NBA Jam Was Rigged Against the Bulls

If you were a kid in the '90s and enjoyed video games chances are you got plenty of thumb blisters and fuzzy vision while logging in countless hours on NBA Jams. Not only was it a great arcade game but it dominated homes when it was released on the Super Nintendo back in '93-'94. As a Bulls fan though I was always a little pissed because you could never play as Michael Jordan, a trend that would follow in virtually every video basketball game released from there on out. There was something else that might have tortured Bulls fans on NBA Jams, Chicago could never sink a last second shot. Was it chance? Was it operator error? Nope. It turns out one of the guys who designed the game was a huge Detroit Pistons fan and put a code in the software that made the Bulls miss any last second shot regardless of who was taking the it. What a dick! ESPN the Magazine did a interview recently with Mark Turmell and he filled them in on a little secret,

"If there was a close game and anyone on the Bulls took a last second shot, we wrote special code in the game so that they would average out to be bricks. There was the big competition back in the day between the Pistons and the Bulls, and since I was always a big Pistons fan, that was my opportunity to level the playing field."

Again, what a dick. I guess since his team could never beat the Bulls on the real court he would tip the scales in the video game world. Turmell also told ESPN that there was code embedded in the game that lowered Scottie Pippen's stats anytime you matched him up against the Pistons. Geez, this dude really hated the Bulls.
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