July 23, 2025 • 45 mins
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!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment.
Wait for it.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Gaming.
Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino.
Yeah, they've got you covered.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And all you gotta do is wait for it.
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Hey, everyone, welcome back tothe Wait For it Podcast.
(00:37):
I am your co-host, phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and
for this edition of the GameRoom, where it happens, we're
not just going to reminisceabout 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 daysthe way they used to, and that's
those classic sports games,those arcade-y fun sports games
(01:02):
that, phil, just don't seem toexist in 2025.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
This is going to be a very much a old man get off my
lawn type of episode and a typeof game that they, like you,
said they don't.
They just don't make anymoreand I think they're kind of
afraid to make, and we'll talkabout that here as the episode
moves along.
So very excited to jump intothis conversation.
Just going to be a fun lightconvo and probably a relatively
(01:31):
short episode, although we dosay that a lot, and then we got
45 minutes out of the bad guysthe other day.
So who knows what's going tohappen with this episode.
But as you can tell in the title, we're going to be talking
about classic sports games fromour childhood and also more
recent as well.
So if you want to keep up withthe way for a podcast and any
other games that we have talkedabout here on this series, make
(01:51):
sure you stick around to thevery end and we'll let you know
where you can find all the restof that content.
But yeah, eric, let's just jumpinto this here and you know,
when we're talking about classicsports games, we're talking
about your NFL blitzes, your NBAjams, nhl hits, even to an
extent like a Tony Hawk's proskater, some of the old WWF WCW
games.
(02:11):
When you think about this genre, eric, I know your brain goes
to a specific set of games.
So where would you like tostart, because really we could
go anywhere with thisconversation.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and that's interesting, right, Because we
were talking in the pre-show alittle bit about how we might
want to tackle this.
And I think for me, maybe let'sstart by talking about, like,
why we wanted to do this episode.
And then I personally have likea holy trinity of sports games.
(02:45):
I have three games that Iconsider to be like if I was to
die tomorrow and I had to playonly three of these games in
this genre, what would they be?
And there's so many to choosefrom, so many honorable mentions
.
But I think we could probablycircle around that because I
feel like I'm pretty sureactually that ours will be
(03:07):
completely different, actuallypretty confident.
So, phil, I mean I guess I'lljust kind of kick things off
with the fact that you knowbeing born in the nineties and I
know you're like I think youwere born in the seventies, like
early eighties, so it's alittle different.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was born in 88.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So I'm barely an 80s kid.
Okay, still an 80s kid.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, but again, I was born before you and you are
now older than me, so that's nothow that works, so yeah,
there'll be a generationaldifference in this episode?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
There's not a generational difference at all.
Phil, you can't keepinterrupting me.
I know that's an 80s thing, butyou can't keep chiming in.
Yeah, so generationaldifferences on this episode.
But being a nineties kid, Ireally feel like Phil and this
is why I chose this as the coverart for this episode.
(04:00):
It was around 97 with backyardbaseball, these backyard sports
games where I'm not saying thereweren't like sports games in
arcades you know, you got yourNFL blitzes and stuff like that
but like when it actually whenwe talk about like video games
in general, I felt like it wasaround this time where this
became like a craze.
(04:22):
It became something very popularand again, not that it hadn't
been done before, but we startedto see an influx in the mid to
late 90s, going into the early2000s, of people taking very
popular sports genres and justmeshing them into that arcade-y
fun style, giving characters bigheads and being able to jump a
(04:47):
thousand hundred feet into theair, like, again, all these type
of little things where youwould be able to have a lot of
fun.
And at some point we turned intowanting to make these sports
games more realistic and that'sprobably happened in the last
decade or so, more than everbefore.
So when we played a game in2025 like rematch, which kind of
(05:12):
gave us like similar vibes of agame that we really missed, a
game style we really missed, itmade a lot of sense to jump into
this particular theme, thisparticular topic.
So, phil, again, I know you'regoing to have an extreme
difference based off of you know, when you were born, but what
was your kind of like thoughtabout this whole genre as a
(05:36):
whole from the early days to now?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Early days is crazy, so back in the day early days is
crazy.
So back in the day, so with withthis, like again back when I
was like a kid, you know, likegrowing up in the 90s, it was
kind of I didn't play a wholelot of non-sports games because
I was also a very active kid Iwas playing baseball, I was
(06:00):
playing, you know, soccer, I wasplaying basketball.
So I wanted to play games thatlike that sports was my
basically my entire life.
Sports and Nickelodeon, likethat was my entire personality
back in the 90s.
So games like NFL Blitz Iremember there was a we would go
to a community pool in the townthat I grew up in in Michigan
(06:21):
and I always had to make sure Ihad 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 dayfootball or quarterback club,
like those were the sports gamesthat were out like simulation
style, like we have now.
