''All-Pro Basketball'', known as ''Zenbei!! Pro Basketball'' in Japan, is a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

video-game developed by Aicom and published by Vic Tokai for the

Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American ...

. It is played using two teams of five players on a full-length basketball court, and a roster of eight different fictional teams.

Gameplay

There are four modes of gameplay. One-player, which pits the player in a solo match against a computer opponent. Two-player, which is a

co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

match against a computer opponent. Versus, which is a two player mode that pits the players against each other. And finally, Watch, which allows the player to watch a computer-controlled match. The court is displayed in a vertical fashion, from a

top-down perspective A variety of computer graphic techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware advances and restrictions ...

, revealing only half of the court at a time. If the ball travels past the half-court line, the screen goes black temporarily and changes over to the other half of the court (which looks identical, save for the color of the floorboards). This is done to alert the player that they have travelled to a different side of the court. When a player attempts a

slam dunk A slam dunk, also simply known as dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with one ...

, gameplay will pause and cut to a detailed animation of the maneuver.

Teams

*''New York Slicks'' (New York Knicks) *''Chicago Zephyrs'' (Chicago Bulls) *''Boston Redcoats'' (Boston Celtics) *''Los Angeles Breakers'' (Los Angeles Lakers) *''Dallas Stallions'' (Dallas Mavericks) *''Phoenix Wings'' (Phoenix Suns) *''Seattle Sonics'' (Seattle SuperSonics) *''San Francisco Bayriders'' (Golden State Warriors)

Reception

Stan Stepanic of Game Freaks 365 rated this as the second best basketball title on the NES, citing reasons such as its innovative usage of a vertically scrolling court and a well-programmed, computer-AI defense. His score in its gameplay category was nearly a perfect 10. He states: "It's definitely worth a look for even the casual NES gamer, and I assure you if you take the time to learn it's intricacies, you'll be happy in the end".

References

{{reflist 1989 video games Aicom games Basketball video games Nintendo Entertainment System games Nintendo Entertainment System-only games Sports video games set in the United States Vic Tokai games Video games developed in Japan Video games set in Dallas Video games set in Los Angeles Video games set in New York City Video games set in San Francisco Video games set in Seattle Multiplayer and single-player video games