Sports Games

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I thought to myself: Why not? I know how much of a bum rap the more popular realistic simulation type sports games get among us, but recently a lot of us have brought up the great classic sports games from previous generations that apply the sports game fomula to a style more fitting for video games. There are the ones that are cartoony or over the top in some way, and favor interesting mechanics over being realistic (but really, if I wanted realism, I'd either watch the sport or play it with friends).

Now, rather than go over the obviously great sports titles like Mario Tennis and SSX Tricky and the like, I'm going to point out my personal favorite sports game of all time, which I also consider to be the most underrated one that I know of:



This is a masterpiece among sports games, especially the XBOX version with its extra content, and the funny thing is that I don't even like Soccer. First of all, its full of character. Each team has a specific theme and each character on the team have such distinct and unique personalities, and they are full of personality, which is one of the key things I look for in sports games in this vein. Unlike your standard fair game, this one has plenty of unlockables that actually effect gameplay. You see, through quest mode, you play games competing against other teams and you earn money/points for every game that you win, which you use to buy accessories that are specific to each of your team members which not only enhance their look but also improve their stats, which makes them that much more rewarding to unlock.

Furthermore, the game has a brilliant control scheme. Its simple in that each command is basic, but its also fairly deep and complex when you get into the strategy of it, though the AI in the game is laughably easy so you won't really get to experiment much with it unless you play multiplayer against an equally skilled human opponent, but its a total rush when you do find a good match to play against. My brother and I used to play this game all the time, and it was insane how intense some of our matches could get. The game also has a cool slow-mo style power kick that you can use whenever you build up enough of a meter that allows you to do it, which lets you manually aim your kick and adds a lot of power and speed to it. Even if the goalie blocks it, you still end up doing damage to them which decreases their chance of blocking later kicks, so it pays off either way.

Its also great that its one of those games that have small teams, which IMO keep things way more focused since its only 3 players per team, which allows you to coordinate your passes and overall movements very well. Additionally, the game has other fun game modes besides just the standard soccer match games, so there is some good variety to it.

Really, its hard to do this game any justice by just talking about it, but its so underrated since I still don't know anybody besides myself who has ever played it. Most people I know haven't even heard of it, which is a shame. The game obviously didn't sell well so it never warranted a sequel, and that sucks because I would have loved one this gen that could be played online. It has such an addicting multiplayer.

At any rate, that's my favorite sports game of all time, personally, but I have others that I love. I'll talk about those later.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I like arcade sports games for getting to the nitty-gritty of what rocks about sports which is the excitement!

If we're including racing games (which are technically a sport, no?) then OutRun 2 would be my most favorite. Everything great about racing in every single aspect of it is included and makes the atmosphere second to none.

[gunswordfist]

That actually sounds good.

If we are talking about racing games then my favorite is teh anti-Outrun, Burnout Revenge (Well, 2nd to SSX Tricky.) Either that or Gears Of War was the very first console game I played online (no I'm not very young, I'm about to turn 25.) Co-op FTW.Which reminds me...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Here is some gameplay footage from a decent player, though the video quality kind of sucks. It really is an extremely fun and addicting sports game and the speed and action can get pretty insane at times.

[Kiddington]

I like arcade sports games for getting to the nitty-gritty of what rocks about sports which is the excitement!

This.

That's largely why sports sims do nothing for me; those games tend to focus more on the managerial aspects of sports anymore (IE roster building and contract management), which, IMO, is all really boring to say the least. The gameplay itself is also done in as realistic of terms as possible, which just doesn't translate that well into a fun gaming experience.

Arcade sports on the other hand, like Mario sports or Mutant League Football or NBA Jam (you see where I'm going here), are the exact opposite; it's a pick-up-and-play atmosphere, one that's all about playing the sport itself, not building rosters and managing a salary cap. And the gameplay mechanics are always done in an over-the-top fashion that makes things a lot more exciting and a lot more fun. It's these kinds of gameplay mechanics that also give these games a much longer shelf life; Mutant League Football is nearly 20 years old, but it's still as much fun today as it was then. Can you say the same for any random Madden offshoot?

