The Game Room Where It Happens - Classic Sports Games

Eric and Phil take a nostalgic journey through arcade-style sports games from the 90s and 2000s, exploring the decline of this once-thriving genre that prioritized outrageous fun over simulation.

• NBA Jam with its flaming basketballs, NFL Blitz with its bone-crushing late hits, and other classics represented a golden era of accessible sports gaming
• Both hosts reveal their "Holy Trinity" of sports games, with surprising choices making the cut
• Concern over concussions and injuries in real sports has made publishers reluctant to celebrate the physical nature of these older games
• The accessibility of these games welcomed players who didn't follow or understand the actual sports

Interested in watching us play games? Follow us on Twitch! Want to hear more about how we got into gaming? Listen to the interview we did with Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers!

🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast🔺

🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Prod. Riddiman: optimistic
🔺

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome to the Wait For It Podcast

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment . Wait for it .

Speaker 2 0:05

Gaming . Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA .

Speaker 1 0:11

Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino . Yeah , they've got you covered .

Speaker 2 0:15

And all you gotta do is wait for it . This is the Wait For it Podcast . Hey , everyone , welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast . I am your co-host , phil Barrera , aka Phil the Filipino

Introducing Classic Sports Games

Speaker 2 0:40

.

Speaker 1 0:40

And I'm your other co-host , mr Eric Almighty , and for this edition of the Game Room , where it happens , we're not just going to reminisce about a game , we're going to reminisce about an entire genre , and that's a type of game that they just don't make these days the way they used to , and that's those classic sports games , those arcade-y fun sports games that , phil , just don't seem to exist in 2025 .

Speaker 2 1:07

This is going to be a very much a old man get off my lawn type of episode and a type of game that they , like you , said they don't . They just don't make anymore and I think they're kind of afraid to make , and we'll talk about that here as the episode moves along . So very excited to jump into this conversation . Just going to be a fun light convo and probably a relatively short episode , although we do say that a lot , and then we got 45 minutes out of the bad guys the other day . So who knows what's going to happen with this episode .

Speaker 2 1:38

But as you can tell in the title , we're going to be talking about classic sports games from our childhood and also more recent as well . So if you want to keep up with the way for a podcast and any other games that we have talked about here on this series , make sure you stick around to the very end and we'll let you know where you can find all the rest of that content . But yeah , eric , let's just jump into this here and you know , when we're talking about classic sports games , we're talking about your NFL blitzes , your NBA jams , nhl hits , even to an extent like a Tony Hawk's pro skater , some of the old WWF WCW games . When you think about this genre , eric , I know your brain goes to a specific set of games . So where would you like to start , because really we could go anywhere with this conversation .

Speaker 1 2:24

Yeah , and that's interesting , right , Because we were talking in the pre-show a little bit about how we might want to tackle this . And I think for me , maybe let's start by talking about , like , why we wanted to do this episode . And then I personally have like a holy trinity of sports games . I have three games that I consider to be like if I was to die tomorrow and I had to play only three of these games in this genre , what would they be ? And there's so many to choose from , so many honorable mentions . But I think we could probably circle around that because I feel like I'm pretty sure actually that ours will be completely different , actually pretty confident . So , phil , I mean I guess I'll just kind of kick things off with the fact that you know being born in the nineties and I know you're like I think you were born in the seventies ,

The Lost Art of Arcade Sports

Speaker 1 3:21

like early eighties , so it's a little different .

Speaker 2 3:23

I was born in 88 .

Speaker 1 3:24

So I'm barely an 80s kid . Okay , still an 80s kid .

Speaker 2 3:28

Yeah , but again , I was born before you and you are now older than me , so that's not how that works , so yeah , there'll be a generational difference in this episode ?

Speaker 1 3:39

There's not a generational difference at all . Phil , you can't keep interrupting me . I know that's an 80s thing , but you can't keep chiming in . Yeah , so generational differences on this episode . But being a nineties kid , I really feel like Phil and this is why I chose this as the cover art for this episode .

Speaker 1 4:00

It was around 97 with backyard baseball , these backyard sports games where I'm not saying there weren't like sports games in arcades you know , you got your NFL blitzes and stuff like that but like when it actually when we talk about like video games in general , I felt like it was around this time where this became like a craze .

Speaker 1 4:22

It became something very popular and again , not that it hadn't been done before , but we started to see an influx in the mid to late 90s , going into the early 2000s , of people taking very popular sports genres and just meshing them into that arcade-y fun style , giving characters big heads and being able to jump a thousand hundred feet into the air , like , again , all these type of little things where you would be able to have a lot of fun .

Speaker 1 4:55

And at some point we turned into wanting to make these sports games more realistic and that's probably happened in the last decade or so , more than ever before . So when we played a game in 2025 like rematch , which kind of gave us like similar vibes of a game that we really missed , a game style we really missed , it made a lot of sense to jump into this particular theme , this particular topic . So , phil , again , I know you're going to have an extreme difference based off of you know , when you were born , but what was your kind of like thought about this whole genre as a whole from the early days to now ?

