The Top 10 Sega Genesis Sports Games Ever Made
A little info about me. I wasn't a particularly good-looking or popular teen. I wasn't exactly tearing Friday night up trolling the town for pussy and I didn't see a human titty until the 90's were almost done.
But in the early-to-mid 90's, I didn't care about any of that. I cared about video games, picking winners for my degenerate grandfather and playing basketball. In 1991, I became the first kid on my block to own a Sega Genesis, as the government money was particularly good that spring. Plus my mom bought it for me as a treat while my dad was off on an extended vacation.
In my life, I've played other video games but sports games are the only ones that hold my attention and the only ones I have a passion for. This started on the Nintendo Entertainment System, as I spent most of my time playing Tecmo Bowl, Baseball Stars and Blades of Steel. It would continue as I failed out of multiple colleges because of my Madden/NCAA habit on PS2.
In the 90's, though, it was the Sega Genesis.
You young ones aren't gonna love this one. This is for my 35-40-year-old dads out there whose life is practically over and knows we might as well look back at better times before we check out. We'll always have the Genesis, fellas.
So here's my top 10 Sega Genesis sports games ever made:
HONORABLE MENTION
Wimbledon Championship Tennis
Here's a secret that not many people know: Sega knew how to make the shit out of tennis games. I don't know how or why, but they got the sport right. The best Dreamcast sports game is Virtua Tennis and here, this game was just fun. I'm not even a tennis guy. But this shit was addictive.
10. Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football
This shit blew my mind in 1992. In fairness, Madden won the Genesis Football battle but I enjoyed the Montana series more at the time. The first Joe Montana game is actually my favorite football game on the system but I'm in the extreme minority on that position so I held off. But this one, this was a game-changer. People shit their pants when this game came out. The only reason it didn't land higher on this list is because the list is loaded.
9. PGA Tour Golf III
Fun fact: My uncle Doug and his stuck-up Alabama shitbag friends used to spend the first weekend of deer hunting season by visiting town and staying in Doug's old singlewide trailer that sat on my dad's cocaine-fueled purchase of an empty 3-acre lot at the end of Truman Creek Road. I didn't hunt but I gambled and played PGA Tour, so when I found out they snuck a Genesis into the trailer and were playing 5 dollars a hole, I took my 13-year-old ass down there and smoked them. Cleaned them out. Awesome fucking game. All the PGA Tour games on the Genesis were great, but I liked III the best.
8. FIFA International Soccer '95
My town was very poor and narrow-minded, so we didn't have soccer leagues. Or Europeans. We didn't have time for that shit. I didn't make the decision, they did. Anyway, I didn't know much about soccer when this game came out in 1994, but I know a good game. This was fun even though it was technically illegal in Mississippi until 1998.
7. World Series Baseball '95
This was the best baseball game on the Genesis. It hasn't aged worth a shit, but it's the best game we had available to us. It's the first time I remember a video game feeling like actual baseball was being portrayed. When I was in 7th grade I tried a handstand on the trampoline behind our trailer and my right arm buckled. I landed in a heap neck-first on the trampoline and couldn't move or cry out for help for about 20 minutes. Nobody ever came looking for me. After an hour or so I was able to get up so I stumbled into the house and went to bed. I wasn't right for a month. Anyway I've never told anyone about this so I figured now was a good time.
6. NBA Jam
Anyone outraged by this ranking wasn't alive for this. NBA Jam is an all-time classic, first-ballot hall of famer. But the Genesis version wasn't as good as the rich-kid version the SNES kids got. It felt like a knockoff. The SNES version was much better. This is here out of respect for the franchise, though. And it's still kinda awesome because it's NBA Jam.
5. Coach K College Basketball
I swear to God this is the most under-appreciated video game in the history of video games. This sonofabitch was incredible. It had the same engine as the NBA Live series, but college teams obviously. It had some great teams, too, like the Ed O'Bannon UCLA team and the Corliss Williamson/Scotty Thurman Arkansas team, one of the most electric teams of all-time. And you could break the backboard. Nobody remembers this game but it was perfect.
4. Madden '94
The first time I was like "Oh shit, Madden is fuckin' awesome." It was the first year of full licensing for Madden and the whole thing came together. The early Madden games were good, too, but you had to play with teams like Jersey and Boston. This time Madden was ready to roll. Madden 92 was good, 93 was better and by 94, it was a juggernaut.
3. NBA Live 95
Ladies and gentlemen…..Fuck. Ain't no women reading this. Gentlemen, the greatest leap in video game history happened when EA Sports abandoned the Bulls-Blazers series and created NBA Live 95. Basketball games to this point had mostly sucked. They were slow as shit and didn't make sense. NBA Live changed my life. I remember going to school in 9th grade and asking one of the popular kids if he'd played it yet. He stared at me and said "Hell no. That's kid shit. Grow the fuck up." He spent that year drinking and getting pussy. I spent it scoring 100 points per game with Hakeem. So I win.
2. Bill Walsh College Football '95
When I die at some point in the next two or three years, put this on my tombstone: "Good man, great father. Was loved by his kids, tolerated by his wife. And was absolutely un-fucking-stoppable with Kordell Stewart, Rashaan Salaam and Colorado on Bill Walsh 95." This game made me keep falling in love with college football. My God it's beautiful. It didn't have every team, and Notre Dame was South Bend, and you could dive for 25 yards at a time. But it didn't matter. It was the perfect college football experience.
1. NHL '94
Half of you opened this link and spent the entire time cussing me just in case I didn't have this in the top spot. "This hillbilly motherfucker better not…" and I didn't. I've never played real hockey in my life. But I know awesomeness when I see it. I got the original NHL early on in the Genesis's life span and liked it. Then this piece of nostalgic wonderment came out and it was over. Far and away the best sports game of that era. And on the very short list of contenders for greatest sports game ever made.
Next week….The PS2.