Retro Sports existed before on the past version of this website and I’m bringing it back along with the segments involved in it. This will be a section where I will play various sports games from past systems. I aim to keep things from pre-PS3/360 era, but eventually I may reach into that generation.

Older sports games seem to get forgotten as time passes, each year there are new sports games that out-date the past one. Understandably with each iteration there are improvements and new mechanics that get introduced and further push the older games away. I however like to go back and look at these older sports games, which for the most part are ready to pick up and play. It’s definitely nostalgic to make big plays with the players I grew up watching, especially the non Hall of Famers that people struggle to remember.

The sports genre is practically dead these days, sure we can blame EA and the NFL’s exclusive deal for limiting our football options (even though EA also owns the Blitz and Street series too). We can blame the lawsuits that shut down the NCAA games. But what about other sports games? What about games that lack licensing? We used to get plenty of games without NFL/NBA/NHL licensing. Where are all our arcade sports options?

I created a list (at the bottom) showing the modern sports games vs sports games in previous generations. There’s a huge difference, and I’m sure I missed plenty of retro games in my tally. The Playstation 4 & XBox have 3 different Baseball and Football games, and 4 different Basketball games. Comparatively the PS2, Cube & XBox era from only 2 generations ago had at least 12 different Baseball Games. The N64 & PS1 had at least 14 different Basketball games and the SNES/Genesis had at least 23 different football games between them.

I hope to use Retro Sports to show my appreciation for these old sports games and the variety of choices we used to have.

Sports Shows

As of now, there will be 5 different sports shows focused on 5 different sports. Each show will be streamed live on the homepage and on the twitch, youtube and twitter feeds. Afterwards a highlight reel and re-cap of the game will be edited and uploaded onto the site along with a written re-cap. In most cases a review of the games will follow shortly after.

Before streaming I generally try to spend a few minutes trying out the game to get familiar with the controls, nothing would be more annoying to watch than see me stumble through half (if not the entire) game unaware of how to play. Most of the times I will play with the default settings, and the teams I select will not follow any set rules or formula. I also plan on adding bonus content with highlight reels or mini-games if possible. More details on the specific shows and their formats are listed below

16 Weeks: This is the Football series that will be broken up into seasons with 16 different games per season. The name “16 Weeks” doesn’t mean I will be doing this weekly, it’s in regards to NFL Seasons being broken up by Weeks and there are 16 games in a season.

82 Games: This is the Basketball series, there are 82 games in an NBA season so I figured instead breaking the episodes up into seasons, it’d be fun to go through 82 different basketball games. When we hit 82, we’ll see if there’s a way to do more.

18 Clubs: The Golf series will be broken up into seasons, 18 Country Clubs across different generations of gaming. The number 18 was chosen because a Golf course has 18 different holes. It’ll be fun to set some course records and allow others to challenge.

162 Innings: The Baseball series will follow the season format, there are 162 Innings in a season of baseball, but there is no way I could go through with 162 different games. With 9 Innings per game (not including extra innings), 162 Innings is a total of 18 different 9 Innning games2

20 Pucks: The Hockey series will also be done in the season format. One season will cover 20 different hockey games on various systems. There will also be some extra highlight reels of fights in the season. The number 20 was chosen because the Periods are 20 minutes long in a regular NHL game.

At the top of this announcement I mentioned a specific breakdown of Baseball, Basketball and Football games on modern consoles and past consoles. Here is that previously mentioned list.

Baseball Games/Series on Playstation 4 & XBox One

• MLB The Show (Playstation 4 Exclusive)
• RBI Baseball
• Super Mega Baseball

Football Games/Series on Playstation 4 & XBox One

• Blood Bowl
• Madden
• Mutant Football League

Basketball Games/Series on Playstation 4 & XBox One

• 3 on 3 Freestyle
• NBA 2K
• NBA Live
• NBA 2K Playgrounds

Now instead let’s compare a different generations and the same sports

Baseball Games/Series on Playstation 2, GameCube & XBox

• All-Star Baseball
• Backyard Baseball
• ESPN Major League Baseball
• High Heat Major League Baseball
• Home Run King (GameCube Exclusive)
• Inside Pitch (XBox Exclusive)
• Major League Baseball 2K6
• Mario Superstar Baseball
• MLB Slugfest
• MVP Baseball
• Triple Play
• World Series Baseball

Basketball Games/Series on Playstation 1 & Nintendo 64

• College Slam
• Fox Sports College Hoops
• Fox Sports NBA Basketball
• NBA Courtside
• NBA Fastbreak
• NBA Jam Extreme
• NBA Hoopz
• NBA In The Zone
• NBA Live
• NBA Showtime
• NBA Shootout
• NCAA Basketball Final Four
• NCAA March Madness
• Space Jam

Football Games/Series on Super Nintendo & Sega Genesis

• ABC Monday Night Football
• Bill Walsh College Football
• Capcom’s MVP Football
• College Football USA
• Cyberball (Genesis Exclusive)
• Emmitt Smith Football
• ESPN Sunday Night Football
• Football Fury (SNES Exclusive)
• Madden
• Mike Dikta Power Football (Genesis Exclusive)
• Mutant League Football (Genesis Exclusive)
• NFL Quarterback Club
• Pro Quarterback
• Sega Sports College Football National Championship (Genesis Exclusive)
• Sega Sports NFL (Genesis Exclusive)
• Space Football
• Sterling Sharpe End 2 End (SNES Exclusive)
• Super High Impact
• Super Play Action Football (SNES Exclusive)
• Tecmo Super Bowl
• Troy Aikman Football
• Unnecessary Roughness ’95