 It's not strong. Bill Ambeer's combat basketball is a 16-bit love letter to the game of basketball and competitive sport in general. Its presence in the Super Nintendo library effectively ended the 16-bit wars of the 1990s single-handedly. All thanks to the effervescent and magnanimous presence of one Bill Ambeer, former center for the Detroit Pistons. His otherworldly charm and unrivaled basketball skill come through your television screen with a warm smile to make great friends with you, the player. You don't play Bill Ambeer's combat basketball, you experience it. This game will go far beyond your expectations. That's a wonderful, creative, and interactive experience. The gameplay transcends mere basketball and speaks to the player with sublime reasoning and peerless, unsurpassed insight that makes Citizen Kane look like an episode of Hang In With Mr. Cooper. The prodigious, spine-tingling action will make your soul shimmer with life. Your heart will smile as you... I'm sorry, I can't keep a straight face for that long. In all seriousness, Bill Ambeer's combat basketball is one of the worst games I've ever played. I mean, look at this! This game is ugly, choppy, and disorienting. And as bad as this looks, it plays even worse. It tries to implement, as the title says, this quote-unquote combat style of basketball, featuring bombs on the court, and lots and lots of shoving. There are a few arcade games and subsequent NES ports that did this kind of game well, most notably Archrivals, and of course NBA Jam, but this game, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I only know how to pass and shove, and I have no clue how to even shoot. None of the buttons work except the pass button. Am I supposed to throw a pass at the basket? All the players look exactly the same, like they're modeled after the characters from Boxing for the Atari 2600. Nobody is stronger or faster than anyone else, so you're essentially playing 5 on 5 using the exact same skill template with all 10 players. That's to start with, but according to the instruction book, you can actually sign players who are bigger and stronger, and, uh, can actually score points, I guess. That's all well and good, but the problem is, how the hell can you tell anyone apart? Everyone looks exactly the same. And after playing this game with quote-unquote better players, everyone has the same feel and the same speed anyway. And again, I use the word playing lightly. How the hell do you even play this game? When you pass to someone, it doesn't lock onto the player, you just throw it in their general direction and take control of whoever's nearby and you run after the ball like an idiot. Who thought this was a good idea? And why does Bill Lambere of all people have his own game? If you younger folks watching this right now don't remember Bill Lambere. A modern comparison would be like if Kendrick Perkins got his own game, or Tiago Splitter. Thing is, nobody even liked Bill Lambere back in the day. That was the thing. He was seen as a dirty player and kind of a scumbag. Even Pistons fans barely liked him. So I'm supposed to buy his game? So that in and of itself was a massive miscalculation. Yeah, if you couldn't guess, this game for me is essentially what Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is for the angry video game nerd. It's the bane of my existence. It's so bad that the idea of it occupying space both in my brain and in real life makes me want to pour boiling water down my pants. And the idea of playing it makes me want to give myself a pile driver down a flight of stairs. So thanks for indulging me on this video. I just had to get it out of my system. And for God's sake, stay the hell away from this game.