Back in March, we caught an early trailer for PBA Slam (Free), a 2v2 arcade basketball game inspired by the classic NBA Jam but using the players from the popular Philippine Basketball Association. At that time, I lamented how the iOS ports of NBA Jam ($4.99) hadn’t been updated in years, and I was dying for someone to walk in and take the crown of best arcade basketball game. Well, since then, and to my own utter surprise, NBA Jam was updated and kicks ass now. Still, you can never have enough arcade basketball games, you know? With that, the plucky upstart PBA Slam has as of today “launched" in the App Store.

I put launched in quotations because technically this isn’t the full launch of the game that developer Ranida Games envisions. They are planning on adding big features, the biggest of which is a multiplayer mode. However, they’ve decided to “soft-launch" the game with what they’ve got currently, which is basically a single-player affair but still with plenty of action. So, if you like NBA Jam and want to play a similar game with a twist, then give PBA Slam a download for free. It doesn’t appear that there’s any in-app purchases or anything, at least not yet, so check it out and drop your impressions in the forums.