Most of us will never know what it’s like to be a professional athlete. Heck, some of us barely know what it’s like to be an amateur athlete. However, in the world of sports video games, we can get a taste of the elite athleticism at our fingertips. Here are the 25 best sports video games of all time. Well, with one caveat. We’re limiting each video game series to only one game. We don’t want to inundate this list with, say, 10 variations on the Madden series.
NBA Jam
“NBA Jam” is not the most realistic sports game, but it is perhaps the most beloved. The two-on-two basketball game was an arcade staple, and that’s really the best way to experience it. It’s full of iconic video game elements, especially when a player would catch fire, and the announcer would inform us accordingly.
Punch-Out!!
“Punch-Out!!,” also known as “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” in some releases, is still the quintessential boxing game. Realistic boxing games never really took off, but “Punch-Out!!” is a beloved classic. In the ‘80s, everybody was trying to figure out the tricks to beating the likes of King Hippo and Bald Bull, not to mention Tyson or Mr. Dream, depending on the version.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
The first “Tony Hawk Pro Skater” game is a lot of fun but a bit limited, and later versions of the game get a little busy and overly complicated. “Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2” is sort of the perfect middle ground. A lot of people consider it not just the best skateboarding video game and not just one of the best sports video games but also one of the best games ever. It’s awesome, and it has a killer soundtrack.
Tecmo Super Bowl
Yeah, this 1991 game for Nintendo is fairly limited. It’s less limited than “Techmo Bowl,” but there are still only a handful of plays. However, this game has a true cult following, even if a lot of that is based around one simple fact” This is the Bo Jackson game. If you play as the Raiders, all you have to do is give the ball to Jackson and you are unstoppable.
NBA Street
There is a brief period of time when street hoops was ingrained into the sporting culture. And 1 and all that stuff was all over TV. “NBA Street” is in that vein. It’s a gimmicky game, but it’s a ton of fun. You get to play as NBA players in a street ball environment with all the crazy dunks and dribbles.
Ice Hockey
“Ice Hockey” doesn’t have NHL teams. Rather, it has nations but without real players. What it does have is the ability to choose the five players you want on your team based on three body-type choices. There’s the small, fast player, the average player and the big guy who is slow but has a big shot and a lot of checking power. Everybody has their own personal philosophy on how to mix and match, and that’s part of the fun.
NHL ‘96
Opinions will different on the best version of the NHL series, but we’re going with the 1996 edition, which seems to be the general consensus. This game came at a point when the technology and game play had advanced enough to be fun and complex but before the graphics started to get too advanced and ended up in a clunky uncanny valley place for a few years. Sure, there was a trick to scoring a ton of goals and always winning, but that’s the case with almost any hockey game.
Super Mario Kart
Auto racing is a sport, and who says these games have to involve actual athletes? Why is a gorilla driving a go-kart not suitable for a sports video game? The “Mario Kart” series is the best racing series, but the first game for Super Nintendo is still the top one of the bunch. It’s simple, it looks great and it has a cool battle mode as well, which is a nice change of pace.
Backyard Baseball
“Backyard Baseball” basically tries to be “The Sandlot” but for video games. However, unlike “The Sandlot,” it’s actually good. Take that, ‘90s kids! While the game was first available only for computers, it eventually started to be made for video game consoles. It also began to include kid versions of actual MLB players. We’re not talking about any of those later iterations, though. We’re all about that original version with 30 kids to choose from, including the legendary Pablo Sanchez.
NBA 2K16
If you’re looking for a more accurate NBA simulation than “NBA Jam,” then the 2K series is for you. The graphics are amazing these days, but that was already true by “NBA 2K16.” It’s a few years old at this point, and the games that have come out after it are probably equally good. The tricky thing with games that come out every year is that there can be subtle changes from installment to installment, making picking the best splitting hairs. The legacy of “NBA 2K16” has stood the test of time thus far.
NCAA Football 13
They don’t make games like this anymore. Literally, in this case. Due to the issues involved with the “NCAA Football” series using the likenesses of actual college players without compensating them, these games haven’t been released since “NCAA Football 14.” While it was a fun series, we support players not having their images used without getting anything for it. The final game of the series had some “writing on the wall” vibes to it, but that wasn’t the case with this, the penultimate version.
Mario Tennis
Mario and his friends are back for the only tennis game on this list. Like boxing, there hasn’t really been a notable realistic tennis game. If you think “tennis video game,” you’re either thinking “Mario Tennis” or “Wii Sports.” There’s a lot more to “Mario Tennis” though, and it’s not merely about the novelty of waving your controller around and making the racket move.
NFL Blitz
Yes, violence in actual football can be an issue. We know about CTE and all that grim stuff, which wasn’t as well-known in the heyday of “NFL Blitz.” However, think of it almost like the “Grand Theft Auto” of sports games. We aren’t condoning it in real life, but it’s fun to throw guys around and drop elbows on them after the whistle and stuff. “NFL Blitz” is crazy and absurd, and that’s what makes it so good.
