Sports games often get a bad rap- what are some of your favorites?

[gbpxl]

Lately I have been on a sports games kick. I dont know if its the simple mindless pick up and play style of gameplay that I like, the great multiplayer aspect, or the fact that I already understand the rules and how the game is played but there is something very appealing to me about the genre. I also like the fact that the different versions of essentially the exact same game can really highlight technological differences from one console to the next or from year to year. I know there are more exciting games out there where you can kill aliens with machine guns or leap from building to building but these games really capture two of the most beloved past times in recent history (video games and sports) and so putting them together is a match made in heaven for me. Also, these games capture a snapshot of sports history with real team names, logos, player names, their photos, stadiums, etc. They tore down the Metrodome here in Minnesora and so to be able to go back and take a virtual tour of it is really cool.

I have a hard time getting into the sports games that came out from the 5th generation onward because developers seemed to want to trade simplicity for convoluted menus and option screens, character customization, etc and I think EA was the biggest culprit of this. Me and my girlfriend at the time tried going back to Tiger Woods 03 or 04 and it seemed to take forever just to get into playing the game. I tried making a character as f***ed up looking as possible but was pretty disappointed to see that you really couldnt do that. I was spoiled by the character creation in WWF Attitude which I view as the gold standard for character creation in sports games.

While I do appreciate some of the efforts put forth by Nintendo in the way of Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, etc I cant justify spending $30+ for a loose copy of a golf game when I can find a CIB golf game on a different platform for less than $5.

I have yet to find a basketball game I really like though I have a ton of memories with NBA Hang Time for N64. NBA 2K was awesome from what I remember.

Football games I never played anything besides Madden 03-06.

Baseball I feel that Simulator 1.000 for NES is the best of the bunch

Golf games for me is a toss up between Pebble Beach for Genesis and Fred Couples for 32x. but in reality theyre all fun.

Hockey games I never got into. I hear a lot of praise for Blades of Steel and Ice Hockey both for NES but never got around to playing them

Tennis games Ive only tried one on the Xbox and wasnt that impressed

Olympic style games, Track and Field is of course the king. nothing comes anywhere close to it and I would say is my favorite game of all time.

Bowling games I never really played a lot but would like to know which one is the best. Is that even considered a sport?

Super Spike V Ball and Super Dodge Ball are really fun 2 player games for NES

what are some of your favorites?

[Bighab]

Love playing old school sports games. Tons of memories playing the latest sports games with buddies over beers back in the late 80's, early 90's.

Basketball: My fav was NBA Action 94 for the Genesis back in the day. Loved the stats keeping. NBA Jam was fun too

Football: Loved Tecmo Bowl and Super Tecmo Bowl for the Nes. I've been wanting to try the updated roster hacks. Never cared for the Genesis Madden games. I was a huge John Elways Team Quarterback in the arcade but the Nes version was crap.

Baseball: Baseball Stars is easily the best Nes baseball game IMO. The ability to create your own players, teams and upgrade their attributes by winning games in a league was very cool. The game mechanics are great. The ability to move the ball after the pitchers throw to make the ball curve the way you wanted was very cool. Fun fact: I don't remember what the game retailed for but I remember that locally on the used market in video game stores it was $100+ used which I was shocked at at the time.

Hockey: Blades of Steel is a fun "arcadey style" hockey game. Ice Hockey is decent. I used 3 "Fat" guys and 1 skinny guy for my configuration. The best hockey games were the NHL series of games for the Genesis. I still remember playing NHL Hockey(1st one in the series) on a buddies Genesis and going out and trading my Nes and the few games I had for a Sega Genesis and NHL Hockey. NHL95 is my fav of the series. I ran a league of 20 guys at a local bar I worked at for a few years. Fun times for sure. NHL94 has a very strong following to this day. Holding competitions around North America that I've been thinking of trying to enter. The modern NHL games look "pretty" but I've never liked the gameplay much(manual goalie play was crap) I've been wanting to try Ice Hockey by Technos for the Famicom

Golf: Fred Couples for 32X was my "go to" golf game. I like Zany Gold for the Genesis

[gbpxl]

I was playing NBA Jam for a while yesterday. I know its supposed to be a replication of the arcade experience but it wouldve been nice if they put in a career mode or unlockables that can only be obtained by advancing through the game rather than entering codes. to this day Id say its the best basketball game Ive played but as a single player game theres just not enough to keep me coming back

[FrankGarret316]

I know this probably doesn't count as a sports game, one of my favorite lesser known games is "RPM Racing" for Super Nintendo. You could make your own tracks, change the gravity, etc. Had so much fun playing that with friends.

[ncman071]

overall, honestly sports games were and probably still are my favorite genre especially during the 8 and 16 bit era. I have lots of fond memories playing madden 93 and 96. Also loved bill walsh college football on snes. My favorite hockey game all time was nhl stanley cup for snes and loved NCAA Basketball for snes...both of those games utilized mode 7...i thought they were amazing then and still consider them great games that i still play to this day. I believe i got NBA Jam for Christmas in 7th grade....god those were great memories. my brother and i played the hell out of nba jam when he was home from college then.

[goldenband]

I'm always up for playing an 8- or 16-bit tennis game, and am working on beating all of them (I'm about halfway there).

Unfortunately a lot of the better ones were Japan-only, but one that was released in the US and plays very well is World Court Tennis on the TurboGrafx-16. In general the Namco games are among the best.

[Gameguy]

For hockey games Ice Hockey and Blades of Steel for NES were just fun, they're simple and great. I haven't really played many other that I can think of though various Genesis ones like NHL 94 and NHL 95 come to mind and are pretty good too.

Of course NBA Jam for basketball is pretty much one of the best sports games available, again for the Genesis. I'm reminded of the Mutant League Football and Hockey games on the Genesis as well though I haven't really played them that much.

Tennis for Gameboy is fun, I think it's on the NES as well.

There's Punch-Out for boxing on the NES, an arcade style boxing game but I'll still count it as a sports game.

For bowling I used to play World Bowling on the gameboy when I was a kid, I had a lot of fun with it despite it's limitations. At the time it was one of the few games I owned for the system.