Nostalgia and video games go hand-in-hand. We remember the video games we loved from years past the same way we remember movies. They have a special place in our hearts.
With sports video games, it's easy to look at the best-selling games and see their influence in dollars and cents. But they have influenced pop culture in amazing ways. From blowing into a cartridge on the original Nintendo to get it to work to polishing up PlayStation CDs to waiting for the latest Xbox game to download at midnight, anyone who's ever picked up a joystick has memories.
These are some of the games that have given us the best memories - the greatest sports video games of all time.
Release date: Dec. 1, 1992
Sport: Basketball
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Consoles: Sega Genesis, SNES
Critics take: "Of course the games would get much better for the SNES system later on with the NBA Live series but a lot of the games biggest stars had retired or moved on to different teams. That is why this game holds so much nostalgia and replay value." -Amazon.com
Bottom line: We all know that gameplay is what gets you on this list, and it's the most important thing, but let's not forget the crappy, awful, what-were-they-thinking title they smacked on this game. It's really bad.
The thing that made this game so great was the specialty moves for the best players in the game. You could only use teams from the 1992 NBA playoffs.
And when you unlocked Magic Johnson's fake no-look pass layup or Tim Hardaway's UTEP two-step or Michael Jordan's dunk from the free-throw line, you were in the zone.
Release date: Feb. 2, 2018
Sport: Mixed martial arts
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: Playstation 4, Xbox One
Critics take: "tense, exciting, and dynamic recreation of the stand and bang aspect of mixed martial arts. The grappling still needs plenty of work, and one would hope this is something EA Canada addresses in the next iteration; yet these shortcomings become easier to overlook because of the accomplishment of its redefined striking. When it comes to the art of combat, few sports titles do it better." -GameSpot
Bottom line: By the time "EA Sports UFC 3", was released it had been several years since a high-profile mixed martial arts game hit the market, which is only notable because of the massive growth of the sport in that time.
EA Sports gets credit for making sure one aspect of the game blew gamers away - the punching and striking mechanisms. Critics were hard on the game for the grappling imperfections, but the ability to destroy the face of your opponent was all that really mattered in the end.
That and having Conor McGregor on the cover.
Release date: July 31, 1998
Sport: Football
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PlayStation, Nintendo 64
Critics take: "The control is great, the AI is great, and of course, the graphics are well done. The game gives you everything you could ever want on the features side, plus the ability to change them. And with the addition of franchise mode, which allows you to play season after season, football gamers can and will play Madden 99 for a long, long time." -GameStop
Bottom line: Madden and the GameDay series were battling for sales headed into the release of this version of the game, after GameDay blew Madden out of the water with the '98 version when it came to graphics and gameplay.
So "Madden '99" really needed to deliver, and that competition fostered a pretty great game for the Madden series. One wonders how two big losses in a row would've impacted the franchise overall.
The '99 Madden version blew gamers away with the tackling and running features. Now we could see the players bending and moving instead of the blocky nature of movements in years past.
Release date: July 1, 1988
Sport: Baseball
Publisher: Jaleco
Consoles: NES
Critics take: "Coming from then unheard of developers Jaleco, Bases Loaded was the console's first attempt at a realistic baseball simulation, and it remains one of the most fun depictions of the sport as long as you've got the patience to play it." -Retro Reviews
Bottom line: Patience was definitely the key to this game, but that wasn't the reason we played it.
The reason we wanted to play it was because some genius at Jaleco, which no one had ever heard of, put an incredible amount of effort into making a function on the game where a batter could rush a pitcher after he got hit by a pitch.
As a kid, that meant you were willing to plug away on those "A" and "B" buttons until you got to that moment. Chaos ensued.
Release date: Nov. 19, 2006
Sports: Tennis, baseball, bowling, golf, boxing
Publisher: Nintendo
Consoles: Wii
Critics' take: "The way this game is played is revolutionary. The play is intuitive and the perfect representation of Nintendo's new direction." -IGN
Bottom line: With almost 100 million copies sold, Wii Sports is the best-selling single-platform game of all time.
The social aspect of Wii Sports was really something to behold. Within a year, it seemed like everybody you knew was hanging out in their living room, jumping around like crazy people with Wii controllers in their hands.
And here's the thing. It's still a fun hang if you want to dust off the Wii, break out those old controllers, and make sure the DVD isn't too scratched up.
Release date: Nov. 18, 2009
Sport: Basketball
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Critics take: "As soon as you enter into a game you're instantly transported into the world of either broadcasting experience. You'll see identical logos, the same graphics transitions, pretty much everything right down to the commentators is identical to what's on TV." -IGN
Bottom line: The troubled history of NCAA basketball video games started with inconsistent, year-to-year versions and ended with a legal battle that changed the landscape of sports and brought NCAA licensed video games to an end. But there were a few notable exceptions - most famously "NCAA Basketball 10."
The ability to recruit high school players to your program, then play with them through their careers added a previously unseen level to the series. And the fact you could play with 325 of the 353 NCAA Division I programs (and NCAA Division II Chaminade in the Maui Invitational Tournament) let you go way, way down the hoops rabbit hole.
Release date: June 23, 2009
Sport: Boxing
Publisher: EA Sports
Consoles: PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Critics' take: "The incredibly accurate physics system doesn't just set a new bar for boxing games, but for all games across all genres." -Game Revolution
Bottom line: It's between "Fight Night Round 4" and "Fight Night Champion" for best game in this series. "Fight Night 4" drew praise for boxers' stamina leveled up after complaints from the game's previous versions and a huge leap forward in punching accuracy and precision.
Unlike the four major pro sports leagues, there wasn't an official boxing game that came out every year, so the three-year gap between Fight Night versions amplified the anticipation.
Playing the game's signature fight - Muhammad Ali vs. Mike Tyson - and adding other classic fights to the mix like Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns just upped the ante.