Top 5 Dead Or Alive: Sports Video Games

by Evan Sporer | 1:27 pm, June 22nd, 2012

Welcome to our second installment of Top 5 Dead Or Alive. In case you missed our piece last Friday on SportsCenter anchors, we want you to know that this feature is designed specifically to make life hell for our employees. Each week, we’ll ask one of our writers to come up with a definitive list of the five best people, places or things in a particularly subjective category — then, we’ll ask you to tell him who or what is missing from the list. Feel free to be a total dick.

Today, we’ve asked clear-hearted intern Evan Sporer to name the five best sports video games of all time. Evan is like 10 years old, so we were afraid he’d miss some of the oldies. Surprisingly, retro games are represented well in this list. Anyway, tell him what he missed in the comments, email him, or tweet at him.

Last week, when Matt was working on the SportsCenter piece, I joked with him about how it was going to be tough to cut it down to five and about how his life sucked and whatnot. Then, as soon as I suggested we do this feature on sports video games, I realized I had written myself a death sentence. Because there are seriously a ton of amazing sports video games.

The next hour or so consisted of the rest of the SportsGrid staff throwing out names in an email thread, me wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into, and a list of at least 20 worthy games staring me in the face.

Before I get into it, I want to talk a little bit about how I came up with this list. It was difficult. Like, very difficult. For starters, what do you do with a major series (like Madden or FIFA) that has contributed numerous legendary games over the last decade-plus? If one was to make the list, would it get its own slide, or would a specific year be selected? I decided that if one of those games was to make the list, I would have to pick a specific year — choosing an entire franchise seemed kind of like a copout. Also, this list is kept to five and not 50 for a reason: it’s supposed to be hard to choose.

So, here goes everything: Your Top 5, dead or alive, sports video games. (And yes, I know video games can’t die. But it’s the name of the feature. GO WITH IT.)

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1.#5 - NHL '94

NHL '94 probably beats out some other games to squeak into the top five because I'm a huge hockey fan. NHL 12 is the only thing keeping me from a 4.0 in college. But NHL '94 was revolutionary—truly the hockey video game everyone associates with innovation in sports video gaming. The vertical camera angles brought us into the future of gameplay. The game was the first to include the one-timer, which anyone who played will tell you was an automatic goal. Other popular innovations were the "duper" and "the move." The inclusion of organ songs that teams play at their homes arenas was the icing on the cake. NHL '94 was truly ahead of its time. Even today, hockey games include a controller setting to revert to NHL '94's button configuration. Just showing respect where respect is due.

2.#4 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

THPS2 was one of those games you could just sit around and play for hours on end. Just to name a few skating moves the game was first to introduce, we were given the manual, Noseslide, Tailslide, Bluntslide, Nosebluntside, Feeble, and Overcrook grinds. The game also brought us the very first create-a-skater mode. Who doesn't want to play as themselves? Other enjoyable features were the two minute tasks players were asked to complete, including finding S-K-A-T-E, which was about as nerve racking as taking the SATs. But accomplishing them felt better than anything.

3.#3 - Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball

One of the coolest baseball players of all time deserves to dawn the cover of one of the coolest baseball video games of all time. Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball was an arcade-like console game that was fast-paced and super fun. Every pitcher could throw four pitches; a fastball, a breaking pitch, a changeup, and a "special pitch." Throwing the special pitch just felt so right. Another cool and more unknown feature of the game is Ken Griffey Jr. himself composed the music for gameplay. Check out this entry from Wikipedia.

Another feature in this game is the audio which Griffey personally composed. On it he played drums, keys, guitar, and funk bass. Griffey was said to be upset with the last few games soundtrack and felt that the bass just wasn't funky enough to do a good selling job. He spent three months during the offseason of the 1997 baseball season in a cabin in the woods recording the soundtrack with fellow Seattle sports heroes Shawn Kemp behind the mixing board and Warren Moon for feedback and moral support.

4.#2 - NFL Blitz

If you have never played NFL Blitz, I apologize right now for your deprived life. Blitz was a 7-on-7, all hell free-for-all of a fun time. Pass interference, late hits, and showboating were not only all allowed, they're encouraged. "Da Bomb" brought us a throw-catch combination that was more impressive than the Immaculate Reception. Defenders stopped the ball carrier with moves more seen in the WWF than on a football field. Blitz, like many things, was later ruined by the NFL, which was upset by the games exaggerations. Excessive celebrations and late hits were tamed in later Blitz installments. But NFL Bltz will always hold near and dear in our hearts.

5.#1 - Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!

This was by far the easiest decision of this project. Mike Tyson's Punch Out was number one before I could even blink. Your journey as Little Mac, a small boxer fighting his way up the ranks, is as inspiring a sports story we've ever heard. It was also one of the more difficult games—a loss knocked you down a peg, and three losses meant game over, and back to square one. In the boss match, against Mike Tyson/Mr. Dream, which seemed nearly impossible to win (saying you won it should be a go-to pick up line for getting girls), losing once meant the game reset. With Little Mac's limited abilities, bouts would have to be near-perfect in the later stages of the game to earn a 'W.'

6.Honorable Mentions

As I said, this was no easy task. Want to start by saying NBA Jam was my 5a. This list was difficult to finalize; I lost a lot of sleep over it. Here are some games that were close but didn't make the cut.

NBA Jam, SSX Tricky, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003, Virtua Tennis, Madden 2006, FIFA 10, Backyard Baseball, NHL 12, NBA 2K11

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Tyler Reisinger

Tecmo Super Bowl. Greatest. Of. All. Time. First game to combine real players, teams, stats and great gameplay. I have accomplished a lot in my life, but my proudest achievement remains the year I directed Warren Moon to 101 passing TD’s and got each of my four receivers 1,000 yards and 20+ TD’s.
Anonymous

Anyone remember NHL Hitz (specifically 2003)? I still play that one from time to time. Good list though, no real arguements.

There was also another hockey game, can’t think of the name, for the ill-fated “Sega CD” platform, I think it was ESPN affiliated. I remember that one from when I was a kid, I thought the graphics would never be beat. Crazy how far gaming has come.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000211912502 Jason Koonce

Tecmo Super Bowl. No contest…
Mike

NHL Hitz was amazing. Never like the subsequent “Pro” version, but the one with Chris Pronger (is that 03′) was done right.

I also liked playing NBA Jam more than Hitz.
http://profile.yahoo.com/ML4X3QSDA3OQX5P7PRTGFCJ344 steve

Baseball Stars, Tecmo Super Bowl, and NBA Live 95 need to be on here.
Mike_tartaglia

Blades of F’ing Steel

Top 5 Dead Or Alive: Sports Video Games

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