Speaker 2 5:40

Early days is crazy , so back in the day early days is crazy .

Speaker 2 5:52

So back in the day , so with with this , like again back when I was like a kid , you know , like growing up in the 90s , it was kind of I didn't play a whole lot of non-sports games because I was also a very active kid I was playing baseball , I was playing , you know , soccer , I was playing basketball . So I wanted to play games that like that sports was my basically my entire life . Sports and Nickelodeon , like that was my entire personality back in the 90s . So games like NFL Blitz I remember there was a we would go to a community pool in the town that I grew up in in Michigan and I always had to make sure I had quarters to go play NFL Blitz the very first NFL Blitz , because we had never had anything like that . It was just Madden or game day football or quarterback club , like those were the sports games that were out like simulation style , like we have now .

Speaker 2 6:36

So when something like that , like you said , like big head mode and you could late hit everybody and like stuff like that was just totally unheard of . So those kind of games are , you can like hear them in the uh , in the arcade , like when we go to leaderboard and we that's one of the games we always seek out is nfl blitz . It's always a whole lot of fun . And then when you talk about the , you know the backyard baseballs , like you said . For me , nhl hits is one I'll definitely bring up here and lengthen in just a moment .

Speaker 2 7:05

And honestly , what it comes down to now is people are afraid to make these games because of concussions , that's everything . That's why you don't see headshots in wrestling . It's why they don't glorify the big hit . Remember , like in the early 2000s , you could Google Ray Lewis big hit compilation and it would have . It would go at whatever viral was back then . People would look for those hits . And and then now we see what these older players are going through now , when everyone's like , oh , we should probably not make a game where you decide to give a NFL player , a football player , pills to get them back onto the field .

Speaker 1 7:42

It's just not something that's gonna happen anymore , unfortunately yeah , no , I mean , we all in this age range . We all remember pulling up your favorite compilation of ray lewis sean taylor sean taylor is the goat and it would always be to .

Speaker 1 7:58

Here comes the boom so or bodies or you have the bodies to the floor , you know any type of aggressive

Holy Trinity of Sports Games

Speaker 1 8:08

like headbanging song or something that really fit the mold of . I really want to hurt this person . And when we talk about the holy trinity of games , I have a football game that is absolutely would never be made today and I'm excited to talk about that and phil knows I love that game way too fucking much . But yeah , I have a perfect example for that . But there's just like so many different things and you know we are going to talk about some of the big ones , like you know basketball , baseball , football but there's other things too . There's been great hockey games been great , uh , skateboarding games . We talk .

Speaker 2 8:46

Did you play Hot Shots Golf ?

Speaker 1 8:48

Why does that sound so familiar ? It was a .

Speaker 2 8:50

PlayStation game . It was out in the PS2 , 3 , and 4 . Oh yeah , and I miss Hot Shots Golf .

Speaker 1 8:59

I was going to say there's probably some really great golf games too . There's just so many different types of sports . We mentioned wrestling a little bit as well , and there'll be a couple of arcadey ones we probably bring up . So , again , it won't just be the big sports that , like you may know of . There's just so many different genres , phil , that there was something coming out for every single type of sport known to man , and now we can barely get a consistent one for a single genre , and I just think that's a bummer . So what I'm thinking is that we talk about our kind of like Holy Trinity , our top three of sports games , and we kind of see where the conversation takes us . Maybe before that first one , we throw out some honorable mentions . But yeah , I mean , I think I have my three as I'm saying this , am I able to put them in order ? That is going to be tough . So , phil , do you even have ?

Speaker 2 10:05

your three in mind ? I do , I do , but putting them in or I know what number one is . So I think between two and three it would be a little difficult . I guess we'll just start here . So number three for me would be like the um , the hot shots golf series , just in in general golf , what ? Why do we like top golf ? Right , you just go in , you smack the shit out of the ball . I don't want to putt , I don't want to chip , I want to go in there with a , with a driver , and just smack the shit out of it and make it go as far as possible and rack up those points . And yes , you did have to do some of those other things in hot shots , but because it was so cartoony , arcadey , it had really fun courses , it had really like wacky looking characters and I really do believe that there could be a like a , a community that would want to play that game now .

