A lot of people love watching and playing sports but the genre is also highly popular in the gaming world. There are plenty of sporting games to choose from. Everything from car racing to golf is available on all the different platforms. Here is a list of some of the more popular sporting games.
John Madden NFL Series
The John Madden NFL Series is one of the most prevalent sports series ever created. There has been at least one iteration of the game every year for over 30 years, except for 1989. The first game came out in 1988 on the PC, during most of the 90s the game was featured on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, only moving onto newer generation consoles in the late 90s. It is commonly listed in the annual highest selling games and has been a consistently great game, taking advantage of progressions in technology to tweak gameplay with every new release.
Daytona USA, Arcade, Sega Saturn
Originally released on arcade in 1994, this stockcar driving game changed the racing landscape with its gorgeous graphics, responsive controls and great tracks. You also have the option to choose manual or automatic transmission. It is still popular in arcades to this day over 25 years later. It was inspired by United States NASCAR racing where there is an actual place called Daytona in Florida where the sport is raced. It was released on the Sega Saturn in 1995 and became one of the highest-selling games that year. It sold over 1,100,000 copies in the United States and Japan. It is also available on other consoles including the Xbox and PlayStation 3, where it has also enjoyed positive reception. It is still considered one of the best games of all time
Stakes Winner 2, Sega Saturn, Neo Geo, Arcade
Although not as well known in the West this sequel to the popular arcade game Stakes Winner was particularly big in Japan. It was the fourth most popular arcade game there in 1996, even outperforming games such as Street Fighter, Alpha 2 and King of Fighters ’96. It would have been good to see some new tracks, including the likes of the tracks used for the Birdsville Races today, on the newly ported version on the Playstation4. You can play against the AI or other human players for quite an enjoyable competition game.
Mario Kart 64, Nintendo 64
One of the most popular games on the Nintendo 64, it actually made its debut in 1992 on the SNES as Super Mario Kart. It is one of the highest selling games on the Nintendo 64 and was the best-selling console game in the United States for three months after its release. Although the SNES version was also highly popular, the game greatly benefitted from being on a 64-bit machine. Many things that weren’t possible on the SNES now were, with crisp and colorful 3D graphics allowing track changes like elevation, walls, pits, and bridges. There are several different game modes including Grand Prix, Time Trial, and Battle Mode and has 8 playable characters.
Here we’ve only listed four of the thousands of great retro sports games you can play. Even if the games are old, new technology has allowed old-school games to be ported to PC or the new generation consoles. So don’t worry about not being able to find an old favourite.
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