NBA Jam creator working on Wii reboot @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 21, 2010

News: Part of Mark Turmell's new job at EA is overseeing the new NBA Jam.

Mark Turmell, the creator of the original NBA Jam and Smash TV recently chatted with Gamasutra about his new role at EA Tiburon.

Turmell's chief responsibilities will be working with the Madden and NCAA Football franchises, but Electronic Arts has also tapped the veteran developer to consult on the Wii reboot of NBA Jam.

"I'm looking at that product every week. I've sat with the team extensively, and I'm close to the product," Turmell said.

"The team" working on the new NBA Jam is EA Canada, who also developed the popular NBA Street series of games.

While Turmell is excited to see NBA Jam return after all these years, he knows that it will have to be modernized a little to be a good game in 2010.

"[NBA Jam's] fundamentals are great, but of course, it's 15 years later. There's certainly a lot of additional effort and enhancement that has to happen," he said.

But even with all this talk of modernization, Turmell knows exactly what makes the NBA Jam series great... "It's cool to see a dunk, but it's cooler to see a 7-foot spinning dunk."

Be sure to check out the whole Gamasutra interview to read about Turmell's history with the NBA Jam series and what he plans to bring to EA Tiburon.