Underappreciated Sports Games
 

What are the sports computer games you loved, but nobody else (even on this board) really played?

My two are: Tuesday Night Football for the Apple IIe. That game featured just two teams, the Oilers and Steelers from the 70s. It was a text game that had about 8 offensive and defensive selections , but in addition to the play by play also had a rudimentary x's and o's showing the play unfold. I have an Apple IIe emulator just for this game.

The other is a bit more well known I think, but I don't know how many people loved the minigame in it. Triple Play 99 for the pc. Specifically, the home run derby. No cut away scenes or instant replays, just a no frills home run derby that kept the camera on the flight of the ball until it cleared the seats or fell short of the warning track. I think I had a record of over 40 hrs on my old computer. And again still play it to this day.

There was a 2-on-2 basketball game for the Apple IIGS that I played a ton. It had a league option with standings and you'd get faux news headlines after each game along with season stats (I think seasons lasted 8 games + playoffs). I burned a lot of hours playing that game. I think it was something like GBA Championship Basketball.

New Star Soccer 3
Football Fanatic

Omni-Play Basketball for c64.

+100000000000



I played this endlessly. It was my first ever experience with career play and I loved it.

NCAA basketball for the super nintendo (dont remember exact name of the game). A blast to play, I would put up 3-pointers all day and still lose sometimes. Could hear the crowd cheering as well.

I have that game... the camera would rotate 180 degrees when you got possession. I think North Carolina had a guy named Davidson that was really good from 3s.

Is that an underappreciated game? I guess I thought everyone had played and loved that game.

Oh ok, my mistake then. I'm the only person I know that played it or even heard of it. Although looking at screen shots, they look more advanced than what I remember.

+1

You could jump with your back turned and still nail a 3. Awesome. Liked using the L/R buttons to pick plays.

Earl Weaver baseball was great too. Still have that spin dial baseball passcode thing somewhere.

Computer Quarterback for the Apple IIe was my first sports game -- and a good one at that. I set up a multiplayer league with my friends and would pour over the printouts after every game to compile stats. I think that firmly established my nerd credentials.

yeah, that was it. I thought it was 1 on 1 though?

I played the hell out of Hardball, and 4th and Inches on my 2gs. Fun times.

Hardball for me.

Earl Weaver had the old old players like Ruth, Gehrig, etc... right?

One of the earliest text sims, NFL Pro Football by XO Software.. (I'm hazy on the name of the game and the company)

Here's a site with a couple of screenshots.

What is the Apple IIGS? > Sports Games > GBA Championship Basketball

Oh, and Radio Baseball

Hmm, yeah, I guess it was 2 players. I was always a big fan of those "California Games/Winter Olympics/Summer Olympics, etc" type games. You'd have downhill skiing, then maybe the biathalon. Good stuff.

Definitely Hardball.

My favorite pitchers were the guys who could throw the Fastball!

This. Though I remember it as XOR Football.

There was NFL Challenge by XOR Software, is that what you are thinking of?

There we go! Thanks!

Hardball had jacked up speed/running when I played it, and it pissed me off. Maybe it was Hardball 3 or 4 or something... but Roberto Alomar would sometimes be able to get a double on a ball hit to shallow OF, and sometimes couldn't even make it to 1B on a ball hit to the wall. It was really bizarre... fatigue or something?

Some of my favorite sports games from the past that you may or may not have played:

Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 - SNES baseball game where players had special moves like throwing 188 mph or jumping 40 feet to rob homeruns. But these moves cost special points and you only had so many, so most of the plays were of the more standard variety and you had to think before using the special moves. It also kept a lot of league stats which wasn't always the case back then.

Base Wars - NES baseball game with robots instead of humans where instead of tagging a runner out, the defender and runner fought each other one-on-one to see if the runner would be out or safe. You could also upgrade your robots with machine guns, swords, upgrade their hitting power and run speed, etc.

Kirby's Dream Course - I guess you could call it a golf game for SNES. You control Kirby like an old golfing game, one button press starts the power meter, one stops it, and then you control the spin. You have to take out enemies on the course before the last enemy becomes a hole that you've got to put Kirby in. This is one of my favorite SNES games, the courses were challenging in single player and the versus mode was a lot of fun against my brother.

Dead Ball Zone - This PS1 game was set in a future where the main sport is played in a hockey-like rink where players throw the ball around the arena in any direction and score by throwing past the goalie into a goal bigger than a hockey net but smaller than a soccer goal. It is very violent with bodyslams, punches, iirc there was some special move where you could use a handgun for a short amount of time. It also had some stat tracking and player development. It's a shame it never saw a sequel. It doesn't even have a Wiki page.

More people know about Mutant League Hockey, Mutant League Football, Sensible Soccer and/or its various console ports and those were good too.

I wish there were more non-traditional sports games created these days.

