.

Of course, on paper, that can still work. Games like Double Dribble for NES have limited controls with only two face buttons to work with, and while one button is naturally more restrictive, Fast Break made the best of the situation with a logical approach. Unfortunately, the gameplay is absolutely horrible! I hesitate to say that about such an old game because one’s expectations need to be lower, but it’s simply abysmal. It’s basically unplayable against the CPU, because it will strip your players and intercept your passes with ease. Because of the camera cut when crossing into the frontcourt, we’re unable to beat full court pressure with a long pass to a teammate.

Assuming that you can make it into the frontcourt, shooting is insanely difficult. The only shots I’ve been able to hit came on very late releases, and so felt like sheer dumb luck. Meanwhile, the CPU hits almost everything. It’ll pull up and smoke threes from near halfcourt, even when heavily guarded. It will calmly drain turnaround fadeaway threes, even passing up open shots under the rim to race back out to the arc to toss one up. Despite the manual’s tip to get into the lane for dunks, I’ve yet to see a single one in any of my sessions. From what I’ve seen watching other people’s gameplay footage on YouTube, dunks look similar to jumpshots, except players touch the rim (sort of).

Indeed, watching other people play Fast Break confirms that they had the same utterly miserable experience against the CPU. Again, I’m comparing it to its contemporaries here. It’s nowhere near as fun and playable as Double Dribble, Lakers vs. Celtics, or Jordan vs. Bird. All of those games featured smarter AI that provided us with a fair challenge, and mechanics that actually allowed us to make basic basketball plays. It’s possible that Fast Break is better as a two-player head-to-head experience, as there’d be a better chance of an even matchup. It’s certainly where the replay value would be, seeing as there’s no season or tournament. Single player is absolutely terrible, though.

With that being said, there are some impressive aspects of Fast Break. For a 16-colour EGA game, it looks quite nice. The gameplay doesn’t quite live up to the visual appeal of the title screen, but again, we’re talking about a computer game that predated VGA becoming the standard. There’s no differentiation between the players on the court, but they’re at least recognisable as human beings. Aside from dunks looking like a jumpshot, the animations aren’t bad. Shots will roll and bounce in and out as well as swish and brick, which we don’t always see in much newer games. The ability to shoot runners and fadeaways is a nice touch, even without any special animations.

Of course, that makes Fast Break all the more frustrating. Sure, its graphics and animations are primitive now, but they were more than acceptable in 1988. Shots bouncing and rolling on the rim before they miss or go in is an impressive level of detail for that era. Halting the action to call plays isn’t ideal, but it’s a solid early attempt at implementing on-the-fly strategy. As simple as the controls are given that they’re designed for single-button joysticks, the approach can work. On top of that, the fictional players have fun names like Clyde “The Colonel” Sanders and “Mercury” Monroe. A lot of the building blocks are there for an enjoyable (albeit shallow) game.

Sadly, the CPU doesn’t seem too interested in doing anything except launching threes; though, I suppose in that regard, we can tip our hat to Fast Break for predicting the future! It shoots at way too high of a clip to be fair, especially when combined with its ability to steal from you on just about every possession. As I said, it’s probably better as a two-player game, and I’m sure that gamers back in the late 80s and early 90s had some epic battles in it. However, a great basketball game must be balanced, allow you to make good plays at both ends, and be enjoyable both solo and multiplayer. Other games that are as old as Fast Break were able to achieve that, but it certainly doesn’t.

To that end, it’s not a title that I’d recommend for retro basketball gamers. Granted, with the exception of NBA Jam, NBA Jam Tournament Edition, and World League Basketball (aka NCAA Basketball, aka Super Dunk Shot), I’m usually not inclined to recommend titles that are older than NBA Live 95 anyway. The huge leaps that the genre made in the mid 90s make many earlier games difficult to dust off, as they’re missing vital staple mechanics. There are games like Tecmo Super NBA Basketball and EA’s NBA Playoffs series that are at least playable – if only for a quick trip down memory lane – but to be blunt, Fast Break isn’t close to being good enough for that!

However, I am glad that I picked it up. The digital re-release is regularly priced under $10 on GOG and Steam, so even when it isn’t on sale, it’s an affordable curiosity for collectors to purchase. As someone who has been playing video games since the 80s, but didn’t get into basketball and basketball gaming until the mid 90s, it’s fascinating to go back and experience the infancy of the genre. Fast Break wasn’t on the level of its virtual hardwood contemporaries, but it does boast a few features that were ahead of their time, namely playcalling, play creation, and rim interactions. It’s a game that I’ll have to revisit with another person to see if the two-player experience holds up.

Mind you, while it’ll likely be a fairer showdown, it’s probably not going to be a much better experience! From the touch steals and easy interceptions, to the difficulty of shooting, to the annoyance of having to manually collect the ball for the inbounds pass after a basket, it’s nowhere near as enjoyable as a couple of other early hoops titles. As a fan of basketball gaming and its history, I do appreciate the attempts to innovate, and the style of virtual hoops it was going for. If we’re talking about titles that I’d recommend as an advocate for retro basketball gaming though, it’s absolutely not on the list! It’s cheap if you’re really curious, but it’s a game best left to history.

The post Wayback Wednesday: Fast Break Retrospective appeared first on NLSC.