The wonderous world of South Richfield awaits. Scott and Matt hope you are entertained by our musings found here and on our podcast. Enjoy!
I'm a huge sports fans and always have been. Although I'm not naturally athletic, I always dreamed of playing center field for the Indians or intercepting a pass and returning it for a Browns touchdown. Also being a video gamer, it was natural that I gravitated towards sports games growing up. Here is a look back at some of my favorites from early on to present.
The Atari 2600 didn't have a ton of sports games, but who doesn't remember this classic? Moving that little stick figure up to just the right spot to release the ball, and then his jumping jack-style celebration if you got a strike.
I owned this game on the Commodore 64, and it featured sports that were popular in California such as skateboarding, surfing, and BMX. Since I couldn't match my brother on the half-pipe in real life, at least I could tear it up here!
BLADES... OF... STEEL! CHING! The introduction of the game got me all revved up to put on the skates and hit the ice. You could be one of eight teams and play against a friend or take part in a playoff-style tournament. I became so good at this game, I could play it hanging upside-down from the couch and still win much to the chagrin of my brothers and friends.
When I saw this game at the Gentners' house, I was mesmerized. Remember those overlays you would put over the funky Intellivision controllers? This game sold over one million copies and was the consoles best-selling game.
The beauty of this baseball game for the NES was that the cartridge itself had a battery backup. Therefore, you could create a team, play a season, and the game's chip would save your stats. I would make my own teams and put them in a league against the teams that were standard on Baseball Stars such as the SNK Crushers or the Lovely Ladies. This game was a hit!
The ultimate football game back in the day for the NES. The original Tecmo Bowl didn't have real NFL teams, but Tecmo Super Bowl was officially-licensed and had all 28 teams and real players. Matt Choma and I lived together with some other guys in 1993, and this game was almost always being played by someone. We would play entire seasons in a single night! Ask Matt about the ball hawk, Wayne Haddix.
What other arcade game allowed you to feel like Bruce Jenner? In this popular game by Konami, you would run the 100 meter dash by madly mashing buttons alternately, urging your character across the finish line. Track & Field spawned releases to the Atari 2600, the NES, and later on even the PlayStation and the Nintendo 64. Those hurdles were hard to clear!
Links 386 Pro was a spectacular golf game back in the early '90s for the PC. I had the MS-DOS version, and the courses looked almost realistic. This was way before Tiger Woods hit the scene. This game was named Game of the Year by Computer Gaming World in 1993. Running this on my old Packard Bell Legend 386 with 1 MB of RAM would take some time, but it was a beautiful game.
One of the greatest sports games ever produced, NHL '94 was different compared to most hockey games because your players moved up the ice vertically as compared to a side-view. It had organ music featuring songs from actual NHL arenas. One thing it didn't have was fighting, but it was the first to introduce a one-timer allowing authentic-looking goals.
Being a huge stats junkie, this was the game for me. You could customize the league and make your own teams, conferences, and divisions. I made "Revere" teams with all my friends on them and printed off standings and stats at the end of each season. I was playing this once in my bedroom on my PC when Matt and Dave barged into my room, pretended we were all really playing football, and put me on the bottom of a dogpile. Ah, the memories...
This version of the legendary Madden NFL series was the first one produced in the 32-bit era and quickly became PlayStation's best-selling game. Even though the Browns were not in this game due to their move to Baltimore, I bought it and spent hours playing what was a significant step up from 8- and 16-bit football games previously produced. Matt moved into my apartment during the summer of our last year at Toledo, and we would find ourselves looking at the clock and realizing it was 3 in the morning, but we had to play just one more game...
This racing game was produced by Papyrus, and I joined an online racing league where we would meet one night each week and race the same track that NASCAR was at that week. I was not very good at this game, but I was great at painting the cars. Other guys in my league would send me requests for different paint jobs. When my wife and I started dating, I had to stop playing because these races literally would take hours to complete. She was tired of being my pit crew!
I was a huge fan of the now-defunct NCAA Football series. I think I owned all of them from 1998 to 2014. The '06 version was the first one that featured in-season recruiting. You would scout blue-chip players and hope to get them to play for your school. I don't know how many times my Toledo Rockets ended up as the national champions over the years.
Another series that I am addicted to is Sony's MLB: The Show. This game has evolved so much over the years that if you walk into a room where someone is playing it, you could be fooled into thinking there is a game on tv. The 2010 version of the game was the first with the popular Home Run Derby because you know, chicks dig the long ball.
I loved this version of FIFA on the PlayStation 4, and while I had bought a FIFA game here and there, I became hooked after FIFA 13. One of my favorite game modes was the Career Mode, where I would manage a club up the ranks of the English Football League hoping to make it to the Premier League. FIFA continues to be a staple for me each year.
Basketball is just fun to play whether it being NBA 2K or NBA Jam or NBA Playgrounds. The NBA 2K18 edition is marvelous. I like playing it with my kids, backing them down in the paint and unleashing a sky hook into the hoop. I also like to create my own player who can actually shoot the ball unlike his real-life alter-ego.
