ALL TIME FAVOURITE SPORTS GAMES - Dazraz's Blog

Dazraz's Blog

ALL TIME FAVOURITE SPORTS GAMES

Posted on August 23, 2010 at 03:47 AM.

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As a veteran of sports videogames since the early 1980's I have seen the growth & development of this segment of the industry first hand.

Over the years I have played on the following hardware:-

Atari 2600
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128k
Sega Master System
Commodore Amiga
Sega Megadrive
Sony PS1, PS2 & PS3
XBOX 360

I also have a Packhard Bell iPower PC although I rarely play sport titles on this.

No doubt sport games look better & more lifelike than ever before thanks to the impressive hardware they now run on. However as a bit of fun I thought I would make a list of my favourite representatives of a number of different sports taking into account the limitations of the hardware at the time.

For example we know Madden 11 looks better than any other previous iteration of the sport but pound for pound based on system limitations NFL 2K5 is my stand out football game of all time.

Here's my list:-

Football - NFL 2K5 (Sega Sports/PS2)
Baseball - MLB the Show 10 (Sony/PS3)
Ice Hockey - NHL 94 (EA Sports/Megadrive)
Basketball - NBA 2K10 (2K Sports/XBOX360)
Soccer - FIFA World Cup South Africa (EA Sports/PS3)
F1 - Geoff Crammond Grand Prix (Microprose/Amiga)
Nascar - Nascar Thunder 2004 (EA Sports/PS2)
Golf - PGA Golf 11 (EA Sports/PS3)
Boxing - Knockout Kings 2001 (EA Sports/PS2)
Cricket - Cricket 2005 (EA Sports/PS2)
Motorcycling - SBK X (Black Bean/XBOX360)
Management - Football Director (D&H/ZX Spectrum)
Athletics - Decathlon (Atari 2600)
Generic Motorsport - Forza 3 (Microsoft/XBOX360)
Rugby - International Rugby Simulator - (Codemasters/ZX Spectrum)
Tennis - Match Point (Psion/ZX Spectrum)
Rallying - WRC II Extreme (Sony/PS2)

A couple of other games worthy of note that I spent a load of time playing but didn't quite make the list are:-

Match Day 2 - (Ocean/ZX Spectrum)
Ice Hockey - (Activision/Atari 2600)

Let us know your favourites down the years.

Comments

# 1 oneamongthefence @ Aug 23

on n64 wwf no mercy if you count wrestling games. i really dug tony hawk 2 and madden 2000 on psx.

# 2 stlstudios189 @ Aug 23

Tony Larussa baseball, Madden 05 is up there, NFL 2k5 is a beast, NHL 94 was amazing, Evander Holyfield boxing, NBA Live 95, Coach K basketball.

# 3 johnprestonevans @ Aug 23

I started my sports game "career" on the original NES with games like Double Dribble and Baseball Stars. I have a ton of favorites. Ive owned the following systems:
Coleco Vision, NES, Sega Genesis, PS1, PC, PS2, Xbox, Xbox360 & PS3

Football - NFL 2K5 (Sega Sports/Xbox)
Baseball - MLB the Show 10 (Sony/PS3)
Hockey - NHL10 (EA Sports/360)
Basketball - NBA 2K9 (2K Sports/XBOX360)
Soccer - FIFA 10 (EA Sports/PS3)
Golf - Links (PC - circa 2000)
Boxing - Fight Night Round 3 (EA Sports)
Motorcycling - Excitebike (NES)
Management - NFL Head Coach 09 (EA Sports)
Athletics - Track & Field (NES)
Generic Motorsport - Dirt 2 (Codemasters)
Tennis - Virtua Tennis (Arcade)

So many great memories over the years too: Hardball III on Pc (team/logo creation). Blades of Steel on NES. World Cup '98 on PS1. Baseball Stars (saving replays/custom players). Joe Montana II:Sports Talk Football (commentary for the 1st time). NBA 99 on PS1 (4 players at one time for the first time). NHL on PC circa 2000 (Out of town highlights and updates).

# 4 Dazraz @ Aug 23

Yeah I forgot all about the commentary on Joe Montana. It was like wow this is the way all games should be. Amazing all these years later & commentary is probably the one area that developers struggle with. Although 2K's doing it better than the rest at the moment.