I like arcade sports; always have. It's those dry as toast sports sims that I tend to avoid.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I thought about it, and here are my top 10 favorite sports games:

10. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing (Dreamcast)



This is the best version of this game and what I love most about it is how full of character it is. Its not just its actual characters that I'm talking about, but just its style in general in how it looks like one big cartoon. That said it has a simple yet fun fighting system and a ton of awesome special moves and animations to make each blow feel like they pack a lot of power. Add onto that an addicting training mode and you have one hell of a boxing game. Also, I have to mention that I just love how the Dreamcast version does that special gimmick of having a few different holiday themes to the game which you unlock by setting your memory card to the date of one of the specific holidays that it has designs for. That's just fucking amazingly creative.

9. Road Rash (PC)/Road Rash 64



This is a tie, but I love both of these games. Admittedly I haven't played either of them in years, but they were so much fun and it was always addicting to try and upgrade to the next best bike you could buy. The racing was terrific and of course the most memorable thing about this game was being able to actively beat the crap out of your opponents and try to knock them off of their bikes

8. Splashdown



This is an underrated gem of a racing game. Its much like Nintendo's arcade Wave Racer games, but I always found this one to be more appealing, personally. I like the characters and the tracks are really colorful and tons of fun to play through. Its my favorite wave racing game, personally.

7. Super Mario Kart



This is my favorite Mario Kart game, but admittedly that's because its the one that I grew up with. While I've enjoyed most of the sequels that I have tried, this is the one my brother and I always used to come back to.

6. Aggressive Inline



This is a really underrated skating game. It does rip-off the mission formula from the Tony Hawk games, and is pretty much the same type of game with the exception that you are using roller skates instead of skateboards, but it does a damn good job of it and what really makes it so memorable is how amazing its levels are. They are so damn creative with such brilliant level design, and the objectives are actually really fun to perform and can get really challenging to do in later areas of the game. I'd definitely recommend checking this one out if you like any of the Tony Hawk games.

5. SSX Tricky



This is easily the best snowboarding game ever made. The trick system is vastly improved from the first game and the characters and race tracks are suitably over the top. There's not much else to say about this one other than its just straight-up fun to play.

4. NBA Street Vol. 2



This was made by the same development team as SSX Tricky, and man did EA Canada know how to make their sports games. This is another game with a trick system gimmick, but it works excellently here since it puts you at risk of losing your ball, yet at the same time building up your points through tricks will allow you to use a Game Breaker if you get enough points, which is essential in competitive play to score a significant lead of your opponent. The game also controls extremely smooth and has a very satisfying roster of teams and characters.

3. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3



In general, the first 3 Tony Hawk games are all among the best skateboarding games of all time, but if I had to pick my personal favorite, its the 3rd game, and I'll tell you why: It just flat-out has the best courses in the entire series, IMO. From the  cruise ship to the suburbs, every track is packed with places to perform tricks and they are just so damn well designed. The developers of this game really stretched their creative legs, here. The game just offers so much freedom in general, what with having the best level editor to create your own courses, and also giving you the most options of any of the first 3 games for creating your own character and giving them their unique stats. And lets not forget that this game had the deepest and most refined trick system out of the first 3 Tony Hawk games. The revert ability in general was a HUGE addition to the game, in that it allowed you to essentially chain your tricks together into potentially endless combos. This is definitely the high point of the Tony Hawk series, IMO.

2. Mario Tennis



I'm not much of a sports person, but the only one I've ever liked physically playing is Tennis. Needless to say, though, I utterly suck at it. This game right here is the best alternative for me. It has simple controls but fantastic gameplay. Each character has their own strengths and weaknesses, and each court has its own quirks so the court you pick actually has a bearing on the gameplay in how it effects the physics of the tennis ball. And, of course, there is Bowser's court which really give a very Mario-esque spin on the gameplay for this sport with different items that you can unlock in the form of power-ups or traps for your opponent. This is definitely one of the most fun sports games ever created, though admittedly I've never played any of its sequels so I can't say how they stack up.

1. Sega Soccer Slam



I already explained this one in the very first post of this thread up above, so just go read that.

