Sports games have forever been in great demand; such demand has been filled by publishers seeking to provide gamers with a virtual representation of their favorite sports. Of course, this representation often comes in many flavors; the wide-ranging tastes of the sports gaming public have permitted experimentation regarding sports game development. The results of such experimentation have yielded two general forms of sports games: simulation and arcade. Both represent a developer’s attempt to replicate a particular sport with varying degrees of authenticity. But striking a balance between realism and fun has proven quite difficult; while developers on the whole have attempted to cater to a diverse set of sports gaming desires, relatively few have been successful. So today I welcome you to aid me as I venture forth in the hopes of discovering the 25 greatest sports game of all time.
Before we set sail, know that the games on this list are Top 25 Greatest Sports Games in History And now, let’s begin our voyage, and cruise through the countdown.
25. Backyard Baseball Series
Attempting to re-create the experience of playing baseball as a child, developer Humungous Entertainment created the wildly successful, family-friendly series known as Backyard Baseball. Originally released in 1997 for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, Backyard Baseball represented an early attempt at fashioning a baseball game that was accessible to young children. Sporting colorful graphics, crazy power-ups, and simple, intuitive gameplay, Backyard Baseball became a major hit. Its success spawned multiple sequels; the series later incorporated “child” versions of MLB stars, proving to be wildly marketable. In the late 1990s, Humungous Entertainment expanded the series, developing sister-titles including Backyard Football and Backyard Basketball. Later installments of all titles expanded popular features; traditional season modes allowed users to act as a manager over their squad, leading their team to a championship in their respective sport. The series later released on multiple platforms, including the PS2, Wii, and Xbox360, although its popularity has waned greatly since the early 2000s.
24. NFL Street
Developed by EA Tiburon and released in 2004, NFL Street was EA’s attempt at arcade-style football. Similar to NFL Blitz, NFL Street featured seven on seven ironman football, boasting fast-paced gameplay with few penalties. EA possessed the NFL license, meaning users could select from all NFL teams. NFL legends were even playable in the game’s “Pickup Game” mode, which acted as a fantasy draft play now, permitting rivals to pick from a pool of 40 NFL players. The gameplay was derivative of EA’s primary arcade franchise, NBA Street, featuring style points that could earned through completing style moves or gratuitous taunting. Enough style points would reward the player with a “game-breaker,” an outlandish increase in stats to your team for an entire drive, which would render your team near unstoppable. While the game offered limited single-player modes, its influence can still be felt in EA’s simulation football series today. The concept behind Street’s Power Tackle, which was a high-risk, high-reward tackling system, would help give birth to Madden’s Hit Stick, an extremely popular defensive mechanic that remains an essential tool when playing defense. Additionally, NFL Street’s decision to move the ability to sprint to the shoulder buttons eventually creeped into EA’s other football titles, providing greater functionality to an ever-more complicated control scheme.
23. NBA LIVE 2005
NBA Live 2005 marked the pinnacle of EA’s basketball franchise; according to Lead Designer Todd Batty, Live 05 was the end result of a three year plan for rebuilding Live’s core gameplay. Live perfected its “freestyle” control scheme; players retained complete control over cross-overs, spin moves, post moves, and even mid-air layups and dunks, all possible via right-stick maneuverability. Live 2005 also included an NBA All Star Weekend within its Dynasty mode or as a standalone option, featuring the NBA All-Star Game, Rookies VS. Sophomore game, three point-competition, and even the NBA Dunk Contest. The Dunk Contest proved particularly popular; users were allotted a robust tool-set to create inspired dunks not yet seen to man. In fact, dunks introduced in Live ’05 were attempted in the actual dunk contest in following years, including Steve Nash’s “flip-kick alley-oop” to teammate Amare Stoudemire. Live ’05’s All Star Mode aptly complemented a deep dynasty mode that added much-needed depth to the managerial aspects of being an NBA general manager. Unfortunately, the NBA Live Franchise never peaked beyond this iteration; its transition to the PS3 and Xbox360 bore poor results; its past prominence never giving rise to higher summits.
22. Wii Sports
Sold as an appendage to Wii Consoles in 2006, Wii Sports found its way into millions of homes. In fact, Wii Sports is the second highest selling game of all time, behind only Tetris. Heavily marketed as a family oriented title, Nintendo sought to capture a new market – an audience of non-gamers. Wii Sports was simple. It was fun. And most importantly, it was accessible to all ages. The game was comprised of five separate sports games – tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, and boxing – all of which utilized the Wii’s motion sensing capabilities in an intuitive manner. Such intuitive controls helped Nintendo reach the once unreachable market of non-gamers. Bowling proved especially popular; a family could take turns knocking down as many pins as possible in a light hearted competitive environment. Wii Sports’ popularity eventually bred sequels like 2009’s Wii Sports Resort and 2013’s Wii Sports Club, and though the gameplay found in those titles was undoubtedly more varied and more fleshed out, they lacked Wii Sport’s influence over gamers and non-gamers alike.
21. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 (Wii)
Wii-motion-plus revolutionized golf games, granting users the ability to draw and fade, all with precise twists of the wrist. Its implementation in all facets of gameplay rendered PGA Tour 10 the most realistic golf game in history. Although PGA Tour’s Xbox 360 and PS3 counterpart looked better, the Wii version was the more authentic, and thus more highly regarded, version. It simply never felt so good smacking balls over 300 yards, adding natural hooks or slices, or even sinking intricate putts with pinpoint accuracy. But Wii-motion-plus wasn’t the only game-changer. Other important, yet lesser features included real-time weather that affected ball trajectory and traction, a television broadcast style presentation, expansive crowds, mini games, and a “Tournament Challenge” mode that allowed players to replicate famous shots and moments from the PGA Tour’s history.
Hope you enjoyed this, stay tuned next week for Part 2 in the Top 25 Greatest Sports Games in History countdown.
Top 25 Greatest Sports Games in History Part 1
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