Speaker 2 11:03

And there are games that are kind of like spiritual successors that are out , but they're not . There's , like everybody golf , which I think was similar , but that might have been a vr game , if I remember correctly , or maybe that was just a different series . I'm not 100 sure , but regular golf is boring , all right , I I don't think we have any listeners here that just watch the Masters on a yearly basis . Once Tiger Woods I mean he's still active , but once Tiger Woods was out of his prime , my interest in golf also left . I listened to this sports radio show on ESPN , which is absolutely terrible , but like it's one of the only things left that I still listen to on ESPN , and one of the producers on there was trying to argue that these two golfers , whose names I cannot remember , have the best rivalry in sports and I was like who the fuck are these guys Like ? I understand a one on one rivalry , like it wanted to be , like people wanted it to be Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson back in the day , and it really wasn't . Tiger Woods was just really good . I understand that one-on-one rivalries , like tennis , you know , serena versus Venus , stuff like that Federer versus Nadal those are cool , but I don't know who these golfers are . I think it's like Brooks Koepka and somebody else . But the regular , just day-to-day sports fan doesn't know who those people are and it's one of the most frustrating takes I've ever heard on a show that has a lot of really stupid takes which , again , I don't know why , I listen to it .

Speaker 2 12:32

But when you can make something really mundane , a lot of fun , like the Mario Golf games . Are also Any of the Mario sports games really honestly like ? Mario Strikers , mario Golf , mario Tennis , all of those are top tier . Almost made the list as well . But yeah , I would definitely put Hot Shots on there and I would love to see it make some kind of return . Even if it was just like a you know kind of a spiritual successor on Steam , I would play it .

Speaker 1 12:54

Yeah , I mean that's a great choice . It's again one I like forgot about honestly . It's again one I like forgot about honestly . And you obviously have been more into like some of those subgenres of sports than I have , like your golf , your hockey , over the years . But yeah , I mean that's not a bad choice at all . I think man for me , because I didn't really do it .

Speaker 2 13:17

Which one of these three are you going to ?

Speaker 1 13:20

I'm going to probably just have to go with my heart , because this one's probably the one that I don't think a lot of people would have in their top three .

Speaker 2 13:27

So I'm going to go with the Biggs series Damn , I really thought Biggs was going to be number one .

Speaker 1 13:32

I know , I love the Biggs man . I love the Biggs , you know you can emulate that game .

Speaker 1 13:36

I would love to . I need to , because the bigs two is crazy Everything from the way the ball zips around the field you know the baseball field to throwing the that you'd be able to completely hit the ball out of the park All of the things that were happening on screen . I also think this is a fairly good looking video game , for I think it was 2007 when it came out . I really just enjoyed it . They had a career mode and a legends mode that I definitely sunk some time into . They obviously , you know they have the home run derby type style game modes that you can play as well . I remember you were able to like do it in a city .

Speaker 1 14:29

I believe like the backdrops weren't just baseball fields , like in some of those mini game modes . They would have like really unique styles and feels . I really enjoyed the bigs series , but the Biggs 2 specifically is the one I sunk the most time in and , phil , I've always said it I feel like baseball is like such a boring sport to watch on TV . But going to a baseball and a perfectly crafted baseball game yeah , sign me up for that . I I mean everybody knows about backyard baseball . That's a close contender , but this one , I think just brought the actual realism , a little bit of baseball , like the actual franchises , the setting , and it just elevated it with that arcade style where backyard baseball again was very much just kids playing baseball in their backyard , which is a different vibe , although Pablo Sanchez MVP the goat , the goat .

Speaker 2 15:26

Yeah , I really think you would enjoy super mega baseball . It does really have a lot of those bigs elements , especially when you hit a big home run . It also has old school players in it as well , so you might recognize some of them . There's like David Ortiz and stuff like that . So you probably write Randyandy johnson , you recognize some of those players . So I do think that's something you should look into at least again , a spiritual successor to a game such as the bigs .

Speaker 2 15:50

And yeah , it just really doesn't make any sense . Well , actually it does make sense because baseball wants to stay away from the steroids era , which arguably is the best era of baseball in history . Like Sammy Sosa , mark McGuire , ken Griffey well , ken Griffey Jr was supposedly clean , but those guys watching those guys , jose , can say go more . Like those watching those roided up guys . Barry Bonds with those giant heads hit dingers out of the park . Man , that's the baseball that I want to go back to , and you're right . Going man , that's the baseball that I want to go back to , and you're right , going to a baseball game is one of the most like relaxing , fun experiences you can do with a group of friends . Have a beer , enjoy a game , have a hot dog I really just go for the hot dogs , but the baseball is cool as well too .

Speaker 2 16:36

But it is one of those things that's like watching it on TV just does not translate very well unless you're a really big fan of that team and it's like the playoffs . I'll watch playoff baseball from time to time , but I can't tell you the last time I watched a baseball game

Honorable Mentions & Lost Classics

Speaker 2 16:45

on tv . So you'd think they'd want to try and infuse some sort of arcadiness into baseball just to bring in younger fans and also , to your point , like baseball on a video game . Think about we sports . The baseball feature is one of the most popular things on there . Baseball , golf and bowling those three things are like the most popular . Wii Sports , I think , is the highest selling sports game of all time . It's kind of cheating because it came with every Nintendo Wii , but still I can't tell you how difficult it was as a former GameStop employee to keep keep wii sports in stock in the wii's heyday . So it just makes sense that baseball should embrace the arcadiness and like get back into that .

