Column: The top 5 sports video games

Video game simulations of sports have become a part of America’s collective sports consciousness. The annual release of the new Madden football game every August draws crowds to Best Buys across the country. But the best sports video games have always been the ones that did not try to stay completely faithful to the sport by turning the sport’s best qualities into a fun game to play. These arcade sports titles are still fun today, even though many of these series have not been updated in quite some time. Without further ado, let’s count down the top five arcade sports games of all time.

5. Tecmo Super Bowl: This one is really old school — it was originally released for the 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991 and later updated for the Super Nintendo in 1993. You know how in Madden games today, the playbooks for each team feature hundreds of plays? Well, in Tecmo Super Bowl you had eight plays on offense (four runs and four passes), and you better damn well have liked it, because on defense you didn’t get any plays at all! You picked between the eight offensive plays, and if you chose the same play as the player on offense, your team ran an all-out blitz. I mean all out, as in all 11 men rushing the quarterback at once. Pro tip: When you catch a pass downfield, have your receiver zig zag; if you time your zigs and zags properly, the defense will never catch you.

4. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3: Today, the venerable Tony Hawk series is trying to market itself on realism and has introduced a plastic skateboard peripheral that players have to “ride” in order to play the game. Unfortunately, the developers behind the series forgot that the reason people played the Tony Hawk video game in the first place was because they didn’t want to actually learn how to skateboard! They just wanted to sit on their butt and pull off ridiculous tricks that were obviously physically impossible. Pro Skater 3 is the best example of this and is my favorite game in the series — it’s all been downhill since then. Triple kickflips, McTwists and 720s became a joke after you played the game for a bit, and if you put on moon physics, you could easily land 1440s or 1620s. To top it off, the game included a sweet list of secret characters, including Wolverine.

3. NFL Blitz: Seven-on-seven football, no holds barred. Literally, no holds barred — almost every tackle in this game was a suplex or punch. NFL Blitz spawned an entire series, but I prefer the original game, which featured the immortal Kordell Stewart on the cover of the PlayStation version. As the series gained in popularity, the NFL forced the developer, Midway, to reduce the violence in later versions, causing Blitz to become a poor man’s Madden. As the original game’s manual said, pass interference is not only allowed but encouraged, and indeed, the best defensive strategy was to take out the receiver before he got to the ball. (The best offensive strategy was clearly running the aptly named “Da Bomb” play and making use of the all-powerful spin move.)

2. NHL Hitz 20-02: Similar to NFL Blitz, Hitz is a juiced-up version of hockey, with three men and a goalie per side. One-timers were absolutely king in this game, and I think it is even better than Blitz. Fighting was also included, and it played a crucial role in the game; if you lost a fight, your player was done for the game. Your player could also get on fire if he scored three goals in a row, and you could get blue-colored team fire if you scored on three one-timers in a row. As would be expected, the hits in the game were absolutely ridiculous — it was not uncommon for players to be sent through the glass multiple times per game.

1. NBA Jam: He’s on fire! NBA Jam was the progenitor of the NFL Blitz and NHL Hitz series, and was the originator of the “on fire” idea, which was triggered when one player scored three times in a row with no opposition scores. Jam’s impact can be judged easily: One of the best house beer pong rules is the NBA Jam rule, which lets you shoot until you miss if you make three cups in a row. Of course, the game should really be titled NBA Thug, because the best strategy is to shove the entire team to the floor. The game is totally unrealistic, as players jump 20 feet or more in the air. But who cares? Unsurprisingly, the dunks were the best part, including my personal favorite, the Tarzan dunk, as well as the spinning fireball dunk — these were only available to the best dunkers, like Shaq, Dominique Wilkins and Scottie Pippen. To top it all off, the game featured one of the best announcers in any sports game, ever.

Is it the shoes?