(First of all, shout out to Rich for suggesting this game. I hadn't considered writing about it, but I do have some fond memories to share about it, so here goes...)
Double Dribble was a basketball game that was produced by Konami and released in 1987 in the United States. One year later, I got Double Dribble as a gift (I think). At the time, Double Dribble was the most realistic basketball simulation you could get for the NES with 5-on-5 action that at least resembled pro basketball. There were four teams named after cities (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York), with each city differentiated by colors and mascots. When selecting your team, an on-screen character shot a ball through a hoop corresponding with that team and play began.
Double Dribble plays like any basketball game: you pass, you shoot, you rebound, and you steal the ball... again and again and again. Like many NES games, much of what happens in the game is laden with cheese as steals become rampant, opponents block each other's dunks, and fast breaks happen with alarming regularity because there are no energy meters for players. Oh, and there are those crazy shots that you can make almost 90% of the time...
I remember it well. I flew to Indiana in 1990 to visit my relatives. At the time, I was in high school and had mostly set aside video games in favor of role-playing games, but that's a previous post... Anyway, I went to my cousin's house and she had an NES console and Double Dribble. Apparently, her boyfriend, Eric, was an NES player; he declared to me that he was "pretty good" at Double Dribble. Thinking that I was "pretty good" too, I accepted his challenge to play against each other. After one 5-minute quarter, it was, like, 40 to 2 and Eric was wiping the floor with me.
How? Well, he taught me a shot that almost always worked: basically, you run your player, who is in possession of the ball, into the upper corner of the court, press down the shoot button, and then release while you are well out of bounds (but before you land). As I witnessed his Double Dribble prowess with this magic shot, I was neither embarrassed nor angry, but in sheer awe of Eric. I still hold him in high regard because of that shot. I would go on to incorporate Eric's shot into my game and began recording my scores for games with 5-minute quarters: 197-4 (with a few 2-pointers mixed in), 196-2. I even think I had a couple of shutouts... all because I could steal the ball and immediately make that wacky cheese shot.
Double Dribble is still a part of my family's NES collection, though it doesn't see much play these days. I did try to play it recently and replicate that cheese shot, but I was unable to do so. Wikipedia corroborates my recollection of that shot by explaining how to do it (as well as about other "hot spots" in the game). So, if you're looking to fascinate your friends and thoroughly trounce them with an NES game, practice the money shots and then challenge them to Double Dribble and watch them behold you with a gaze of reverent admiration.