Speaker 1 17:29

But I don't think they will no , I don't think they will either . And again , it's just one of those things where I think baseball specifically just was in such a time capsule when it came to games . I don't think they'll really ever replicate that . But yeah , again , the bigs is one of those games where I think almost kind of like you know , like hot shot golf , like it's one of those games that's like a personal choice where , like , I think the next two are a little bit more wide appealing . So I'm very curious where you're going to go for number two , because while you know what my top three are , I don't know what yours are .

Speaker 2 18:03

So I'm going to be very curious to see what's number one I thought I was pretty comfortable with where I was going to put one and two . Okay , yeah , yeah , just based on how much I played them , I will will put FIFA Street , the original FIFA Street which came out in . Give me just a moment , I think it was FIFA Street 2 , actually was the one that I was really , really into . That's the one I think we played a lot on the original Xbox that I had . Yeah , fifa Street 2 . And this game came out in 2006 . It was part of the EA Sports Big publisher .

Speaker 2 18:43

So all those games that they put out back in the day and this one , this is again a sport I don't care about , which is why it's pretty crazy . We're so invested in rematch because it does . While it's not full on fifa street . It is arcadey enough and rewarding enough that it brings back a similar feel to the fifa street series . I just came out on all consoles , um , as well as mobile phone . That's interesting . I remember when they tried to throw every single ea game on a mobile phone , but fifa street was so incredibly arcadey it had a lot of those big name players as well that , like you know , international football fans would recognize . Pele , I'm pretty sure , is that ? Who is that on the cover ? I don't know any . Any of these players . I apologize , I think that's . I don't know if that's Ronaldo , was he still playing in 2000 ? So was he playing already ?

Speaker 1 19:37

Ronaldo's been playing for a while right .

Speaker 2 19:39

Yeah , I don't know , but between FIFA Street 1 and 2 , those two games , I think this is Messi on the cover . Yeah , messi is on the cover of the first game , but again there was just something about the freestyle . So it very much was . It basically was just like NBA Street , except with soccer , and I think with soccer it's a little bit more impressive because you're pulling these tricks off Street , except with soccer , and I think with soccer it's a little bit more impressive because you're pulling these tricks off like , obviously , with only your feet , and the type of goals that you can score the team , like the team ups you could do were just so much fun .

Speaker 2 20:09

And then by the time FIFA Street three came out , they were trying to make it a little bit too like much of a simulator , like it was too much like regular FIFA . It was still arcadey , but it just wasn't the same . So when that one came out it was like a huge bummer . So I would even like to see rematch go deeper into the FIFA Street-esque style of gameplay , because really the only thing you can do , eric , is like that one trick , like where you pop the ball over their head right . I want a FIFA Street 2 where I'm like literally crossing over people like Allen Iverson with a soccer ball . That's what I want . And these crazy tricks . And and then also the really cool goal animations , like or like when you like an NBA Street , like when you did an alley-oop . There was stuff like that in FIFA Street and FIFA Street 2 and I would just love for them to bring that back like FIFA .

Speaker 2 20:56

Well , first off , the FIFA name doesn't exist anymore . That's why it's like FC25 or whatever . But they could definitely build a game like this and I don't think there's any negative connotation as far as I know and if there are any football fans listening to us , let us know but I don't think there would be any negative connotations to having this style of game still stick around . I don't know if maybe it was a it didn't sell very well or it was just again . Remember back in the day , like back in these times , there were just so many of these types of games , so maybe they were all a dime a dozen , but I would love to see this style of football slash soccer game come back and I would pay good money to see it happen . Maybe you strip it from EA and have somebody else make it for sure . But remember they did after , did after NFL . What did they have ? Nfl , they had like a quote unquote blitz style game . What was that called NFL ? What ?

Speaker 1 21:48

Oh my God . Yeah , I know what you're talking about . It was so bad .

Speaker 2 21:50

It wasn't good . It had like Sean Merriman on the cover Remember .

Speaker 1 21:54

Was it NFL Hits Hold on no . You sure no ?

Speaker 2 22:05

you sure not hits . No , and it hits is the name of the nfl tour .

Speaker 1 22:07

It was nfl tour . Oh yeah , that game sucked , dude .

Speaker 2 22:09

I wanted to enjoy that game . So much .

Speaker 1 22:10

Yeah , it's awful .

Speaker 2 22:11

And then in the new maddens they've tried to infuse a little bit of blitz style gameplay into that . Not hits wise , but like as far as jumping off walls and making crazy trick plays , it's just not fun . So , uh yeah , keep anything like that away from ea and maybe we'll be back maybe we'll be back .

