Harlem Globetrotters: World Tour

The Harlem Globetrotters are world famous for their hardcourt exhibitions—gymnastic spectacles and capering antics that are so carnivalesque and "worked" that they are to professional basketball what professional wrestling is to amateur Greco-Roman grappling. For over a century, the Globetrotters have barnstormed mid-sized towns (mostly mid-western) to promulgate their hardwood hijinks, beating up on enhancement talent teams ("jobbers" in pro wrestling lingo) like the New Jersey Reds, the New York Nationals, and the infamous Washington Generals.

Inevitably, an institution so enduring would receive its own video game, and the Globetrotters have been around long enough to have attained that milestone twice over. The first virtual foray into sports-entertainment basketball was a five-on-five affair for the NES, released in 1990. While solid enough graphically, the game was fairly light on theatrics and heavy on the hardnosed simulation elements. In fact, it was so hard, it was not uncommon to lose by 50 points to the CPU—and that was when playing as the Globetrotters against the Generals on the easiest difficulty. 

Thankfully, the Globetrotters got the game they deserved 16 years later. This was Harlem Globetrotters World Tour for the Gameboy Advance. The game features a two-on-two, arcadey format very much inspired by the NBA Jam and NBA Hangtime style. This feels truer to the Globetrotters' unique sports-entertainment experience. And, also in fidelity with the Globetrotter's MO, when using the titular titans in World Tour mode or exhibition, the human player can absolutely destroy computer opponents like the LA Lashers, London Lords, and Shanghai Spirits (the Generals are, sadly, absent from this game). A one-sided game is fun at first, but by the fourth quarter it starts to feel a bit sadistic. Elsewhere on this blog, your correspondent has often championed the overly easy game, given that such offerings alienate no one; that said, with World Tour, things are a little too simple. If you're looking for real challenge, try challenging the Globetrotters with one of the jobber teams. With some divine intervention, you might do what hasn't been done since January 5, 1971—that fateful night in Martin, Tennessee when the Generals beat the Globetrotters.

If there is to be a third Globetrotters' game, the developers might not necessarily have to make the competition fiercer. Rather, they might focus on the Globetrotters' wrestling-esque approach and take a page from squared-circle simulations. The best of all wrestling games, Fire Pro Wrestling World, does not measure a player's success in wins and losses, which are somewhat immaterial in the world of wrestling. Rather, Fire Pro judges matches based on their quality—that is, the story they tell, and the high spots they hit—all of it digested in a "match rating" awarded at the end of a match. Perhaps a future Globetrotters game could leave victory for the Harlem side as a foregone conclusion, as it most always is, and focus instead on ability to pull off a sufficient numbers of behind-the-back shots, hot-dog dunks, and ladder-aided layups. That would better encapsulate the timeless Globetrotter experience.