Greatest Video Games - Sport ignored?

['Foretold' Joker]

Great game lists like the Time Magazine one in the other thread always make me wonder about Sports games. Especially modern sports games as they are often not listed.

These lists frequently have Mario, Half Life, Final Fantasy or what have you yet sports games which there are many don't get a look in very often if at all

(Note: The Time list has NBA Jam, Madden 95, Punch-Out!! Tecmo Bowl, Wii Sports and arguably Pong as it's sports games)

Yet some of these sports games series are hugely played and enjoyed by many (FIFA, Virtua Tennis, Championship Manager, Madden Series, Tiger Woods golf, Tony Hawks Skateboarding ... etc ... )

So why is it that they don't get a look in on these lists? these games are good, the multi-player has huge replay value and the level of detail can be very high.

Is it because each subsequent edition (Franchises) supersedes the previous only in a tiny way? So to stand out they need to be independent of EA? Or is it because not everyone follows the same sports?

So everyone thoughts on why a list can have 5 different Final Fantasy and Mario games but no sports games?

[Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!!]

probably has to do with the fact that the games have relatively little innovation and are basically the same thing every year.

['Foretold' Joker]

But they are great games, are they not?

I mean if I picked Soccer as the sport you have FIFA & Pro Evolution series, but you also have from yesteryear Striker, Senisble Soccer, Championship Manager Series & Kick Off to name a few. These all got great reviews back in the day and are good games.

Great Sports games are solid in Graphics, Gameplay, Simulation and Multiplayer.

So I can only assume it is down to the fact they are not telling a good singleplayer story that they get disregarded.

[Red Impact]

Yeah, I' go with what Baldobomb said. As a whole, a franchise might have been great or innovative, but unless a particular game in a series is awful, it's hard to differentiate between games in a series. Would you pick Madden 2008 over Madden 2006? Why? Because it's newer? When you have franchises with yearly updates that are roughly the same game every year, it's just impossible to really put it into context. Hence why older sports games tend to get more respect in retrospectives.

Afterall, it's about individual games, not franchises as a whole.

[Koda, Master Crunchyroller]

Honestly after how this year's Wii versions of FIFA 13 and Pro Evo Soccer were literally the same game as last year's versions just with updated rosters and uniforms, I can't complain about the yearly sports games that do make changes, however little.

[SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman]

Well, first, sports video games are mostly played by people who are already fans of that sport, which leads to a pretty niche fanbase and like you said, yearly installments make them look all the same (again, only a hardcore fan of the sport in question would have any reason to pay 60 bucks each year for a new game whose main new feature is an updated roster; for everyone else, one of them every five year tops is more than enough).

And then of course, there's the fact that when you consider the kind of fantasy lands other video games take you to and the awesome feats they allow you to accomplish, sports games feel really down-to-earth an unimaginative, which is why the few sports games that get mainstream recognition are stuff like NBA Jam that blatantly disregard realism and are genuinely regarded as video games whereas the more realistic ones are regarded more as simulators.

The fact is, sports are rather mundane when depicted accurately, whereas slaying a dragon, saving a princess or blowing up a mutant with a nuclear rocket-launcher will always remain awesome.



That said, I still say NHL 2002 kicks ass.

[beamanhogan]

The problem with sports games is that even the people that are making the list don't even remember the correct ones to list. This list for example lists Tecmo Bowl instead of Tecmo Super Bowl for NES. Tecmo Bowl was a beacon of light when it came out, Tecmo Super Bowl was the Sun.

[Legion]

They have minor inovations between the yearly releases and that is what do them in.

Most of the 'best of' lists that tend to come out have games that are either a) are (or were at the time) majorly innovative and/or b) nostalgia factor.

While some of the sports games listed in the OP may be fun to some gamers, because they are released so often, the innovations are as noticeable, nor as leaping.

On top of that, no storyline, no protagonists/antagonists, nothing to make the game itself stick in the memory like the numerous editions of Final Fantasy you'd see in lists.

[Bo Rida]

As well as the difficulty in separating each years updates there's an inherent bias on these lists due to the nationality of the person (people) compiling it.

It's rare for American lists to include FIFA/Pro Evo and I don't think I've ever seen one with older titles like Sensible Soccer. By the same token Madden and NBA games are less popular over here.
For the same reason Spectrum and C64 games aren't as popular on American lists and titles like The Oregon Trail are usually ignored by Brits (I think, I may be wrong on that one).


Personally I'm far more bothered about games for portable consoles being overlooked (although they're by no means completely ignored).