Speaker 1 22:27

Yeah , fifa street was one of my honorable mentions . Honestly , it's probably four or five like it's right outside the cusp any of the first two and I you know I didn't hate the third one , but any of the first two fifa streets specifically . There are two things I want to mention and add to that game is one we're like we're playing rematch and enjoying it for very similar aspects . Rematch still has a little bit of that like challenge because it's a bigger field , but like fifa streets shouldn't work with this small of like a field .

Speaker 2 22:56

Right , yeah , it's like it was very much homage to like a street football , like people playing it in , yeah , in brazil , playing it in mexico , playing like on the road , like it was .

Speaker 1 23:07

Uh , they nailed that aesthetic yeah , and it shouldn't work , and it just does .

Speaker 1 23:11

And then my other favorite thing is just the fucking replays , the replays were so good in that game so yeah , just from the gameplay , the thing about all of these games is that they're not all very challenging , but you can get like really good , like with practice , like they're not extremely challenging where it stops newcomers from wanting to play it . I think one of the things that I noticed the most when it came to these type of style of games is this is the type of game you could bring on a friend to play with you who's never played the sport or never watched the sport before , and they can find some fun and enjoyment in it . So fever street's just such a great example of that and I think also my number two is a great example of that . Now I've really had to sit here and think about this . It's , it's , it's tough . Maybe one a , one B situation . My next one is NBA jam . Nba jam is so good , it's so much fun .

Speaker 1 24:11

Phil , as the uh , the basketball person , you not enjoying this game as much as me hurts me . It does , it really does , because this really encompasses everything that I'd like to see in like an arcade-y basketball . Yeah , sure , you got the big head mode and stuff like that , but the real fun here is not just shooting the ball but obviously dunking it Like if you're gonna have an arcade-y style basketball game , the dunks have to feel special and , god forbid , you get on fire and you launch yourself millions of miles into the air to dunk that ball . How that glass doesn't shatter each time I'll never know , but it's such a fun game .

Speaker 1 24:52

It's probably the most popular series that I'm going to have on my list and shouldn't be surprising to see it on many others . But whether you're playing it arcade style or whether you're playing it with a controller , I've always had equal amounts of funds Add in the fun of playing as a mascot and like the little modes they have . It's nothing like it's nothing genre breaking . It doesn't really reinvent the wheel . It does things at a simple , at a simple pace that they just should be accomplishing and I think for that reason I've just always appreciated this series . Shout out to the on fire edition that I played on the Xbox more times than I could count .

Speaker 2 25:34

Yeah , for me , the reason I think I don't resonate with this as much as you do is basketball is one of those games where I prefer simulation style , because I am such a big fan . So , and also , you just whoop my ass in the 2010 version . I'll also be honest , like you just got so good at that game , I was like how are you putting this much ?

Speaker 2 25:52

time into nba jam , I will say there is a fun spiritual successor that we play at leaderboard . It's called nba superstars and it's not the exact same , but it is a good time . So if you go to an arcade and you see yourself and you see the big arcade box , it's , it's pretty fun , um , and it is nice to play with , like the updated players as well . So , but yeah , for nba jam , it is a whole lot of fun . I just wasn't as good at it , um , because again , I was focusing more like I've been playing nba live and then nba 2k since like 1998 , like that was my basketball experience . The only other game that I played that was similar .

Speaker 2 26:28

There was a basketball game on the Sega Saturn and it was centered around one player . Oh my God , what was it ? I'm so dating myself here . I am so mad about this , but it was a basketball game . Michael Jordan ? No , I think it might have been Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , what he was like , the only licensed player in the game . Late 70s , early 80s . I hear you . Jordan ? No , I think it might have been kareem abdul-jabbar , like it was a what it was .

Speaker 2 26:52

He was like the only licensed player in the game late 70s , early 80s .

Speaker 2 26:56

I hear you no it came out in the sega saturn , which was in the 90s . I did also have this oh my god , I forgot about the space jam game on sega saturn . That game was so good . Oh my god , I forgot about that . But anyway , nba live that is also a series that should just simply exist right now . Like why wouldn't ? I feel like it would be very it's all about content creation and streaming now , right , I think it would be very much appealing to to streamers . I also think that it would be really fun in terms of , like , the competitive nature of the game .

Speaker 2 27:29

What's the difference between an NBA jam style game and a fighting game like a Super Smash Brothers ? I don't really see what the difference is there . Those should both exist in a competitive space , right ? I don't , I don't , maybe it's because it's three on three , but maybe it's because it's sports and I don't know . I don't . I don't get it . But NBA Jam is , I think , out of all of these games on our list , should be the one that's still around easiest , and then maybe Hot Shots Golf right behind it . But NBA Jam specifically has no reason to not be around right now .

