Top 5 Favourite Sports Video Games
I'm not a huge gamer, but when I would find a sports video game to obsess over, it would eat hours and days away from my life. It wouldn't even matter if I had little chance of ever losing, I'd keep playing, trying to best my personal high scores and maintain accurate rosters and stuff. The best is when you can play friends of similar skill levels, which will make you fall in love all over again with a game you may have earlier tired of.
One note: I've never gotten into the Madden series. I'm sure it's the best football video game series there is, if not the best sports video game franchise. But, everytime I played it, I'd be playing against a far more experienced opponent, who would effortlessly crush me with some crappy NFL Europe team. Each year, they throw more and more stuff into the game, which is great for fans of the series. But for newcomers, it makes it near impossible to figure out. I probably should've just sucked it up, bought it, then spent a week figuring it out. But I hate sucking at games!
Another note, for this list, I won't be counting professional wrestling as a sport, so there will be no wrestling video games on it. Actually, I don't consider pro wrestling a sport in any case, so the two will never mix.
5. Super Dodge Ball for NES- I guess some could argue that Dodge Ball isn't a sport either, but they'd be wrong. It's an athletic game with clearly defined winners and losers, that makes it a sport, albeit a non-traditional one. Super Dodge Ball was a non-traditional video game, so it works. Progressing through the game against the computer was more like an adventure game than a sports game, with different opponents feeling like boss levels, be it those husky Ruskies, frosty Icelanders, or crafty Japanese. I played this game for hours, usually on rented copies. So fun.
4. Tecmo Bowl for NES- Who needs realism? Tecmo Bowl let you bust 25 tackles and throw 100 yard bombs, on the same play. And we loved it! Sure, when playing with friends you had to call a moratorium on Los Angeles (Raiders, the game had no license with the NFL to use actual team names), lest Tecmo Bo rip off 500 yards on you. But playing with San Francisco was equally effective, throwing end zone-to-end zone TDs from Joe Montana to Jerry Rice, or busting out long Roger Craig runs.
3. NFL Blitz for the Arcade- I guess I'm just too dumb for large playbooks, or don't particularly enjoy realism in my football games. NFL Blitz let you throw impossible bombs, make vicious, wrestling-style tackles, and eliminated all that silly kicking stuff from football (which Madden tends to make frustratingly difficult anyway). I used to play this when I worked at West Edmonton Mall on my break. I'd eat for the first fifteen minutes, then go to Red's and play a game of Blitz. The week after I finished beating all 30 teams (not in a row, the game saved your progress through passwords and initials), they switched out the version I played on for a new one (that was more expensive). I don't know what I would've done had they switched it the week before. Probably end my life or something.
2. NBA Jam for the Arcade- Midway sure did make some fun arcade games. The console versions of the games sucked, but in the arcade, it was fun to do silly things with bobblehead characters. As with Blitz, my NBA Jam addiction was fed on my lunch breaks, when I worked at a family fun zone place with an arcade. I'd take my (usually stolen) tokens to the machine on my break and play away (or get a co-worker to credit up the machine). By the time I quit, I had well over 100 wins to my initials. The fun part of Midway games is also their most maddening feature, the AI cheats to make sure the games are always close. So even when I was vastly superior to the computer, the games would be intense as it would cheat to make every shot while making me miss the simplist of shots. God help you if someone caught fire...
1. EA's NHL series for Sega Genesis, SNES, PSX, PS2- This is pretty much THE video game of my life, as I would get new additions to the series every year (until a couple years ago, as I don't play video games like I used to), even when I wasn't that excited about hockey. Each addition generally added something new to enjoy (well, except for the year they took out fighting. Why'd they get rid of the fighting? It was the best part of the old version), and fueled my obsessive desire to try and maintain accurate rosters. It wouldn't take long for me to get good enough with the game that my beloved Oil couldn't be stopped, but that wouldn't stop me from constantly playing it, ensuring that we continued to have unbeaten seasons and that my created player won all the year end awards. Also, I love winning 12-0.
One note: I've never gotten into the Madden series. I'm sure it's the best football video game series there is, if not the best sports video game franchise. But, everytime I played it, I'd be playing against a far more experienced opponent, who would effortlessly crush me with some crappy NFL Europe team. Each year, they throw more and more stuff into the game, which is great for fans of the series. But for newcomers, it makes it near impossible to figure out. I probably should've just sucked it up, bought it, then spent a week figuring it out. But I hate sucking at games!
Another note, for this list, I won't be counting professional wrestling as a sport, so there will be no wrestling video games on it. Actually, I don't consider pro wrestling a sport in any case, so the two will never mix.
5. Super Dodge Ball for NES- I guess some could argue that Dodge Ball isn't a sport either, but they'd be wrong. It's an athletic game with clearly defined winners and losers, that makes it a sport, albeit a non-traditional one. Super Dodge Ball was a non-traditional video game, so it works. Progressing through the game against the computer was more like an adventure game than a sports game, with different opponents feeling like boss levels, be it those husky Ruskies, frosty Icelanders, or crafty Japanese. I played this game for hours, usually on rented copies. So fun.
4. Tecmo Bowl for NES- Who needs realism? Tecmo Bowl let you bust 25 tackles and throw 100 yard bombs, on the same play. And we loved it! Sure, when playing with friends you had to call a moratorium on Los Angeles (Raiders, the game had no license with the NFL to use actual team names), lest Tecmo Bo rip off 500 yards on you. But playing with San Francisco was equally effective, throwing end zone-to-end zone TDs from Joe Montana to Jerry Rice, or busting out long Roger Craig runs.
3. NFL Blitz for the Arcade- I guess I'm just too dumb for large playbooks, or don't particularly enjoy realism in my football games. NFL Blitz let you throw impossible bombs, make vicious, wrestling-style tackles, and eliminated all that silly kicking stuff from football (which Madden tends to make frustratingly difficult anyway). I used to play this when I worked at West Edmonton Mall on my break. I'd eat for the first fifteen minutes, then go to Red's and play a game of Blitz. The week after I finished beating all 30 teams (not in a row, the game saved your progress through passwords and initials), they switched out the version I played on for a new one (that was more expensive). I don't know what I would've done had they switched it the week before. Probably end my life or something.
2. NBA Jam for the Arcade- Midway sure did make some fun arcade games. The console versions of the games sucked, but in the arcade, it was fun to do silly things with bobblehead characters. As with Blitz, my NBA Jam addiction was fed on my lunch breaks, when I worked at a family fun zone place with an arcade. I'd take my (usually stolen) tokens to the machine on my break and play away (or get a co-worker to credit up the machine). By the time I quit, I had well over 100 wins to my initials. The fun part of Midway games is also their most maddening feature, the AI cheats to make sure the games are always close. So even when I was vastly superior to the computer, the games would be intense as it would cheat to make every shot while making me miss the simplist of shots. God help you if someone caught fire...
1. EA's NHL series for Sega Genesis, SNES, PSX, PS2- This is pretty much THE video game of my life, as I would get new additions to the series every year (until a couple years ago, as I don't play video games like I used to), even when I wasn't that excited about hockey. Each addition generally added something new to enjoy (well, except for the year they took out fighting. Why'd they get rid of the fighting? It was the best part of the old version), and fueled my obsessive desire to try and maintain accurate rosters. It wouldn't take long for me to get good enough with the game that my beloved Oil couldn't be stopped, but that wouldn't stop me from constantly playing it, ensuring that we continued to have unbeaten seasons and that my created player won all the year end awards. Also, I love winning 12-0.