Play Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball Online

Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball came out for the Super Nintendo in 1991, developed by Hudson Soft. It was one of those early SNES titles that tried to push the hardware with a weird, aggressive twist on sports games. The setting is a futuristic 2030 league where the rules barely matter and violence is part of the game.

You control a team of cybernetically enhanced players in full court, five on five matches. The main goal is still to outscore the opponent, but you spend as much time punching and tripping as you do dribbling and shooting. Signature mechanics include holding the shot button to adjust your shot arc mid-air, and shoving opponents into hazards like floor mines or electric fences. The pace is frantic, and the difficulty is high, partly because the AI doesn’t hold back with the cheap shots. It feels chaotic and unfair in a way that’s almost entertaining, if you don’t mind throwing your controller once in a while.