I have 2 picks:
PES (yeah it was big in Latin America and Asia but never truly beat FIFA popularity worldwide except in the early 2000s), if I had to pick a specific version, is either PES 2010 or 2013, 2016 was also great.
FIFA street 1: Almost 2 decades later and still think it’s the best FIFA game ever, not even the street sequels were able to surpass it. FIFA 11 and 13 were good too but those aren’t underrated in any way.
Edit: wow y’all old lol
NFL Blitz 2000!
With a crap ton of random cheats enabled, of course. Really this game is the only good thing to come out of football or the NFL.
It’s so good it oughta be illegal!
Wii Sports
I think I’ve never played so much of a mini game collection that’s meant to teach you controls. Maybe Solitaire comes close. The Tennis matches we had were legendary.
I know a few people that never bought any other games for their Wii.
People say Wii Sports is underrated? Everyone I know has played Wii Sports even all of my non-gamer friends.
Mutant League Football on the Genesis. The then-current Madden engine, but all the players are pulled from some sort of sci-fi horror comedy, while still somehow very tuned in to the history of the NFL.
Bribe ref to stall your opponent’s drive.
Murder ref to get things back on track.
Avoid those land mines!
Mutant League Hockey was also a lot of fun, also based on their NHL engine on Genesis back then. Great choice. There was some sort of spiritual successor to Mutant League Football that came out recently if I’m remembering correctly…?
NES - Blades of Steel
EDIT: Come to think of it, that other hockey game on NES that might be more obscure. I don’t remember the title, but basically each team had four players, and before the match you could choose how fat they were. Skinny = fast, but falls down from the slightest bump. Sometimes they even fell for no reason. Fat = Slow but sturdy. Then there was something in the middle. Pretty fun game that allowed for a variety of strategies depending on the physique of your team.
Maybe it’s underrated these days because I imagine almost no one would be playing it these days but back in the actual days of the NES, Blades of Steel was beloved, at least here in Canada.
Nhl would benefit from only losers get a penalty for fights
That was just called Ice Hockey. That’s the one I played most on NES.
I’m not sure if it’s underrated but Mario Tennis Advance for the Game Boy Advance is a gigantic standout for the series.
It’s an action RPG from the same company that made the Golden Sun games for the GBA. The usual fun power hits and tennis mechanics with some of the tightest controls in the series with quality world building and the kind of RPG satisfaction you’d get from a company like Camelot.
NHL hitz with bobble head mode.
I really liked the fight Night boxing games it’s a shame EA ditched them I genuinely think they were the most fun games they made.
The backyard series of sports games that had a handful of pro players with other random kids.
They just announced a new one!
Those were so damn good
On the NES, I always enjoyed Base Wars. It was baseball, except not boring. Instead of a player being “out” when you got the ball to the base ahead of him, you fought for the base.
There’s so much I love about this game. I’m not a baseball game fan in general but I keep coming back to Base Wars. The fights triggered by a runner sliding into a base as the ball is arriving was always fun. The velocity of the ball when you hit a homerun was awesome. Great pick.
I feel like it was a smash hit for it’s time though.
It’s never talked about these days but yeah, back in the day it was a pretty well known hit. I don’t know why but almost nothing makes me laugh harder than playing the BMX event on the Atari Lynx version and just making this poor bastard on the bike eat shit in the worst ways.
Everyone I knew during the 16bit era had a version of California Games.
I was pretty cracked at hackey sack
More unknown and underappreciated in the current era, than underappreciated at release.
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe on Amiga, was an outstanding future brawl-ball simulator.
Still my favourite game of all time, so it didn’t really spring to mind for ‘underrated’ games. Pleasing to see it mentioned all the same.
Cyberball. Football, but with robots.
I liked Basewars on the NES. Wiki says it got a B- but I liked the fighting and the fact that you could blow up the robots.
The arcade version of Cyberball has very clean gameplay with a wry sense of humour.
Side-by-side play is excellent on a Cyberball 2072 cabinet.
The spiritual predecessor, 10 Yard Fight, is pretty fun too(shake joystick to break tackles)
I love Ten Yard Fight. It’s like the dev team in Japan had one guy who “totally knows American football!” and he explained it to the rest of them while they were all out drinking, and then the next day they were provided with 5 minutes of footage from the Burt Reynolds version of The Longest Yard.
But all in the best way.
I’m counting Discs of Tron as a sport.
Very fun disc battles.
Qwop
Does Supergiant Games’ Pyre count?
Ha, I came here to post Pyre, and I love no two people have the same way to describe it.
My favorite is Darren’s “Wizard Basketball Plus Reading”.
I call it by two names, depending on how cheeky I’m feeling that day
Cheeky one is “hashtag-Basketball4Freedom”
Non-cheeky one is “one of three video game stories that made me legitimately cry, like straight up bawling – With a fantastical version of NBA Jam bolted on the side”
Yeah it does, Pyre’s my favorite sports x visual novel with rpg elements