I played a lot of XOR NFL Challenge, also played a lot of the TV sports games. (basketball and football)

Speedball, HyperZone (where decapitating an opponent and scoring a goal with his head was allowed).

Baseball Stars

Baseball Stars underappreciated? It and Tecmo Super Bowl seem to be the most highly regarded sports games on the NES. Definitely a great game though.

Yes. I played the shit out of that game. It kept records of the standings or something, right? Different conferences and stuff? Jump shots were THE way to go.

YouTube - SNES Super Nintendo NCAA BASKETBALL


I loved that game. Best baseball game for a long time. Then stupid EA took over the sports market. :mad: :rant: :banghead:

I used to love Joe Montana Football for the PC. I don't remember much other than setting the ratings for everyone on my team to 2 (for some reason 2 was the lowest rating), and seeing how well I could compete (If I recall, you played out a full season plus playoffs).

BTW, while Omni Play Sports Basketball was underappreciated, it can't hold a candle to the Horse Racing Game

I always liked the Atari arcade football game, with the Xs and Os, the trackball, and the top down view, with a person on either end of the table.

Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 still remains the baseball game I've played the most. I used to use the Edit Team feature to create a lineup with me and my friends and the pitching staff would all be named after girls I had crushes on.

NCAA Basketball is like, the greatest college basketball game ever. I loved the voiceovers and the isometric design:

"Foul by.. Point Guard. Point Guard... Fouled Out."

Dola, I should see if I can find my SNES and play NCAA Basketball with the Hogs. :)

I remember because of the monotone voice and the blue "crowd," a friend thought it was the most boring game ever... but I didn't agree.

I played a TON of TV Sports Football, and TV Sports Basketball on the Amiga. Both could do a pretty robust impression of a coaching sim with decent graphics.

"Second basemen Nap Lah Joy."

Loved that game.

Loved TV sports basketball, it was one of the few games at the time (Earl Weaver also) that kept pretty detailed statistics from the games. Did you ever play Gridiron on the Amiga? One of my favorite Amiga games of all time.

Earl Weaver baseball was the first one where I would actually enter real player stats to get them into the game ;-)

But Head Coach Football on the Amiga was my foray into utility writing. I wrote an aging routine that turned it into a career sim, a team editor, and a draft pool generator.

I also played a ton of TV Sports games as well as XOR NFL Challenge. Earl Weaver was my favorite game for many years. I'm not sure if many of these games really qualify as underappreciated, but this thread brings back some good memories.

Commodore 64's Super Bowl Sunday

No joysticks -- just pick a Super Bowl team to match up with another SB team. Pick the player and what play would be run. The opponent picks the D they want to run, and watch it unfold.

My first foray into text sims, I guess, although there was a rudimentary illustration of the action.

Probably not underappreciated, but my other fave is:
RBI Baseball
Just pure fun . . . .

I'm still not convinced this is the same Earl Weaver I played... you had to really concentrate on pitching, right? I remember using the numpad, and each pitch involved something like two key presses... and if you didn't do it properly, the ball would hit the dirt or something. So I actually ended up walking batters and stuff. Is that still the right game?

I loved this game..

and this one...

Me and my friends used to "draft" teams based on statistical totals and also on totals for all of the attributes. Of course we would end up with players that had all 10's (or whatever the highest rating was) and then a couple with all 1's. (but we were in 7th grade so it's not like we were working on balance back then)

Well I had an Amiga so one player would use the mouse and the other a joystick but it was a two part control. The first was the type of pitch and the second was the location. Sounds like the same game.

I did this too...and jacked up some of the guy's stats who I liked. For some reason Ruben Sierra comes to mind.

The Omni-play games for the C-64 were great. I especially enjoyed Superstar Ice Hockey and Superstar MLS Indoor Soccer. They used a concept of trading points to make trades. The better your record from the previous year, the less points you received.

Anyone ever hear of Unnecessary Roughness? I used to play that as a kid too.

That was the one with a top-down view, with just little circles representing players, kinda like FM2008? Couldn't you make plays too? I certainly did play the crap out of that game. That was a great game too! I totally forgot about it, until you just mentioned it.

One-Nil (and it's sequel Two-Nil), Goal '98, and Grand Prix from Wizard Games?

I think it was Wayne Gretzky Hockey for the NES where you could control one player on the team, throughout the game - rather than just whoever controlled the puck at that moment. That was very cool. I don't know if that became an option later on in newer games but it was different experience.

And Micro League Baseball for the IIgs was definitely my first text sim experience. Not sure if that's unappreciated or not.

It's not a sports sim, but I still occasionally drag out Rockstar from Wizard.

“your granny invites you to take some amphetamines."

Yeah they were x's and o's I think. I loved how you could bounce off a lineman or a tackler like would happen in real life. Obviously it doesn't compare to anything around nowadays but back then most of the games were like flag football where your player would be tackled upon contact.

