All of this is In My Honest Opinion and only the subjective impressions 
of one single player.  I've only played the arcade game a few times so 
I'm not going to comment on the exactness to the arcade.  Instead I'm 
going to judge Playstation NBA Jam TE on its own and address some 
specific problems that I've seen people complain about on this newsgroup.

I picked up NBA Jam TE on the day that it was released and I finally got 
a chance to try it out Saturday afternoon when I brought my PS home.  I 
was extremely weary of even taking off the cellophane wrapping on the 
game after I had read all of the negative impressions on r.g.v.sony and I 
was debating whether I should take the game back or hold on to it.  
People had complained about missing voices and sound FX, players 
disappearing from the screen when they shoot, unbalanced CPU difficulty, 
inability to move the players diagonally, and horrid control.  

Well, after playing the game for a day I'll give my input as to how I 
feel about it and the problems I've encountered.  

** Voices ***
First of all, maybe some of the voices are missing (Marty Chinn posted a 
list of all of the voices and the ones that aren't present in the game) 
but there are more than enough different sound bites to keep the 
announcer from sounding horribly repetative.  The players' names are 
called when the ball is passed to them, and the announcer uses enough 
variety when commenting on the shots/dunks to keep me from getting 
annoyed with him.  This is a purely subjective measurement, but I have no 
complaints about the voice whatsoever.

*** Sound Effects ***
I was a little disappointed that the "flaming basketball" lacks the 
crackling fire sound effect because that would have been a nice little 
addition to the atmosphere of the game.  It has no bearing on the 
gameplay, graphics, or other sound effects, but it would have given the 
players an audio cue which drives home the "he's on fire!" motif.  How 
hard could it have been for Iguana to put that sound effect in the game?  
On the other hand, the other sound effects are excellent and they give 
the game the punch that it needs to be a great sounding arcade game.

*** Control ***
When I first started reading comments from people who are having trouble 
with the diagonals on the controller, I was puzzled because I had 
previously owned a Japanese Playstation earlier this summer and had no 
troubles whatsoever with the diagonals on the controller.  Before I 
actually got a chance to try out the U.S. controllers, I thought that 
maybe Sony changed the internal construction of the directional button on 
the controller which prevented the diagonals from being used easily.  If 
that wasn't the case, then I thought that maybe Iguana just programmed 
the control badly which was preventing the players from moving smoothly.  
Finally I was able to play the game and judge for myself.  I know that my 
impressions of Jam TE's  control is different from other peoples' 
impressions, but I can honestly say that I found the control to be 
excellent and the diagonals work perfectly.  Also, I haven't noticed the 
problem about players getting cut-off by the top of the screen when they 
go up to do a dunk.  I'm guessing that the problem may still be present 
and I just haven't seen it enough to find it annoying and glaringly 
noticible.  

*** Unbalanced CPU AI ***
Now THIS is where I have a big problem with the game.  I found the 
control/graphics/sound to be excellent, but this problem severly impacts 
the gameplay.  Even on the game's easiest setting, the computer players 
are incredibly unfair and relentless.  Even on the easiest setting, the 
computer players move unbelievably fast and steal the ball at a very high 
frequency.  It's impossible to do a fast break from back court and pull 
off a monster jam without either getting the ball ripped from you or 
getting knocked to the floor.  The opposing team follows you like hawks 
and steals the ball from you at every chance it gets.  I owned the 
Genesis version of NBA Jam and played the arcade version of Jam TE, and I 
can honestly say that both of these versions are MUCH easier than the PS 
version of TE.  In my opinion, the game is extremely tedious to play 
because of Iguana's inability to program balanced AI (or at least be able 
to turn down the difficulty with the game's difficulty setting!) and the 
fun factor has been drastically reduced.

I'm really curious as to how the Sega Saturn version of NBA Jam TE turns 
out.  If the game is a carbon copy of the PS version, then I'll be happy 
to keep my PS version since it's the best I can get.  If the Saturn 
version clears up the difficulty inbalance, then I'll be surprised and 
annoyed since the two games are programmed by the same development team.  
I didn't buy Street Fighter: The Movie for either system (and I don't 
plan to) so I can't compare the two, but it would be interesting to see 
if either the PS or Saturn version outdoes the other one because this may 
be an indication as to how Jam TE will compare on the two systems.  

I would have been incredibly happy with NBA Jam TE if the CPU difficulty 
level was managable since the rest of the game is excellent.  
Unfortunately, this shortcoming has a severe impact on gameplay, fun 
factor, and replay value.  I'd strongly recommend that anyone who's 
interested in buying this game rents it first.
-- 
William A. Castellano 
Graduate student in Networking and Communications at Washington University
Home page URL:  http://cec.wustl.edu/~wac1/