It would have been easy for the game to get caught up in its own wackiness, and it’s to its credit that it doesn’t.

It all sounds thoroughly ridiculous on paper, and it is, of course - we’re talking about a game that features Barkley teaming up with a Cyberdwarf and the great-grandson of LeBron James to find an all-powerful Spalding basketball, and along the way fighting off everything from Ghost Dad to the Monstars from Space Jam - but the admirable thing about Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden is how beautifully straight it plays the whole thing. Pursued by a Michael Jordan-fronted B-Ball Removal Department, Barkley begins a quest to escape, clear his name and get to the bottom of what is really going on… and to discover whether or not there is any truth to his son “Hoopz” Barkley being “The One”.

In 2053, millions of people are killed by another Chaos Dunk, which Barkley is blamed for. Basketball was subsequently outlawed, and the world entered a dystopian period where anyone even vaguely suspected of harbouring thoughts of basketball would be mercilessly hunted down by the B-Ball Removal Department. In the year 2041, Charles Barkley performed a forbidden move known as a “Chaos Dunk” during a basketball match, inadvertently killing most of the people present in the process. On the off-chance you’re unfamiliar with this peculiar game, the setup is thus. And that, if nothing else, is reason for celebration.

Positioned as a sequel to both the 1993 Mega Drive sports game Barkley, Shut Up and Jam and the 1996 live action/Looney Tunes hybrid movie Space Jam, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam Gaiden is a highly creative sci-fi parody that pokes fun at a whole ton of things over its relatively short runtime, but manages to do so without ever feeling mean-spirited or like it’s “trying too hard”. One of the most interesting, unusual and genuinely good freeware projects out there in the wild, Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, as we shall refer to it hereafter, is a JRPG-inspired game that every fan of the genre owes it to themselves to spend some time with… and that even people who don’t find themselves typically into JRPGs can also have a great deal of fun with, too. A very important game in the cross-cultural canon turns 10 years old today: Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, or, to give it its full title, Tales of Game’s Presents Chef Boyardee’s Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden – Chapter One of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa.

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