So when something like that,like you said, like big head
mode and you could late hiteverybody and like stuff like
(06:42):
that was just totally unheard of.
So those kind of games are, youcan like hear them in the uh,
in the arcade, like when we goto leaderboard and we that's one
of the games we always seek outis nfl blitz.
It's always a whole lot of fun.
And then when you talk aboutthe, you know the backyard
baseballs, like you said.
For me, nhl hits is one I'lldefinitely bring up here and
(07:04):
lengthen in just a moment.
And honestly, what it comes downto now is people are afraid to
make these games because ofconcussions, that's everything.
That's why you don't seeheadshots in wrestling.
It's why they don't glorify thebig hit.
Remember, like in the early2000s, you could Google Ray
Lewis big hit compilation and itwould have.
It would go at whatever viralwas back then.
(07:26):
People would look for thosehits.
And and then now we see whatthese older players are going
through now, when everyone'slike, oh, we should probably not
make a game where you decide togive a NFL player, a football
player, pills to get them backonto the field.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
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 yourfavorite compilation of ray
lewis sean taylor sean taylor isthe goat and it would always be
to.
Here comes the boom so or bodiesor you have the bodies to the
(08:05):
floor, you know any type ofaggressive like headbanging song
or something that really fitthe mold of.
I really want to hurt thisperson.
And when we talk about the holytrinity of games, I have a
football game that is absolutelywould never be made today and
I'm excited to talk about thatand phil knows I love that game
(08:25):
way too fucking much.
But yeah, I have a perfectexample for that.
But there's just like so manydifferent things and you know we
are going to talk about some ofthe big ones, like you know
basketball, baseball, footballbut there's other things too.
There's been great hockey gamesbeen great, uh, skateboarding
games.
We talk.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Did you play Hot Shots Golf?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Why does that sound so familiar?
It was a.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
PlayStation game.
It was out in the PS2, 3, and 4.
Oh yeah, and I miss Hot ShotsGolf.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I was going to say there's probably some really
great golf games too.
There's just so many differenttypes of sports.
We mentioned wrestling a littlebit as well, and there'll be a
couple of arcadey ones weprobably bring up.
So, again, it won't just be thebig sports that, like you may
know of.
There's just so many differentgenres, phil, that there was
(09:20):
something coming out for everysingle type of sport known to
man, and now we can barely get aconsistent one for a single
genre, and I just think that's abummer.
So what I'm thinking is that wetalk about our kind of like
(09:40):
Holy Trinity, our top three ofsports games, and we kind of see
where the conversation takes us.
Maybe before that first one, wethrow out some honorable
mentions.
But yeah, I mean, I think Ihave 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 inor I know what number one is.
So I think between two andthree it would be a little
difficult.
I guess we'll just start here.
So number three for me would belike the um, the hot shots golf
series, just in in general golf, what?
(10:26):
Why do we like top golf?
Right, you just go in, yousmack the shit out of the ball.
I don't want to putt, I don'twant to chip, I want to go in
there with a, with a driver, andjust smack the shit out of it
and make it go as far aspossible and rack up those
points.
And yes, you did have to dosome of those other things in
hot shots, but because it was socartoony, arcadey, it had
(10:50):
really fun courses, it hadreally like wacky looking
characters and I really dobelieve that there could be a
like a, a community that wouldwant to play that game now.
And there are games that arekind of like spiritual
successors that are out, butthey're not.
There's, like everybody golf,which I think was similar, but
(11:10):
that might have been a vr game,if I remember correctly, or
maybe that was just a differentseries.
I'm not 100 sure, but regulargolf is boring, all right, I I
don't think we have anylisteners here that just watch
the Masters on a yearly basis.
Once Tiger Woods I mean he'sstill active, but once Tiger
(11:30):
Woods was out of his prime, myinterest in golf also left.
I listened to this sports radioshow on ESPN, which is
absolutely terrible, but likeit'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 thatthese two golfers, whose names I
cannot remember, have the bestrivalry in sports and I was like
(11:52):
who the fuck are these guysLike?
I understand a one on onerivalry, like it wanted to be,
like people wanted it to beTiger Woods and Phil Mickelson
back in the day, and it reallywasn't.
Tiger Woods was just reallygood.
I understand that one-on-onerivalries, like tennis, you know
, serena versus Venus, stufflike that Federer versus Nadal
those are cool, but I don't knowwho these golfers are.
(12:13):
I think it's like Brooks Koepkaand somebody else.
But the regular, justday-to-day sports fan doesn't
know who those people are andit's one of the most frustrating
takes I've ever heard on a showthat has a lot of really stupid
takes which, again, I don'tknow why, I listen to it.
