NBA Jam Hard Drive Evaluation

Continuing with the series of Xbox 360 hard drive installation evaluations I’ve gone through and compared several areas of NBA Jam based on loading times from the disk vs the hard drive. As typical with arcade games the loading is generally quick and due to that the installation shows limited improvement in that area but is still beneficial.

Install time- 1:51
Install size- 1.3 GB

Loading Times
Boot to main menu- 51 seconds disc vs 42 seconds HDD (9 seconds)
Load into play now- 20 seconds disc vs 15 seconds HDD (5 seconds)
Leave game to menu- 5 seconds disc vs 3 seconds HDD (2 seconds)
Load into saved Campaign/Remix- Instantaneous load

NBA Jam turns out to be the smallest install of any sports game tested so far except Backbreaker which was just 1GB. A stall in the menus when selecting different modes (where the screen seems lock for about three seconds) remained even after installing. As always however installing to the hard drive is recommended for the reduced noise and wear and tear put on the system in addition to any improvements seen in loading times.