Video games are now the most consumed form of entertainment on the planet, outstripping traditional mediums like movies, books, and music.
This is because a modern video game uses high powered computer chips and other technology to incorporate all these artforms within its 3D world and ensure that the consumer is an active participant, rather than just someone who sits back to soak up the show.
The same is true when it comes to sports video games, with the number of people playing titles like EA’s FIFA and Madden NFL easily outstripping actual participation in the physical sport. As such Esports begin to grow in prominence, we take a look back at those sports video game titles that have stood the test of time, to become legends of their respective field.
Football has transitioned into video game format better than other popular sports like American football or tennis
Championship Manager/Football Manager
Some games are special because of the way they look or feel or appeal to a certain niche in the sporting world that finds a place in the hearts of gamers and sports fans alike.
However, there are other games that somehow manage to transcend the gaming world altogether, becoming so ingrained in the DNA of a sport and its culture that they actually begin to shape it from the outside in.
Such is the case with the greatest sports management game ever made, Championship Manager, or “Champ Manager” as it was affectionately known on the streets. It later morphed into what is now known as Football Manager, and the data sets it utilizes to create an incredibly realistic managerial experience are widely used by real-life football scouts and managers to build their teams. Few sports video games have ever had such a profound impact on the sports zeitgeist. Every single version that has been made, since the original in 1992, has rubbed shoulders with football titles that hit the back of the net and the series is consistently ranked as one of the best football games ever created.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
The 90s and early 2000s saw the rise of skateboarding among the planet’s hip and cool suburbanites, who wanted to pretend they were raging against the system by cruising around on pieces of wood attached to wheels.
The leading proponent of this movement was a man who was Hawk by name and hawk by nature, as he flew out the top of enormous halfpipes while spinning, twisting, and grabbing his way to world fame and recognition.
Most sports video games named after such sporting icons tend to fall flat on their face, but not so with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, which was so successful that the series of games continue to flourish to this day.
Sensible World of Soccer
It takes a lot for diehard football fans to accept a video game that refers to the sport they love as “soccer”. But Sensible World of Soccer made up for its name with ground-breaking gameplay touches, all the way back in 1994 when it was released for the Amiga and the PC.
Anyone who played the game knows that the concept of getting to just outside the corner of the area and then cutting infield to unleash an unstoppable shot was first invented on this pixelated masterpiece. Why not get yourself a copy and give it a go yourself?
WWF No Mercy was special because it allowed players to endlessly customize their wrestler avatars
WWF No Mercy
Is wrestling a sport? The issue is up for debate, but if it is a sport then WWF No Mercy is a video game that simply must appear on a list such as this.
That is because it managed to harness everything fans love about muscly men wearing Lycra and packaged it into a game that maintained excellent playability with enough complexity to keep people doing tombstone piledrivers and choke slams for hours on end.
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