The title was changed due to the NBA Jam name being acquired by Acclaim Entertainment, the publisher of the games for the home market.

[4] The game retains many of the same rules of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition, including the two-on-two match ups, statistics tracking, legal pushing and "on fire" mode.

Midway released home versions of the game for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64, as well as for the previous generation's consoles, the Sega Genesis and Super NES.

[8] Code Mystics developed this version of Hangtime, a largely faithful emulation of the arcade original, but with some players omitted due to issues with licensing.

In contrast to their reviews for the arcade version, most critics remarked that the game does not offer enough new features over NBA Jam, though they disagreed as to how much of a problem this is.

[9][11][16] Reviewing the Nintendo 64 version, Air Hendrix of GamePro concluded that "Jam-style hoops is nothing new, but Hangtime does it with enough flash and freshness to keep you happily dunkin' like a fool."

[23] GamePro's The Rookie found that the Super NES version likewise suffers from inferior graphics and sound but is still highly enjoyable to play.

[24] Doug Perry of IGN also praised the create a player feature, calling it "easily one of the coolest elements of the game, and separates it from the pack."

"[14] GameSpot was far more negative, with Jeff Gerstmann reviewing the N64 version and writing that the game only featured "minor changes" and concluding "Unless you've been shooting digital hoops in a cave for the past few years, you've seen it all before.

He further criticized that aside from the support for four players without the use of a multitap, the game make poor use of the Nintendo 64's capabilities, with 2D graphics and a low frame rate.

Joe Rybicki, similarly to Gerstmann and Next Generation, said the game "offers basically nothing new, except updated players and bigger character sprites."

[10][12] Kraig Kujawa was far more positive about the PC version, saying that it was an accurate conversion, although lamenting that it didn't include online play.