I will say that I had considered putting WWF: No Mercy on this game, until I remembered that pro-wrestling is just entertainment and not a real sport, so it didn't qualify. It is a damn good video game, though.

[gunswordfist]

I miss Ready 2 Rumble. So both of those games were on Dreamcast? Anyway, I loved them both.

I didn't know Kart games counted. Crash Team Racing is my favorite in that subgenre. This is my favorite level http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuSq3VURcdI The one involved was also my favorite level from Crash 3. If you'll excuse me, I'm enjoying watching this level for the first time in like a decade and a half right now.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I miss Ready 2 Rumble. So both of those games were on Dreamcast? Anyway, I loved them both.

They were also on the N64 and PS1 (and the 2nd game was released on the PS2, as well). The Dreamcast version is the best version of the 1st game, but I haven't even played the 2nd game so I really can't comment on that.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I have to say that as good as the first 3 TH games were... Man, I just didn't dig 4 at all. The formula was there, but everything about it just didn't work. Underground was a good improvement, but I never got back into the series after it.

IMO, the series is essentially the first 3 games. I just can't get into the rest.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I always felt like the series lost a lot of what made it great after the first 3 games. The first 3 titles had amazing level design and such a bizarre sense of freedom in how creative you could be with each environment. I'm not sure what it was, but while TH4 and onward were certain to make big environments, I felt like they never had that tight and well-crafted level design that the first 3 games had. I was also burned out on the series by the 4th game, but I did try to come back to Underground after having been away from the series for a few years and I still couldn't get into it. Recently I started playing TH3 again just to see how well it holds up, and I ended up unintentionally playing it for hours before realizing how much time I had spent on it. I think that goes to show how timeless that game is.

[Rynnec]

Since the only THPS game I've played is 4, I'd like to know what 4 lost that made the first 3 installments so great?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I haven't played it in a while, so I can't comment on it too much, but like I said in my post above, back when I did play it the thing that struck me the most was the level design. It just flat out wasn't as good as the first 2 games. I remember how literally everything in any level of THPS3 could be used to perform tricks of some sort, which was one of the brilliant and creative points of the game. I mean even stuff that you wouldn't use in real-life, but in the game anything went. For example you'd find yourself grinding on telephone wires, off the edges of mobile trucks, and you could even use empty pools as half-pipes. I felt that the 4th game severely cut down on these elements in comparison to the first 3 games, but maybe I'm remembering it wrong. Either way, I was burned out on TH games after the first 3, so I was doomed to be underwhelmed by 4 no matter how good it was.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I think there was a couple of problems with 4 at the time.

The first was that the series was over-saturated, and overexposed. I'm not even going to tell you how many hours myself, my friends, and kids I barely even knew put into the first two games. Then there was the portable stuff, Tony Hawk 2X (which if it had levels from 3 would probably be the best THPS game), and finally the first true next-gen game in THPS3 which made everything bigger and more accessible than even the first two games. By the time 4 came out, everyone was Tony Hawk'd out and the game didn't really attempt anything to shake everything up.

Next was that the game itself was just plain uninspired. The level design was pretty awful and outright dumb from what I remembered (The first level alone had way too much flat ground and a really stupid parade event), there was nothing as game changing as the manual or the revert introduced, the goals were not fun because unlike the first few games it was basically impossible to do 100% 2 minute runs because of how pointlessly big the levels were, and most of the goals were too goofy.

Actually, that became my biggest problem with most Tony Hawk games after 3- they became too goofy. Part of the fun was that balance between realism and impossibility that made you seem incredible when doing tricks. After 3 you just tended to look lame.

Then Underground came out and was exactly what the series needed to become fresh again, it wasn't as good as the first 3 but it was a massive step up from 4. Then Underground 2 came out and ruined everything, and the series barreled downhill.

[Foggle]

and the series barreled downhill.

[Spark Of Spirit]

and the series barreled downhill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcmaMPh3v40

I still remember that Tony Hawk 2 demo in Marseilles with this song playing and averaging over 1 million in tricks.

That it fell so far is almost Sonic 06 level awful for me.