Michael Jordan has a history with video games: he first appeared in Electronic Arts' Jordan vs. Bird (1988) and famously was not found in NBA Jam. Now Jordan's NBA history is a game within a game, the new NBA 2K11, released earlier this week for PS3, Xbox 360, Wii and other platforms.

More: the Game Hunters' review of NBA 2K 11 .

The 2K Sports team had been hoping to get Jordan's participation for a few years. "They came to us about my participation," Jordan said in a rare interview Thursday with Game Hunters. "I haven't done a game like this in such a long time and they proposed certain ideas and concepts and what they thought they could implement into the game. Obviously, my kids are so wrapped up into this stuff. I went to them as consultants and they said it would be cool. That led to me actually getting involved."

In our short phone conversation, His Airness talked about the Jordan Challenges in the game, how the NBA has changed and how he would perform had he been able to switch decades. Later, we also talked with 2K Sports about Jordan's role.

For players who may not have witnessed the NBA's Jordan era, he says, "this is an introduction to me and I live vicariously through my kids. Have I played it? Yeah, I messed around with it. Am I good at it? No. My fingers are way too big to try to play one of these things. I am fascinated by the response I have gotten from everyone who has played the game and seen the innovation and how it's been improved. That's very positive."

How deeply involved were you in the development of the game?

That's one good thing about the whole project. They had a concept of how they wanted to utilize me in certain games and certain highlights. And all of them were great highlights, obviously. So it didn't take much for me to say, let me see how that plays into the whole scenario and once they showed it to me I thought that it was cool.

Which one of the Jordan Challenges will players find hardest?

To me the most difficult of all of them was the flu game. playing sick. That is so hard to do. It has to be a total mental challenge, as well as the physical challenge. If I had to rank them that would be (Number) One. Which is the easiest? None of them are easy. I guess the 63-point game against Boston would be the least of the other ones, because actually I didn't win that game.

I like the fact that once players beat the challenges they can put you on a current NBA team.

I thought that was the coolest part (that) if you get to a certain level now I can play on different teams, which in reality I never got to that, other than the Wizards and I'm not talking about that. When I saw the ads with Kobe, I thought that was really unique. What it really does is it educates these kids who probably never saw me play and give me a little bit more of a focus in this era. …That wasn't part of the initial thought process but it has kind of evolved to that.

How has the game changed from your playing days?

It's less physical and the rules have changed, obviously. Based on these rules, if I had to play with my style of play, I'm pretty sure I would have fouled out or I would have been at the free throw line pretty often and I could have scored 100 points.

Of course, there's always the comparison of you and Kobe Bryant. Where does Kobe stand in the status of NBA players through history?

It's so hard to say. I think he is always going to be within the conversations of some of the greatest players who've played by the time he is finished. Where does he rank among those, if you are talking about positions? If you are talking about guards, I would say he has got to be in the Top 10.

How did these Michael Jordan features come about?

Jason Argent, vice president of marketing at 2K Sports: I think Michael has always been a dream for us to work with. But we always said that if Michael was going to be part of the game, he's going to be fully integrated throughout the game. We didn't want him to just be just a cover athlete or just a token integration into the game. He had to be weaved thorugh it in every way, which is obviously where we ended up.

So at what point did you have the idea of the challenges?

Erick Boenisch, producer of NBA 2K11 development team: That was the lead feature that we came up with a number of years ago. ... We pitched our ideas and everything just kind of fell into place this year where we said, 'We've got great ideas for using you in the game and using your brand and we really really want to use it.'

What type of input did Michael provide?

Argent: Here's the thing with Michael. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but the length of which he is focused on authenticity was very eye-opening. He had approval obviously on all the in-game models of him and that was something very close to him. The very interesting thing about Michael is it brought an already very successful video game to more of a bigger mainstream audience.

Can you explain how the challenges work?

Boenisch: The Jordan Challenges are something you can play right from when you get the game. It consists of 10 games from throughout Michael Jordan's career that really defined his legacy and what we remember him for. You're going to be playing the flu game where he gets food poisoning in Utah and he's kind of helped off the court by Scottie Pippen in the end. You'll be playing the "Double Nickel" game, the first time he came back to play in Madison Square Garden after he retired. He'll be wearing number 45 in that game. We have his final NBA playoff game ever against the Jazz and he hit that shot where he kind of pushed off Bryon Russell a little bit. We have the Craig Ehlo game. We have the arrival, his first game on the NBA scene where he dropped 63 points against Larry Bird and the Celtics back in the '86 playoffs. We have all these games. We have an entire series, the 1991 finals against the Magic Johnson-led Lakers. ... Our main goal with this was making everything feel grounded to the era that it takes place in.

Michael said that the flu game will probably be the challenge that is hardest to get through.

Boenisch: Absolutely. (Initially) you are going to have a very young Michael Jordan, both physically and his skills. And that young Michael Jordan can jump out of the building, he is very athletic. He hadn't really developed his outside shot yet and that killer instinct wasn't really there. Then in some of the later challenges, the flu game is one of the last ones, against the Jazz, he's a more developed player. You will notice his body is a little bit bulkier. His outside shot and that killer instinct is definitely there.

In the scope of the flu game itself, we kind of tone back on his durability. When you play through it you are going to notice that he is going to become tired a lot more quickly than he does in the other games. You are going to see that fatigue via animations when he is going down the court. You are just going to feel that he's just not the normal Michael in this game and we definitely portrayed that.

And if you win the challenges you can take Michael and put him on a team. What is that Michael like coming into the 2010 NBA season?

Boenisch: When you beat all 10 challenges you unlock an entirely new game mode called MJ: Creating a Legend. You can take Michael Jordan and place him on any team of your choosing in today's NBA. The Michael Jordan that goes into the mode is the rookie Michael Jordan with short hair. He is going to be a 79-rated rookie. You are basically recreating the legend against today's NBA. You have a chance to improve his attributes by playing well and accomplishing the goals that we set forth for you. It's all about recreating Michael's legacy for today's generation.

Any other aspect we haven't touched on?

Boenisch: For the whole culture of the NBA, we do have every single Air Jordan shoe in the game, which is another big part of the whole brand side of Michael Jordan. We have all 25 Air Jordans and another 15 shoes from the Jordan brand line in the game for them to accessorize their players with. It's really cool because the shoes actually have an attribute boost on them, so as you stick them on Michael Jordan in the MJ: Creating a Legend mode, it's going to change his attributes. You can actually put them on any player in any of the game modes.

What are a few other features in this year's game?

Boenisch: Everything got a revamp. We have got a new control system in the game this year. It's called our Isomotion dribbling system. It's much more user-friendly. Before this year we had been building it up year after year just iterating on it. And at some point, the controls just became very convoluted and complex, to the point that if you had never played the game and you picked it, you just had no clue what was going on or what you were doing. This year, we kind of took a step back and reinvented the Isomotion system. The fans have been loving it. The press has been loving it. So I feel like what we did was definitely the right thing. Just being able to pick up the game and play the game of basketball is very important as we are trying to expand our audience with Michael Jordan in the game.

And this is probably the most polished game to come out of the 2K line. You are going to notice that the television presenation is just through the roof. That's because we hired in network talent who just had years of experience in getting that whole television side of things. Making it feel authentic was so, so important for us this year.

By Mike Snider