There is simply something special about a great arcade sports game, and these are my favorites. Sports games, especially these days but also going back a decade or three, can be intimidating in their pursuit of realism. Yes, hitting a 97 mile per hour fastball is the most difficult thing to do in sports, but I don’t necessarily want it to be terribly difficult when I’m sitting down to play a video game. 

Sim sports games certainly have their place, and they are easily my most played genre of video game in my life, but they are not welcome on this list. This is purely for arcade-i-fied versions of sports. The pick-up-and-play, anybody can enjoy, over-the-top GOATs of the genre.

Criteria

This is kind of fuzzy to be honest, as I mostly just thought about my favorites then ranked them, but I will say some combination of the following factors played a part:

• Fun Factor: easy one; it’s gotta be fun!
• Pick-up-and-play: simple controls and little understanding of the actual rules necessary
• Couch co-op: there are few things more fun than battling out a friend in one of these games
• Style: the more flair, the better
• No extreme sports: sorry, this list would be mostly Tony Hawk games

The List

Honorable Mentions:

Most of the old Mario sports games (Tennis, Golf, Strikers, Sluggers), Punch-Out, Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, NFL Street, FIFA Street

5. NBA Street Vol. 2 (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox)

This game oozes style unlike any other sports game in existence. The blending of the soundtrack with the modern and retro players styles and the eye-popping visual style made this game jump off of your CRT instantly. This is an advanced version of NBA Jam, moving the game to three-on-three and adding a focus on ball handling instead of just shooting. The only thing really holding it back is how complicated the controls can get if you want to do more advanced moves. The depth of learning those moves is certainly part of the appeal, but it is a knock here as there is more of a learning curve here than is seen in other games on this list.

4. NFL Blitz (N64, PlayStation, Arcade)

No rules football. It’s a wonderful concept and the original implementation pulls off the idea amazingly well. Give users only a few play to choose from, and let the chaos commence. Minimal buttons are required which allows new players to acclimate within a few minutes of firing up their first game. Everything is over the top, from the wrestling-like tackles to the blatant late hits the game allowed. This set out to be the NFL version of NBA Jam and it was a massive success. It particularly stands out in an era when football games were pushing the boundaries of the sports game simulations. The race for the most realistic football game was at its peak, and NFL Blitz body slammed the competition by creating a simple, fun experience anybody could enjoy.

3. NBA Hangtime (N64, PlayStation)

This is the third straight entry in this list to mention NBA Jam, so why is it not NBA Jam? Because NBA Hangtime improves on NBA Jam. The development team behind NBA Jam made this game after NBA Jam made a wildly poor pivot into simulation sports (I believe this was mostly just a name/licensing thing), and took the simple concept to new heights with better visuals afforded by new hardware and the same great, simple gameplay. It is two on two hoops with shoot and pass on offense and block, steal, and push on defense. Make three shots in a row to get on fire and start making everything. Over-the-top slam dunks, jumping out of the gym, and trying to find your favorite two-man duo in the entire league never gets old. This, in my opinion, is the peak of the NBA Jam style of hoops game and among the very best arcade sports experiences out there..

2. Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (SNES)

It kind of pains me to put this at number two on this list, as this has long been my personal favorite sports game. The turning point was when I had my son play this with me and realizing how annoyingly unintuitive the fielding was in this game. You need to play a lot to understand which fielder the game is going to hand you based on where a ball is hit, and actually moving that tiny blue dot underneath the ball isn’t an easy task either. Plus needing to advance runners manually, there is more going on here than those of us who find it second nature realize.

That aside, once you are familiar with the game, this simplifies baseball to its most fun form: one button to hit, one to pitch. You can throw as fast or as slow as you want and put the goofiest curves on the ball. Move your fictional characters, modeled after real players from real teams, around the batter’s box and swing away. The best part about this game is how quickly it players, allowing a full nine inning game to get completed in 15-20 minutes or so. Add in some unique character in the wild player models, players running face-first into the wall, and your own batters turning and yelling at you after you strike out and you have a definite winner.

1. Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey (N64)

I feel like this game is slept on in this discussion, but, to me, it checks every single box. Anybody can pick this up, learn the shoot, pass, and check buttons, and be scoring goals in the first 30 seconds of the first period. The goalies here are just dumb enough to make scoring accessible but not easy enough that everything you throw at them will go in. I prefer a good one-timer, but a little waggle will also do the trick. The game has plenty of style with power shots occasionally leaving the new on fire, which is likely most people’s lasting image of this game. You don’t need to know anything about hockey to enjoy this one other than “put puck in net.” The game is a blast against friends, particularly because it allows you to score past the 0:00 mark in a period, which leads to some wild endings. The game also features occasional fights which are fun but typically mean your best player is going to be sitting for the remainder of the game.

Simply put; this is a game you can put in the hands of a child and they will be having fun in short order. It holds up because the simple controls and non-stop action ensure playing against your friends is never boring.