Speaker 1 28:02

Yeah , no , that's 100% accurate . And , like I said , even like when we talk about , when we're talking about a lot of these games like you know , you brought up Fever Street I think about backyard , uh , backyard soccer . Those backyard games have life , I think , in 2025 , and that's like the most simplistic version of the classic sport game . So when we're talking about an nba jam , I think it's totally doable . It's totally doable if people's totally doable , if people want those older games they definitely would enjoy . Like an NBA jam , a FIFA street . Which is why I think rematch , despite having a price tag , I think it really should be probably a free to play game at this point .

Speaker 2 28:44

Barron , even if you want to share a charge for it , it should be like 10 or $15 . If you're going to have a , if you you're gonna have a battle pass , you know , yeah , so I think that's probably why I mean it is it's . It shows up a lot in my algorithm , but I'm also playing the game , so I don't know how much .

Speaker 1 28:58

How much it's showing up outside of us , you know , agreed no 100 , yeah , and I just think it's one of those things where they made a mistake there .

Speaker 1 29:07

I think a lot of these could be like very cheap or free to play games and people could really just sink a lot of time into them and maybe you want to use like , if you're these , these leagues and these companies I don't know how realistic this would be , but you could use it to promote your major game like your main franchise game , so maybe that could be something that they consider in the future . I have no clue if that's ever in the cards . But yeah , those are our number three and number two spots . Phil , this is probably a great spot for both of us to throw out any honorable mentions , and these may not necessarily be games that are actually in consideration for top three , but are games that we want to bring up in this style of an episode , because this is really going to be our only chance to ever yeah , I was trying to find out how many people are streaming rematch right now .

Speaker 2 29:59

It's not a ton not a ton .

Speaker 1 30:02

I I jumped on just to test it on stream and it it .

Speaker 2 30:05

It streamed well , so I'm surprised yeah so , um , but in terms of other sports games that should definitely still exist . I'm trying to think of some of the the other ones while I look that up . Eric , what , what did you have for other honorable mentions ? Because I need to kind of look up some here yeah , no , that's totally fair .

Speaker 1 30:27

So for me I'm gonna bring up just a couple um , you know we talked about the backyard games . Uh , and I I really just wanted to highlight backyard soccer . I recently played that on stream and it's really fun . It's still really , really fun . Also , backyard football is definitely one that was in high consideration . I think out of all the backyard games , I like the football one the most . But going back and playing soccer , I'm not really really sure .

Speaker 1 30:52

Now I will call out WWE Crush Hour , which was a racing game that I recently reminded myself existed , and of course , you could bring up any of those classic wrestling games . Here comes the pain . You've got so many different genres in wrestling , so , like , really , take a pick of the litter and you'll probably have some fun there . The one I'm going to call out here that is like I think nobody knows , is Disney's extremely goofy skateboarding . If you remember the sequel to a goofy movie , they came out with a game and I used to play the shit out of that skateboarding game Absolutely , absolutely insane , and I don't know . I think I was just like on a Disney kick there , because there's also like Walt Disney world quest magical racing tour , which was just like clearly a ripoff of Mario Kart , but with Disney characters . But it worked . You could drive through the Haunted Mansion Like it was just a lot of fun . So those were two Disney sports related games that also kind of went into my rotation in like the late 90s , early 2000s .

Speaker 2 32:06

There's that Disney kart racing game a Speedstorm . That should have been a slam dunk and it's terrible . It was the easiest layup disney could have been given to make a kart racer in the 2020s and it's awful . So they dropped the ball there .

Speaker 2 32:23

Eric , how about this one ssx tricky ? There absolutely should be a market for now . There is kind of a . It's not like totally similar in like how ssx tricky was really arcadey . And over the top , there's a game out right now it's called riders republic and you can do a lot of different things . You can do bmx biking , you can do snowboarding , you can , I believe , do skateboarding or something along those lines , but there is a game out there that is that is very much catered to do whatever you want . It's it's gonna it's just gonna be like a whole lot of fun . Um , but ssx tricky definitely should still be around , like snowboarding itself , I think , really lends itself to a lot of really fun arcadey style action .

Speaker 2 33:09

There is a I mean , if we're talking about racing , which is kind of like sports adjacent , I mean , it's really as simple as giving me a updated and good need for speed underground game like need for speed . Uh , what was the need for speed that came out in 2022 , oh , unbound was like , okay , it kind of scratched that itch , but it's still just not the same . And then really having some sort of arcadey style wwe all-stars game like , I didn't really like all stars too much , but there should be a game like that . It doesn't have to release every single year , obviously , but giving us a game , that's just a lot . That's a lot less of the technical stuff and the grappling that we get in the 2k wwe games should also be a slam dunk and I think they also tried that .