NHL Stanley Cup
Dwarfed by the iconic NHL series, “NHL Stanley Cup” should not be overlooked. The 1993 Super Nintendo game is better than the first few games in the NHL series and offers an entirely different style of play. It has a quasi-3D environment, so you aren’t just looking down on small players from on high. You also can’t find some scoring trick that works all the time. It’s really an overlooked gem in the hockey game world.
ESPN NFL 2K5
For a brief moment, there was a true challenger to the Madden hegemony. “ESPN NFL 2K5” had a different look and a slightly different game play, and people loved it. It was super popular with critics and with fans, as it only cost 20 bucks, compared to 50 bucks for that year’s “Madden” game. Afraid of the competition, EA Sports signed an exclusive deal with the NFL and the NFLPA, and that was the end of the “NFL 2K” series.
Madden 19
Obviously, a Madden game had to make the list. The series is the pinnacle of sports video games and the only one that yields a ton of coverage and consternation every year. The game has gotten so good over the years, and the graphics have become amazing. While many people seem to agree that between “Madden 05” and the last few games there was stagnation, if not an outright dip in quality, that seems to be a thing of the past. In fact, with “Madden 20″ on its way into the world, at the moment people seem to feel like ‘Madden 19” is, in fact, the best of the bunch.
R.B.I. Baseball
The reboot of “R.B.I. Baseball” has been poorly received, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We don’t care about modern times. We’re talking about the first “R.B.I. Baseball” from Atari. It debuted on NES in 1988 and had actual players, too, even if it didn’t have the official teams. Sometimes the simple games are the ones that stick with us the most. Maybe it’s nostalgia, sure, but there’s something about the first MLB game ever that still resonates.
MVP Baseball 2005
This one, however, is less about nostalgia and more about people just genuinely loving it. Even now a lot of people consider “MVP Baseball 2005” the best baseball game ever. The contemporary reviews tend to agree as well. The only minor issue is that Barry Bonds is not in the game, not unlike Michael Jordan in his heyday. Instead, he’s replaced by a random guy named Jon Dowd. We aren’t holding that against “MVP Baseball 2005” though.
Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest
This N64 classic is not super attentive to reality. It’s not gimmicky or crazy, to be sure, but it also is very much a “baseball video game” as opposed to one that tries to recreate the reality of baseball down to every blade of grass. That makes “Slugfest” sort of arcade like while still having actual MLB players and the feel of a real baseball game. It threads the needle really well.
Golden Tee
A lot of these games are for at-home consoles, but “Golden Tee” is purely all about the arcade version. In fact, you might not even know that “Golden Tee has been released for game for consoles. The arcade version involves using a trackball to control your golfer’s swing. It seems to be in about half the bars you go to. Apparently drinking and “Golden Tee” is a winning combination.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004
Tiger Woods was the first name in golf for years, so it’s fitting his name was attached to the preeminent golf video game series for over a decade. The 2004 version has an arcade feel to it, inasmuch as you can crush drives off the tee without it taking a ton of skill and detail. Video games are supposed to be fun, and the easy-to-grasp nature of “PGA Tour 2004” allows you to simply pick up your controller and take on 18 holes.
WWE No Mercy
Pro wrestling isn’t quite a sport, but it is sports entertainment, and the game play of a wrestling game is very much in line with what we think of when it comes to sports games. Of every wrestling game, and there are many out there, “WWE No Mercy” for the Nintendo 64 stands above the fray without question. It’s been over a decade, but “No Mercy” is still the champ.
1080 Snowboarding
Snowboarding games are the winter’s answer to skateboarding games. While there is no snowboarding series, or snowboarding game, on the level of “Tony Hawk Pro Skater,” there are a couple of really good snowboarding games. The best of the bunch, though, is “1080 Snowboarding,” which had quite advanced graphics for the N64 at the time. And they still hold up.
Sensible World of Soccer
Yes, “Sensible World of Soccer” was only a computer game until it got released on the Xbox 360 as a retro offering. However, we still felt compelled to include it. This 1994 release is considered by a lot of people one of the best soccer video games ever. No, really. “Sensible World of Soccer” even was named one of the 10 most important video games of all time by a 2007 collective that included two game designers and a Stanford professor. What a crazy shelf life for a game with the word “sensible” in the title.
FIFA 18
Soccer is different than the other major sports these days, as there are two different games that are competing to be the top of the mountain. There’s the FIFA series but also the Pro Evolution Soccer series. Advancements in technology have really helped soccer games, and we’ll take “FIFA 18” as the choice here. Part of that is because a free expansion was released to go with the game for the 2018 World Cup.
