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Seven of the Best Underrated Sports Video Games

We profile some of the very best games here on the site and hopefully open up your eyes to a whole world of free gaming online. But you know that we also enjoy playing all kinds of video games - and have enjoyed some excellent sports titles down through the years.
There are some sports games that are so big now that they are known the world over and have the latest star athletes, teams and the major leagues featured on the cover. But there have also been some underrated gems released - and we thought it was about time we highlighted them as well.

These titles may have slipped under the radar for one reason or another, but they were all excellent examples of how sports can provide the base for the most playable video games. Here are seven that we really liked but didn�t get the universal love that we might have expected.

Mutant League Football

This is the kind of sports video game we can really get behind. Most of the sports games these days are tied in with major leagues and pro sports but sometimes it is good to go a little out there instead. Mutant League Football had the sports know-how of the Madden games and introduced a post-apocalyptic angle for good measure.
Released for the Sega Genesis in 1993, this title didn't do quite as well as we would have thought, maybe because football fans were unable to get past the goblins and monsters playing the game. Whatever the reason, they were missing out. This game was sorely slept on but provided a lot of fun sports entertainment.

NHL Open Ice 2 on 2 Challenge

We promise not all of our selections feature the more comical side of sports video games. But there is something about exaggerating something a little too serious that really works. That's what happened with NHL Open Ice, which took a slice of pro sports hockey and added a touch of cartoon action.

This was very much an arcade game, rather than the NHL franchise series that has done so well for EA Sports. NHL Open Ice came out in 1996 on the PlayStation, a year after getting rave reviews in the arcade. Comical commentary is also a major attraction on this classic release.

FIFA Street

Maybe there is something about these kinds of sports spin-off games that attracts gamers. The leagues and tournaments that may pass some non-sports fans by are absent, leaving a more arcade approach - which is something that everyone can get behind. This one came from the same mold as NBA Street and NFL Street.
If you've played the latest versions of the big FIFA game and been taken in by the Volta Football mode, then you will have a pretty good idea of what FIFA Street offered. Top players of the time, like Ronaldinho, could be chosen to play in pick-up street games, where tricks and skills win the day. Best soccer game ever!

Mario Golf

We're suckers for Mario, so put the little plumber in just about any situation and take our money. Golf isn't even one of our favorite sports and we will still play one of a number of Mario Golf titles released over the last 30 years. Golf's lack of popularity, compared to other sports, could be the reason why these went under the radar - but they are all still really good.

The NES Open Tournament Golf game, released in 1987, was the first to experiment with using Mario as a character in the game. He then went on to feature in countless others for the GameCube, Game Boy, and N64.

MVP 06: NCAA Baseball

College sports are big business - but it is nothing compared to the pro leagues (in most states anyway) so we can understand why this series wasn't as popular as it should have been. But anyone who played the game will know that it carried on the excellence of the old EA MLB game and just translated it into NCAA.
Electronic Arts lost the license for Major League Baseball, so just put out a number of college versions and adapted the rules to apply to the NCAA game. The basics of the game were already there, so anyone who decided to give this version a go then spent many happy hours hitting the ball out of the parks they could even create for themselves in the game.

NFL Quarterback Club 98

There is something about the 1990s, before the locked-in exclusive licenses took over, that made it a fertile time for the creation of some of the best sports video games of all time. Since then the big annual titles have taken over, so gems like this one remain a little underrated in our opinion.

Iguana and Acclaim put this one out and, with the help of a license from the NFL, produced an intriguing mix of football realism, fantasy elements, and tournament play. There were two simulation modes where you could re-play real games or create your own, with the added ability to unlock secret teams. This game had it all.

Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder

Our last underrated sports video game is probably on the list because of the relatively low profile of the sport in question. Snowboarding does not produce the biggest star athletes. But in 2001 Shaun Palmer was a big enough name to front this title, originally for the PlayStation and Game Boy.
The game actually featured as a demo on Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and is very similar in gameplay and general feel. Activision was obviously going through an extreme sports vibe at the time and gamers could attempt to pull off an impressive range of tricks and moves using some of the biggest snowboarders of the day.