Speaker 2 34:03

There was another game that came out after all stars , right , that tried to do kind of like a similar thing and it just wasn't and I guess it was technically aw and that game is terrible . So , yeah , the fact that that doesn't exist either and you know , that also could have been an easy slam dunk or layup for aew . And the game is just not good . Right , it had everything . It had yukes involved . Right , it had the soundtrack , it had , like kenny omega was involved in making the game and it just fell flat . So all those games in theory , you know , obviously it's very difficult to make a video game . We're not going to sit here and say that we could do this , but we would certainly fund them if we could .

Speaker 1 34:42

No , a hundred percent , and I think for me I just it's really been nice to go down memory lane with a lot of these different games . Give them their shine , because we would never do like individual episodes for any of these , like literally any of them , as much as we love them . We never would do that , phil .

NHL Hits & Blitz The League

Speaker 1 34:59

I think it's now time to reveal our ones , as we kind of start to wrap up what is number one on your list it's nhl hits .

Speaker 2 35:08

it's nhl hits and it's NHL hits . And it's the one , specifically that I played on the Xbox . It was the original Xbox I'm trying to think of , which one NHL hits 2003 . The one with Anakin Skywalker in the corner of the of the box .

Speaker 2 35:27

Yep , the one with Anakin Skywalker . It was that one . And also the the one NHL hits 2002 . So 2002 , 2003, . I would play that game . And I don't even know how I came into owning this game , because I wasn't a hockey fan as a kid , I think I just knew that it was adjacent to the NFL Blitz series and all of those things . So I think somehow I ended up with it . I don't know who bought it for me , or if I purchased it , who knows what was going on , but hockey specifically lends itself to this type of gameplay .

Speaker 2 36:02

First off , it's in the name hits , so obviously hockey is a very physical sport . It's got the toughest people playing that sport . And then also it had the element , eric , of being on fire . So if , like , one of your players started scoring a lot of goals , they could catch fire , they could spin , move , they could juke people out and just start scoring goals at fucking will . And it was so much fun and you would always get in shootouts too . It was , it was pretty , you could get the difficulty to where you could , it would be really competitive against the c CPU and it was just a really easy game to play through .

Speaker 2 36:33

You didn't have like a franchise mode you would do like a like an elimination style game so you would play the better teams as you would rank up and you could add players to your team and get better . But I mean this was the heyday of like , when the Red Wings and up in Detroit were really , really good , so I was all about this game . So I'd always pick that team and just absolutely dominate . So there is kind of a similar mode in the current day NHL games . They're not as crazy as , of course , nhl hits , but I'm not going to pay $70 for one mode for a hockey game , for a sport that I also don't really know anything about . So maybe I would do like that EA subscription for like a month and get my fill and play it . But if they came out with an NHL hits game today , I would preorder whatever edition you wanted me to buy , any kind of collector's edition . I would get the back for blood edition that Eric would get for NHL hits .

Speaker 1 37:30

Okay , we didn't have to bring that up . That was unnecessary . You called me old for the first 20 minutes for blood edition that eric would get for nhl hits .

Speaker 2 37:32

okay , we didn't have to bring that up , that was unnecessary yeah , you called me old for the first 20 minutes , so I feel like we're I didn't .

Speaker 1 37:38

I didn't choose your birthday . Yeah , nhl hits . I only experienced a little bit of this , which is surprising because this is absolutely my jam . Like it's got the same like electricity of the characters you see in like an NBA jam . You got the uh , the puck moving in a way like it does in the bigs and then there's just beating the shit out of each other Like my number one game .

Speaker 2 38:02

Like oh yeah , there's fighting , yeah , there's a fighting mode there's . I totally forgot about the fighting , which is the best part box you literally just it's incredible , it's so good .

Speaker 1 38:11

So I definitely like . I'm surprised I didn't play this more , but maybe that's because of my number one game , and my number one game is blitz the league , specifically blitz the league 2 . This game is balls to the wall . I don't know how it's made , I don't know the the specifics . I could probably do the research , but from real world scandals being part of , like the career mode , to just the gameplay of injecting your players with clear steroids clear steroids for them to continue playing to the injuries that would be something like a I don't know a simple broken leg . To like a , a fracture within your rib that punctured your lung , like the the absolute craziness of the injuries and then them showing the graphicness of it , don't leave out the best one , which is when your balls would explode .

Speaker 1 39:14

Yeah , your testicle would explode , Crack skull , concussions galore . I don't know how this is at all associated with the NFL Blitz series . I don't know how that's allowed . I don't know how you could have Lawrence Taylor be on the front of this game . There's so much . I don't know how that's allowed . I don't know how you could have lawrence taylor be on the front of this game . There's so much I don't understand , I don't understand . There's so much I don't understand about this game , yet it's so fucking good .

Speaker 2 39:38

Phil , this must have been your literal nightmare , though , so I could understand why this wasn't your thing yeah , those injuries were rough , but again it was so revolutionary and ballsy for and there's two of them , there's two of them .

