We always pick the retro game over the real sport!

All things considered, the majority of video games we play put us in every kind of crazy and interesting scenario that you can imagine. They take us to outer space, other dimensions, and to wherever the Mushroom Kingdom is. It's rare then, in video games, that we are going to places and doing things we do in our real lives, which is something special about sports games. Titles like Madden or FIFA are recreations of the real world sport that all of us can just go outside and play with some friends, or we can play local sports. Even pro-players from these sports play these video games, often choosing themselves as the character.

In the end, though, video games do have that tendency to take to wild worlds and dangerous destinations. Which is where this newsletter comes in. This month at EmuParadise we are showcasing some great retro sports titles that kick their respective games up a notch by altering the sport into something we just couldn't resist staying inside to play all day.

Mutant League Football & Mutant League Hockey

Platform: Sega Genesis Year: 1993 & 1994 This beloved duo of games, which was nearly a trio actually, has gained a lot of fans over the years. The arcade style of gameplay works great with the setting and was instantly a hit. In fact, it even generated a short-lived cartoon series based on the franchise. Still, with all this, the studio wasn't able to get "Mutant League Basketball" out to complete the trilogy. There is a spiritual successor now, titled "Mutant Football League" or "MFL" for short which has some of the original teams' involvement. However, on the retro scene, we are left with 2/3rds of a classic trilogy that to this day is still remembered fondly thanks to their easy and fun to control gameplay and great presentation.

NBA Hangtime

Platforms: Arcade, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, PlayStation, Nintendo 64 Year: 1996-1997 Everyone knows about the arcade basketball game NBA Jam. What most people don't know though, is that after the release of "NBA Jam Tournament Edition" the 'NBA Jam' name rights were awarded to Acclaim, the game's publisher, and not the developer. "NBA Jam Extreme" was then released, and thus began the downfall of a legend. Despite this though, the development team continued the basketball game it was working on under the title "NBA Hangtime". As soon as you get your hands on the game, the NBA Jam style of gameplay and presentation is familiar. There were some great upgrades as well, such as the ability to create your own custom character. There was also now a secret code entry dial on the head-to-head screen like you see in the Mortal Kombat series. If you activated the right number sequence you could have crazy changes happen to the gameplay. Things like changing the ball to the standard ABA style, or tiny players, or fast passing, or blocking a player from using any codes; you just need to know the right codes for what you want to change.

Cosmic Smash

Platform: Dreamcast Year: 2001 Cosmic Smash is futuristic, it's calming. It's engaging and exciting. This amazing title for the Dreamcast takes something like a game of squash and then meshes it with Arkanoid and brings it to the 21st century. You really have to play this game to understand how it works but it's worth it because it's so unique and interesting to play through. It really is one of those games that showcase how special the Dreamcast's library is. Imagine playing tennis in zero gravity, trying to bounce your ball off of several markers in front of you at the other end of the room. You can't let the ball get past you when it bounces back though, so you have to keep it going. After a while of getting used to the environment, it's very intuitive but still challenging to run through the gauntlet of rooms with blocks.

Battle Flip Shot & Bang Bead

Platform: Neo Geo

Year: 1997 & 2000

Flip Shot is like PONG, which is itself like Ping-Pong, which of course is like Tennis. The same basic concept is here. Two players each on one side of the playfield are hitting a ball back and forth. Behind them though are several stars that must be smashed before you win the game. Naturally, you are also trying to stop the opponent from smashing your own stars.

Bang Bead is the sequel to Flip Shot, and while much has changed the presentation is a little more attuned to a 'street ball' vibe in comparison to the first. In addition, now once you break the opponents stars the wall behind them opens up and they now have to fight to make sure the ball doesn't get past them even once or the game is over. Two players in this state make for an intense competition.

Road Rash

Platforms:Sega Genesis, 3DO, Sega CD, Master System, Game Gear, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Amiga, Saturn, PlayStation

Year: 1991-2000

Racing motorcycles on the California highways sounds like a great thing to do with warmer weather. In Road Rash, you are part of a motorcycle racing gang going across the state in races for money to improve your bike. While the next entry in the series would take you to the full USA, and then around the world for the 3rd, the core gameplay remains the same in this classic Genesis trilogy. Instead of just racing, you are going to have to avoid not only cars, pedestrians, and other obstacles, but the fists, feet, batons, and chains of your fellow racers and even johnny law; because in this game you can beat up the opponent as you race. You can even knock them off their bike by fighting them or knocking them into traffic or signs, or run them over if you pass someone who's running to get back on his fallen bike.

The original Mega Drive trilogy is a great collection by itself, but the game "Road Rash" had several ports to nearly all the biggest consoles of the 90's. While some were handheld and older generation system down-ports, there were some standouts as well. A good example is the Sega CD version. In this version, the menus receive a big upgrade with art and music. The licensed soundtrack for the game works great in the menus and in this version the songs play during gameplay as well. The graphics are more like Road Rash 3's with the updated sprites.

Easily the most impressive version though is the one for the Panasonic 3DO. There were ports of this version to the PlayStation and Saturn, but the 3DO version is the one to get for the best experience. The licensed music no longer plays in this version during gameplay but it's present in the further upgraded menus. The racing visuals receive the greatest upgrade here by far. The road is now much more solid and fleshed out, the sprites are much higher in size and quality. The backgrounds also use real buildings that you can run into. Simply playing this version after the others will show you how stark the difference is.

There are tons and tons of different sports titles out there to play, and we won't judge you one bit if you pick the retro game over the real sport. Especially when games make it so you can play hockey with monsters, or squash with space-blocks, or even just a simple game of tennis with Mario.