My brothers and I played the hell out of that game. Loved it. I have the theme music going through my head now.

I LOVED Superbowl Sunday. I used to always play as the 1984 Dolphins, and I figured out that if you line up in a three back offense and have Marino throw it deep to Duper, it would be complete 50% of the time, even when your opponent put double coverage on him.

MLBPA Sports Talk Baseball on the Genesis:

YouTube - MLBPA Sports Talk Baseball (Sega Genesis)

I played the hell out of this. Even kept batting statistics on paper for season play.

Also, played a lot of Tecmo NBA Basketball.

You are all forgetting Bill Laimbeer Combat Basketball, the greatest sports game ever made.

How about Super Spike V'Ball, or Kings of the Beach?

Nintendo World Cup with the bicycle kick goals from the halfway line

MicroLeague Baseball
MicroLeague Football
Hockey League Simulator

I played the hell out of Mean 18 on the Amiga. Plus it was fun to design your own courses.

oh, yeah, that was a good one path. We'd make courses all the time.

Sports Talk Football was horrid. Just horrid. Not sure if I played the baseball version.

My top pick has to be Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball. I still boot this up today on my computer. About 50 players to draft from with their own unique playing styles. Some tough competition and different parks that had their own unique rules.

Jerry Glanville's Pigskin Footbrawl was a fun one I remember playing both at home and at the arcade.

I was also a big fan of the Mutant League games.

Loved most of the sports games listed here. Two I haven't seen:

A basketball game for the C-64. Don't know the name, but it was 3 on 3. You could choose different rules (Olympic rules was one choice), you could set the time and score, I think, and you could chose your uniform color. Played that one a ton.

Basketball for Intellivision. The one where you could choose your team. Excellent game. Played it over one of my boys' house quite a bit.

Also enjoyed the Colecovision games.

Man, I've been playing sports games for 25 years. And some of the games of the past 5 years don't seem too far beyond what we had then. Sure, the way the results are generated for stats games are different, but, in ways, they aren't as far ahead of where you'd think you'd be 25 years later.

Tecmo NBA Baseketball was a great game!

I didn't realize NCAA Basketball for the SNES was so well regarded. I will have to check it out.

My buddy and I played that a lot. He loved playing OSU because they had a 7 footer (Lark) who hit the three from the corner 90% of the goddamn time.

Man, I forgot about that one. I played the hell out of that one too. I loved moving up the division and buying all the different robots. And there was just something satisfying about punching people or running over the homing mines to blow them up.

Kings of the Beach always pissed me off. I'd only get so far and then couldn't get any further (though I forget which two guys it was). Didn't stop me from playing it, though.

Mutant League Hockey & Football.

Or just all the fun different supershots. Germany and Italy were so overpowered in that game it was ridiculous. Fun game, though.

Oh, Jerry Glanvilles arcade death bowl game was great too.

+1. I think Shaq was in that game (although with a different name of course). When I was in Japan I picked up the Japanese version which was reskinned to be an NBA game... except they didn't change any of the rules so it was basically a college basketball game with NBA teams.

I also had the PC game that was the precursor of that... it was a three-on-three half court game starring Michael Jordan. I don't remember what it was called, but I played the heck out of it.

From the same era, and I think much less regarded, Super Play Action Football for the SNES was one of my favorites. The in-game stuff wasn't great, but I loved that you could play NFL, college, or high school season play all in one game and they actually felt like different experiences.

There was a computer basketball game back in the mid-90's that was 5-on-5 and you could fully customize the teams. I plugged in all the players and had a ton of fun playing it. Can't think of the name though, but it kept stats and everything.

Yeah, in Australia we had a "pro" version of NCAA basketball too, except they weren't NBA teams, they were just generic teams, like the Seattle Breeze, etc. I played the heck out of it.

I also had a PC game precusor, Road to the Final Four. It was a proper NCAA game which included all the rosters for whatever NCAA tournament year it was released in... Like early 90s, 94 or something.

Lance Haffner Full Count Baseball.

My first version was of the '91 season and of course I played with my Cubs. Maddox starting the opener for me and in typical Cub fashion of those days he goes into the 9th inning up 1-0. Can't remember who I was playing but in those days it would be a good bet it was either the Reds or Mets. Anyway they get the bases loaded with nobody out and I'm thinking great Maddox gets screwed again like real life with no run support. Leave him in figuring screw it he's earned the right to try to finish. Gets a hard ground ball to third that is turned into a triple play! Bought every season disk and upgrade from then to '98 and never saw another triple play.

Also had his 3 in 1 Football and LH College Basketball. Both entertaining but not as good as baseball IMHO.

So I've racked my brain for things that aren't on here. Unless I missed them, here we go:

Pete Rose baseball was really cool. I loved the quick seasons and the player development that occurred with each season.

