95. Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City (Electronic Arts, Super Nintendo, 1994)

Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City is a platformer featuring the star of Space Jam himself. On his way to a charity game, Michael Jordan's basketball buddies have been kidnapped by some sort of mad scientist (it's not exactly clear why), and he has to fight through a horde of enemies and dungeons to save them.

With a setup like that, I was ready for the worst. I remember loving licensed Super Nintendo platformer games as a kid, but going back to Pagemaster or The Jungle Book, these games are a boring slog to get through. Chaos in the Windy City is a little more inspired than some of its contemporaries: some enemies are basketball themed, while other times you're just fighting a giant spider. Health pickups come in the form of Gatorade and Wheaties, and there is a scoreboard at the end of each level that shows your score breakdown.

Cute basketball stuff aside, the gameplay is pretty samey, and the jumping is not very good, though you do move with a decent sense of speed. You have unlimited basketballs that you can throw across the screen, but there are also limited ammo special shots that you can pick up. Some of these are interesting, like one that bounces off walls, but most are not super interesting. The main downfall of the game is its level design. Levels are a series of keys and locked doors, most of which only have enemies or money inside, but some of which have keys that you need to open other doors to progress.

The one saving grace of the game is the dunk ability. If you press X, instead of doing a normal jump, you reach out for a dunk, at which point you can press Y (the shoot button), to slam the ball down. This leads to interesting setups for hitting enemies below you and at an angle, and there are inexplicably many basketball hoops dotting each level, ready to be dunked into to release items. Every time I nailed a dunk, it felt great, so at least that was something to keep me going through the game's stale first level.

3/5, a pretty average Super Nintendo platformer, but I like the dunk ability.