Space Jam: A New Legacy

Brawling Over Basketball

Space Jam: A New Legacy – The Game is a pixelated side-scrolling brawler. You control Lebron James, Bugs Bunny and Lola Bunny. Your goal? Defeat the evil A.I., AL-G Rhythm, who’s put you all into cyberspace. To do so, you need to find the Legacy Code, which is spread across several floppy disks guarded by AL-G’s robot servants. Space Jam: A New Legacy – The Game came out July 15th on Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One.

Space Jam: A New Legacy
image credit: MajorNelson

Basketball Brawling Bonanza

To fight a slew of evil robots, you’ll be using your fists and a basketball. The former is for getting up close and personal. The latter is used to attack enemies from a distance. The basketball can also be charged up to deal more damage. If you forget to pick up your ball, Tweety Bird will return it to you by dropping it from the sky. Initial hits can temporarily stun enemies, which will leave them on their backs seeing Tweety Birds.

While you melee smash through robots, every hit you land will also build your special attack meter. This can be used to summon other looney tune characters that perform special attacks. Taz performs a spinning cyclone attack against all enemies on the screen. Granny provides food for players to regenerate their health.

While you can solo play through the story, you can also team up with two friends. The game consists of three levels with three bosses, all of which can be defeated easily. A major flaw to the fighting mechanics is the slight ability to move forward and backward on top of left and right.

With this option, judging the depth of your character in comparison to your enemies can be a bit annoying. You’ll have to focus on how your shadow lines up with the enemy’s shadow. It’s not going to keep you from beating any levels, since you’re given an ample amount of health and extra lives, but it will bug you as you play.

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Slam Dunk or Brick?

If you’re looking for a game that will last, a game that will challenge you, or a game that’s just fun, you’ll have to keep looking. Space Jam: A New Legacy is obviously just a marketing ploy. You’ll have about 30 minutes of playtime without much difficulty. You can unlock some additional modes, but they aren’t entirely interesting. The gameplay is repetitive, overly easy, yet still frustrating in its design.

The lack of voice acting from these animated classics and a basketball legend feels like a missed opportunity. You get some shouts and extremely short quips during fights. What little story is told through characters talking appears as text along the bottom of the screen. Even though it is a free title, this game will only appeal to you if you’re very much into the brand new movie or its predecessor.

Written by Trevor Forrest
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