There was a Wide World of Sports Boxing game that was great as well. The career mode included all kinds of ways to spend your money, deep management decisions (I always hoped that the hot female manager wanted to manage me, what can I say, I was in Jr. High).

Omniplay Horseracing is still, to this day, the best horse racing sim I've ever played. Simply amazing. We used it at work functions and for parties, and was just a great time.

And yeah, a bunch of the standards I saw listed: Earl Weaver, the Sierra line of football games, Tecmo Super Bowl, RBI Baseball, etc.

There was a game called World Games. Had skiing, sumo wrestling, log rolling and bull riding. It wasn't the best but it was one of the first ones to have good animations and solid graphics.

I loved that one. It also included barrel jumping (my favorite), weightlifting, and cliff diving.

Yeah that was a fun game. Actually all the EPYX (I think that was the publisher) series of Games (that someone else mentioned) were a blast. Though I'd have to say my favorite was a toss-up between World Games, Winter Games and California Games.

dola,

though I -loved- the diving in Summer Games. That was probably my favorite of all the Game series events.

I bought a 4-in-1 NES game recently that I used to rent a ton as a kid because I liked the baseball portion. The game is called something like Quattro Sports.

So I try the four game modes, and I definitely had fonder memories than this as a kid. Every sport seemed jacked up that is was funny. So I guess I got my money's worth ($5) playing with some friends, but I couldn't believe how jacked up the games were.

California Games remains (as far as I know) the only game to tackle virtual hackey-sack.

one-nil soccer was my first text sim game onthe cpu.

and Micro league baseball on the Commodore 64!

Played the heck out of that and old time baseball (a bit like Tony LaRussa):

A highly underappreciated game by this crowd (IMO) remains Baseball Mogul. Yes, it still has its quirks, but it's a highly flexible, speedy, accurate enough, and most important, lots of fun.

Another vote for Omni-Play/Magic MVP Basketball. The game was ahead of its time and I still miss some features of it (like the commercials, detailed team vs. team comparisons, and trading/development "points").

I bought and played my first football PC game when i was like 17 or so, it was an imported game i found lost in an used pc games shop. I had no idea about football (as nobody did in Spain), but liked that sport like rugby were players used helmets and armor like modern gladiators. Once i started to play, i got in love with the strategic behind that American football sport.

The thing is that i don't remember the name and have always tried to. you played only as coach, no moving the players yourself. You could create plays using arrows and different formations in a plays editor, and Troy Aikman was the Colts QB. The game box was black i think. I guess it was 1993 or 1994 but the game was probably older. It was NFL licensed, could you guys say what game was that?

WoSoMan and WoHoMan.

I still get the urge to play both of these. So simple, but they both hooked you for season upon season.

For real!?

:confused:

There was a great C-64 racing game, called Racing Destruction Set. It was really cool. You could pick different types of cars, and there were a ton of different tracks. Plus, you could design your own tracks and there were tons of options. The best was your ability to select the gravity that you wanted to use. If you selected Jupiter, it would be very very hard.

Ouch sorry, i meant Cowboys QB.

I'll have to find it, but there was this football game back in the mid late 90's on the PC that was just great, you could make plays and everything, think it was Play Action Football but I might be wrong.

Also Hardball was great on my Atari 800xl, and when I got my PC, Hardball 2 was great because you could put stats in the game, and then it would accumulate stats on top of those. I made this all rookie baseball team with guys like Leo Gomez, Phil Plantier, etc that kicked ass due to their amazing 1st year stats!

Probably not underappreciated, but the games that took up most of my time in high school were Pro League Football, we had a league with a mix of historical teams and really got into the stats and running it multiplayer. That was a lot of fun despite the X and O animation. There was a tense second when the ball hit the receiver and you wondered if it was going to stick. One of my friends totally flipped out and almost trashed the place when Ron Rivera made an interception on his Bernie Kosar and lost him the game.

Joe Montana Football was the other one. We played a lot of one on one there. It was totally unrealistic, I used to get 100 sacks a season playing LT. But it was fun to make plays and the blocking schemes worked fairly well. I spent ungodly numbers of hours editing all the players every season to match the offseason activity in the NFL.

I think you are thinking of playmaker football. It still has a website PlayMaker.com. Sadly, the game really hasnt been updated since the mid 90s so I think in addition to paying for the game you have to pay for utilities to get season mode etc. But the ai for making plays was quite good imho.

was One-Nil the game that when you got fired it would say "Oh Dear you got the boot!"

If so, I need a screenshot of that. I played the hell out of that game.

One-nil's line was, "You're Sacked"

In GIANT letters. YOU HAVE BEEN SACKED!!

Talk about depressing.

Haha yeah that's it! I even remember posting a question to see if anyone ever played that back in the day, on here. Awesome, didn't know there was a website for it!