Top 5 Greatest Sports Video Games

First, please take this list with more than a few grains of salt, because I have always been a casual gamer, not a serious one. I haven't played them all by a long-shot, and I have even missed some of the big franchises. My only exposure to Madden was in college on the SNES. I forget the edition, but it was likely '95 or '96 ... and we discovered a glitch that allowed you to recover 100% of your onside kicks.

This rendered the game unplayable for my dormmates and I. We discussed implementing a rule that you must kick away, but that didn't really seem fair to the team that just scored a touchdown to get within five with 30 seconds left.

One honorable mention that didn't make the list was Blades of Steel for NES. The package clearly states that some of the rules differed from standard NHL rules. True. If you locked up with an opposing player, chances are the narrator would announce, "Fight!" and the game would enter sort of a boxing mode. If you won the fight, you earned a man advantage for some time.

Also just missing the cut is FIFA '97 for Playstation. This was the first game I had where the announcer would actually call out the names of players with the ball. After I discovered that one of the teams has a player named Dede, which the announcer pronounced as "dead," I would play that team and get Dede as many goals as possible so I could hear the announcer say at the end, "and here's the man of the match, dead."

5. Super Challenge Baseball for Atari 2600

It was made by Mattel of all companies, and it's surprising how intricate and elegant a game they managed to create on such a limited platform and controller (compare that to Atari's own "Football" title, which if I were making a "worst" list, would be No. 1). Of course, the flip side to that was it was harder to learn and master than other Atari sports games, and I clearly remember the learning curve including having my catcher run out to centerfield to fetch a ball off the wall, because I couldn't figure out how to switch to another position.

4. EA Sports Tiger Woods franchise for multiple platforms

I love this series (I have played primarily on GameCube), but the game also represents why I am neither a good nor noble gamer. If you don't adjust the difficulty, the game can get absurdly easy, with scores in the low-to-mid-50s commonplace.

But I never cared. I liked to dominate, even if I was doing it on the bunny slopes. The last version I played ('05 I think) sort of forced you to affirm that you still wanted to go with the baby-easy settings after a few tournaments, rather than making it the default.

So I went with a harder setting, one that took away a key putting green graphic, and I found I was mostly two-putting. My scores hovered around even par. It was like being an actual golf pro, rather than a supernatural figure who can count on running away with every tournament by 30 strokes.

Eff that.

Also, if my editor permits it, I'd like to point out that this is the greatest, most relaxing game ever to play high. (So he's been told, of course. — Ed)

3. Mike Tyson's Super Punch-Out for NES

Everyone loves this game so I don't think I need to go into why it was so great. But I do have a couple of questions:

Did anyone else find the Sandman more difficult to defeat than Tyson? It took me forever to beat him, but it took only a few bouts to beat Tyson. The Sandman's timing was so strange, asynchronous, and hard to pin down.

I also find it odd that the game forced you to knock out certain boxers to advance — they would not award you a decision no matter how much you dominated the fight — and yet Tyson was not one of them. I never KO'd Tyson, but I could get a decision without too much difficulty.

Don Flamenco (first fight only) was easier to beat than Glass Joe and everyone else who came before him by a wide margin once you figured out the trick. Discuss.

2. NFL Blitz 2000 for N64

While I played the rest of the games on this list alone primarily, this was the must-play game for my buddies and I for over a year. The drinking, the revelry, the game. Draw whatever subsequent conclusions you may imagine about us that you will.

If you are not familiar with the game, it was even less realistic than Blades of Steel, and after awhile we didn't even think about twice body-slamming the player we had just tackled before the play selection screen came up, we just did it. Thanks to a glitch (or maybe it was intentional, I don't know) in the announcing, the game gave us a term we still use today: disasterbacle.

NFL Blitz 2000 also gave me my greatest video game victory ever. Indulge me. I'll make it short.

I was trailing 23-22, trying furiously to get into field goal range (the game would only allow you to attempt a field goal if the line of scrimmage was midfield or closer, but even those 67-yarders were makable) and alas, my drive stalled with :08 left at my own 46. My friend Arik took over and immediately sent his field goal unit on.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Running up the score."

He missed the field goal, giving me the ball back at my 46 again at :04. I hit my wideout on a slant pattern (yes!) and leapt out of bounds, on Arik's 49, with :01 left.

"S**t," said Arik.

My figgie attempt bounced off the left upright and ricocheted through, and I won 25-23. Pandemonium ensued. Ain't we got fun?

1. Tecmo Super Bowl for NES

I don't think this game will ever die. It was still the game of choice in my dorm, five years after its release. There's still many Internet leagues. I remember thinking that I was hot applesauce after rushing Barry Sanders for 523 yards in a game (I also got Merton Hanks 6 interceptions in a game). Yet because I rarely or never played as the Raiders, I didn't know until college the legend that is Bo Jackson in this game. I watched one of my dormmates play as the Raiders, get himself sacked at his own 1 every time he got the ball, and running a 99-yard touchdown on the ensuing play each time.

As the offense, you picked a play, and as defense, you also picked an offensive play, trying to guess which one your opponent selected. If you guessed right, your defense would swarm and sack the quarterback (or nail the running back if it was a running play) for a big loss.

Only Bo Jackson could get out of a defense-guessed-right jam.

We would schedule tournaments, and it seems I always got the last pick of the team-selection draft, meaning I would constantly have to face the Raiders with some inferior team and get smoked. It was never close, always a disasterbacle.

It turns out, it's not even that hard to maneuver him (and others) to make him untackleable. In real life, Jackson says fans want to talk about his amazing video game character more than his actual real-life feats. I can't say I blame those fans.