But when you can make somethingreally mundane, a lot of fun,
(12:33):
like the Mario Golf games.
Are also Any of the Mariosports 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 definitelyput Hot Shots on there and I
would love to see it make somekind of return.
Even if it was just like a youknow kind of a spiritual
successor on Steam, I would playit.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I mean that's a great choice.
It's again one I like forgotabout honestly.
It's again one I like forgotabout honestly.
And you obviously have beenmore 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 abad choice at all.
I think man for me, because Ididn'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 theone that I don't think a lot of
people would have in their topthree.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So I'm going to go with the Biggs series Damn, I
really thought Biggs was goingto be number one.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I know, I love the Biggs man.
I love the Biggs, you know youcan emulate that game.
I would love to.
I need to, because the bigs twois crazy Everything from the
way the ball zips around thefield you know the baseball
field to throwing the that you'dbe able to completely hit the
ball out of the park All of thethings that were happening on
(14:06):
screen.
I also think this is a fairlygood looking video game, for I
think it was 2007 when it cameout.
I really just enjoyed it.
They had a career mode and alegends mode that I definitely
sunk some time into.
They obviously, you know theyhave the home run derby type
style game modes that you canplay as well.
I remember you were able tolike do it in a city.
(14:29):
I believe like the backdropsweren't just baseball fields,
like in some of those mini gamemodes.
They would have like reallyunique styles and feels.
I really enjoyed the bigsseries, but the Biggs 2
specifically is the one I sunkthe most time in and, phil, I've
always said it I feel likebaseball is like such a boring
(14:50):
sport to watch on TV.
But going to a baseball and aperfectly crafted baseball game
yeah, sign me up for that.
I I mean everybody knows aboutbackyard baseball.
That's a close contender, butthis one, I think just brought
the actual realism, a little bitof baseball, like the actual
franchises, the setting, and itjust elevated it with that
(15:13):
arcade style where backyardbaseball again was very much
just kids playing baseball intheir backyard, which is a
different vibe, although PabloSanchez 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 ofthose bigs elements, especially
when you hit a big home run.
It also has old school playersin it as well, so you might
recognize some of them.
There's like David Ortiz andstuff like that.
So you probably write Randyandyjohnson, you recognize some of
those players.
So I do think that's somethingyou should look into at least
(15:46):
again, a spiritual successor toa game such as the bigs.
And yeah, it just really doesn'tmake any sense.
Well, actually it does makesense 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 thoseguys watching those guys, jose,
(16:09):
can say go more.
Like those watching thoseroided up guys.
Barry Bonds with those giantheads hit dingers out of the
park.
Man, that's the baseball that Iwant to go back to, and you're
right.
Going man, that's the baseballthat I want to go back to, and
you're right, going to abaseball game is one of the most
like relaxing, fun experiencesyou can do with a group of
friends.
Have a beer, enjoy a game, havea hot dog I really just go for
the hot dogs, but the baseballis cool as well too.
(16:36):
But it is one of those thingsthat's like watching it on TV
just does not translate verywell unless you're a really big
fan of that team and it's likethe playoffs.
I'll watch playoff baseballfrom time to time, but I can't
tell you the last time I watcheda baseball game on tv.
So you'd think they'd want totry and infuse some sort of
arcadiness into baseball just tobring in younger fans and also,
to your point, like baseball ona video game.
(16:56):
Think about we sports.
The baseball feature is one ofthe most popular things on there
.
Baseball, golf and bowlingthose three things are like the
most popular.
Wii Sports, I think, is thehighest selling sports game of
all time.
It's kind of cheating becauseit came with every Nintendo Wii,
but still I can't tell you howdifficult it was as a former
(17:18):
GameStop employee to keep keepwii sports in stock in the wii's
heyday.
So it just makes sense thatbaseball should embrace the
arcadiness and like get backinto 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 ofthose things where I think
baseball specifically just wasin such a time capsule when it
came to games.
I don't think they'll reallyever replicate that.
But yeah, again, the bigs isone of those games where I think
almost kind of like you know,like hot shot golf, like it's
(17:51):
one of those games that's like apersonal choice where, like, I
think the next two are a littlebit more wide appealing.
So I'm very curious whereyou're going to go for number
two, because while you know whatmy 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 waspretty comfortable with where I
was going to put one and two.
Okay, yeah, yeah, just based onhow much I played them, I will
will put FIFA Street, theoriginal FIFA Street which came
out in.
Give me just a moment, I thinkit was FIFA Street 2, actually
(18:26):
was the one that I was really,really into.
That's the one I think weplayed 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 SportsBig publisher.
So all those games that they putout back in the day and this
(18:47):
one, this is again a sport Idon't care about, which is why
it's pretty crazy.
