Sports Video Games, Ranked

Holds a 98 on Metacritic, one of the highest-rated games ever, and introduced the manual that chained combos into endless flow.

Put Michael Jordan on the cover and built the acclaimed Jordan Challenge mode, cementing 2K's dominance over basketball sims.

Launched at $19.99 to undercut Madden and is still praised for its presentation; EA's exclusive NFL license soon ended the series.

Bundled with the Wii, it became one of the best-selling games of all time and brought motion-controlled sports to living rooms worldwide.

Immortalized in the film Swingers and regarded by many as the greatest hockey game ever, with a devoted competitive community decades later.

Soccer played with rocket-powered cars; a runaway hit that went free-to-play in 2020 and sustained a massive esports scene.

Over-the-top arcade snowboarding fueled by Run-DMC's 'It's Tricky,' a defining extreme-sports game of the early 2000s.

Michael Vick's cover year introduced playmaker control and owner mode, one of the most fondly remembered Madden entries.

Midway's two-on-two arcade basketball with 'He's on fire!' and gravity-defying dunks was a 1993 phenomenon.

The premier baseball sim and the first entry to leave PlayStation exclusivity, launching day-one on Xbox Game Pass.

The last of EA's boxing series, praised for its cinematic Champion story mode and brutal, physical combat.

Sega's pick-up-and-play tennis nailed fast, satisfying rallies and became a Dreamcast standout.

Midway's no-rules arcade football with late hits and on-fire streaks, the gridiron cousin of NBA Jam.

Solid but iterative football, remembered less for on-pitch leaps than for the money-printing rise of Ultimate Team.

Motion-controlled party sports for Xbox Kinect, approachable at launch but shallow and quickly dated.

Rushed out against NBA 2K14, it was widely panned for stiff animation and rough visuals, a low point for the Live line.

So broken it was scrapped just before release after a glitch of a player frozen mid-air went viral, and EA killed the whole game.

Hyped on its Euphoria physics engine but shipped with bizarre tackles, no NFL license, and clunky play, a cautionary tale.