The Double Dribble Files

[ICJ]

"If you play one game of this, it will be worth it." -- Flack

One of the games at our table for the OVGE was Konami's Double Dribble. A first-gen game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, it's "gimmick," it's "hook" is the part where -- when dunking -- it switches from an arcade view to a cinematic view of a gray-skinned lanky fuck trying to dunk the ball.

Having played the season modes of the NES versions of Dodge Ball and Hockey over the last couple of years until I beat them (well, I don't think Hockey has a season mode, just a "hard" mode? I can't remember) I wanted to do the same with Double Dribble. Flack gave me his NES cartridge after the OVGE. So I fired up a five minute-quarter game on the most difficult level.

I got to halftime. I had scored once.

The computer was up 46-2 on me. Clearly I am going to work at this one.

(The one part about this game that I like is that it doesn't actually tell you you've double dribbled. You can take a shot, have it hit nothing and then touch it again with the same dude. If you do that it just says, "Traveling." It's like they had no idea what the game was called during development. Which is possible, as I assume it is a Japanese port.)

[Flack]

This guy fared a little better against the CPU.



It's funny that the game doesn't know what a "double dribble" is, since when you turn the game on, it says (in an 8-bit digitized voice), "double dribble!"

I just looked up the game on Wikipedia and did not know that it was an arcade port. After you get rid of your Gyruss, I think you have an open slot ...

Here's a video from the arcade version. You can see that they didn't do too bad on the NES port.

[Flack]

Also as a footnote, I wanted to say that I am glad you got some use out of it. I probably paid a buck or two for it ten years ago and can't remember if I even ever tried it out. The first time I can remember playing it as an adult was at OVGE.