Speaker 1 39:58

There's two of these games and it's so fluid yeah , it's so fluid . The gameplay is great they took what you like about the arcade game and then they turned it up by like 10,000 .

Speaker 2 40:09

Like forever . Nba 2K has always tried to infuse this story mode into my player and it's always terrible . People will know what I'm talking about when you talk about the Spike Lee days for 2K , and this gave you stories that were like a really trashy HBO show that you could not stop watching . It would be perfect . I assume this is what Ballers is like . I'm never going to watch Ballers , but I assume that it's like this so , yeah , unfortunately this would never come out today .

Speaker 2 40:45

It would have to be some sort of independent publisher on Steam . So maybe there is something that exists like that's in similar vein , but I can't imagine people putting like a publisher putting this much effort into stories , into injuries , into gameplay . All combined , you probably maybe get like one or two of those things out of the five you wanted . But , yeah , the fact that this game exists and that they it was successful enough to have a second one before they were like they pulled the plug on it is pretty crazy . But even if you wanted to do the original nfl blitz , I don't know that they would do it just because of how violent it was . And they don't . They want the game even though it is in nature an incredibly violent sport and all those athletes know what they're signing up for . I'm pretty sure they would sign on for a new nfl blitz video game .

Speaker 1 41:33

But yeah , unfortunately this one is probably stuck in the past and we'll , we'll stay there yeah , and seeing the ratings for some of these games that we've talked about , uh , really just like pissed me off . So if you want to just be in a bad mood and you like these games , go look up , like the Metacritic or just like the , the scores what are the reviews for for FIFA Street 2 from like IGN or something said .

Speaker 2 41:57

It didn't nail the essence of defense . Bitch , I don't want to play defense in NFL Street . What the fuck are you ?

Speaker 1 42:04

talking about . I don't , I don't get it , man , I I genuinely don't understand it . But so here's what I'll say again , this was a really fun episode for us to be able to do , to reminisce , to talk about some of these games and give you a little bit of insight into , like some of the other games that we know and love , that , while we don't necessarily play today , we are craving

Why These Games Disappeared

Speaker 1 42:29

, which is why , again , if you see a streaming rematch like that's , why is like getting that itch of this genre of gaming that is essentially kind of dead in the water right now . I would love to see a comeback in any way , shape or form and , phil , I think that is a great way to maybe wrap things up on just a really casual episode reminiscing about games that we love .

Speaker 2 42:53

Yeah , what games in this genre would you like to see return ? Because there are obviously so many we didn't even get to mention so many games that got the green light back in the day that we just don't see anymore . And I think a lot of that has to do with , like publishers and developers are under more pressure than well . It's more so . The developer is under more pressure than ever from the publisher . Like that , no one wants to take any risks . That's why we don't get a titanfall 3 , you know , in in these days , even though everyone is clamoring , for it's why we don't get a lot of innovation . So when we see something come along like a clear , obscure , uh , like a south of midnight , you know , like those games that are breaking the mold and trying something new . That's why we're so appreciative of them . So let us know what games again in this space , you would like to see return . Um , if you , if you think we could ever return to this era of gaming , we would love to hear from you .

Speaker 2 43:51

So if you want to , let us know one of the best ways to keep up with us , you can find everything you need in the Linktree link , in the show notes of this and every single episode . Follow us on social media over at Instagram , tiktok , join our Discord channel Also . Find a lot of our content on YouTube , and we are streaming on Twitch a whole lot as well . If you want to support the show , you can head on over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify . Leave us a five-star review , like , share and subscribe on YouTube that is very beneficial as well and follow Eric and I on our personal channels . You can find those pretty easily while you're searching through everything as well , but if you find yourself wanting a little bit more for the podcast , getting these episodes earlier , getting behind the scenes , stuff about how all this madness comes together , eric will let you know a little bit more about that before wrapping us up .

Speaker 1 44:37

Yeah , so that is through our platform on Patreon , where patrons of the show are supporting us monthly and in exchange they are getting exclusive perks , like behind the scenes , and early access to episodes like this one . So shout out to all of our patrons briar t3 , kato , vintage macaroni , cory from the world is my burrito . And nick casparo , the author of the vidalarium series several of these people that we hopefully had a good time with at infinity con in tallahassee . It was a great time with at Infinity Con in Tallahassee .

Episode Wrap-Up & Community Question

Speaker 1 45:11

It was a great time .

Speaker 1 45:14

Really enjoyed the convention and hope that you guys follow us along for a lot of these journeys that we're doing here locally here in Florida and everything that we're doing beyond that through social media and the podcast . All those free things that Phil mentioned go a long way and if you can go the extra mile to support us more , patreon is the place to do it . With all that being said , my name is Mr Eric Almighty . That is my co-host , phil the Filipino , and please don't forget that we release new episodes every Wednesday for the podcast and all you got to do is wait for it .

Speaker 2 45:45

This is the Wait For it Podcast .