We're so invested in rematchbecause it does.
While it's not full on fifastreet.
It is arcadey enough andrewarding enough that it brings
back a similar feel to the fifastreet series.
I just came out on all consoles, um, as well as mobile phone.
(19:09):
That's interesting.
I remember when they tried tothrow every single ea game on a
mobile phone, but fifa streetwas so incredibly arcadey it had
a lot of those big name playersas well that, like you know,
international football fanswould recognize.
Pele, I'm pretty sure, is that?
Who is that on the cover?
I don't know any.
(19:29):
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 thisis Messi on the cover.
Yeah, messi is on the cover ofthe first game, but again there
was just something about thefreestyle.
So it very much was.
It basically was just like NBAStreet, except with soccer, and
I think with soccer it's alittle bit more impressive
because you're pulling thesetricks off Street, except with
(20:00):
soccer, and I think with soccerit's a little bit more
impressive because you'repulling these tricks off like,
obviously, with only your feet,and the type of goals that you
can score the team, like theteam ups you could do were just
so much fun.
And then by the time FIFA Streetthree came out, they were
trying to make it a little bittoo like much of a simulator,
like it was too much likeregular FIFA.
It was still arcadey, but itjust wasn't the same.
(20:20):
So when that one came out itwas like a huge bummer.
So I would even like to seerematch go deeper into the FIFA
Street-esque style of gameplay,because really the only thing
you can do, eric, is like thatone trick, like where you pop
the ball over their head right.
I want a FIFA Street 2 whereI'm like literally crossing over
people like Allen Iverson witha soccer ball.
That's what I want.
(20:46):
And these crazy tricks.
And and then also the reallycool goal animations, like or
like when you like an NBA Street, like when you did an alley-oop
.
There was stuff like that inFIFA Street and FIFA Street 2
and I would just love for themto bring that back like FIFA.
Well, first off, the FIFA namedoesn't exist anymore.
That's why it's like FC25 orwhatever.
But they could definitely builda game like this and I don't
think there's any negativeconnotation as far as I know and
(21:08):
if there are any football fanslistening to us, let us know but
I don't think there would beany negative connotations to
having this style of game stillstick around.
I don't know if maybe it was ait didn't sell very well or it
was just again.
Remember back in the day, likeback in these times, there were
just so many of these types ofgames, so maybe they were all a
dime a dozen, but I would loveto see this style of football
(21:30):
slash soccer game come back andI would pay good money to see it
happen.
Maybe you strip it from EA andhave somebody else make it for
sure.
But remember they did after,did after NFL.
What did they have?
Nfl, they had like a quoteunquote blitz style game.
What was that called NFL?
What?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Oh my God.
Yeah, I know what you'retalking about.
It was so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It wasn't good.
It had like Sean Merriman onthe 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 ofthe 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 stylegameplay into that.
Not hits wise, but like as faras jumping off walls and making
crazy trick plays, it's just notfun.
So, uh yeah, keep anything likethat away from ea and maybe
we'll be back maybe we'll beback.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, fifa street was one of my honorable mentions.
Honestly, it's probably four orfive like it's right outside
the cusp any of the first twoand I you know I didn't hate the
third one, but any of the firsttwo fifa streets specifically.
There are two things I want tomention and add to that game is
one we're like we're playingrematch and enjoying it for very
similar aspects.
(22:47):
Rematch still has a little bitof that like challenge because
it's a bigger field, but likefifa 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, likepeople 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.
And then my other favorite thingis just the fucking replays,
the replays were so good in thatgame so yeah, just from the
gameplay, the thing about all ofthese games is that they're not
all very challenging, but youcan get like really good, like
(23:27):
with practice, like they're notextremely challenging where it
stops newcomers from wanting toplay it.
I think one of the things thatI noticed the most when it came
to these type of style of gamesis this is the type of game you
could bring on a friend to playwith you who's never played the
sport or never watched the sportbefore, and they can find some
fun and enjoyment in it.
(23:48):
So fever street's just such agreat example of that and I
think also my number two is agreat example of that.
Now I've really had to sit hereand 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 somuch fun.
(24:11):
Phil, as the uh, the basketballperson, 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 seein like an arcade-y basketball.
Yeah, sure, you got the bighead mode and stuff like that,
but the real fun here is notjust shooting the ball but
obviously dunking it Like ifyou're gonna have an arcade-y
(24:35):
style basketball game, the dunkshave to feel special and, god
forbid, you get on fire and youlaunch yourself millions of
miles into the air to dunk thatball.
How that glass doesn't shattereach time I'll never know, but
it's such a fun game.
It's probably the most popularseries that I'm going to have on
(24:56):
my list and shouldn't besurprising to see it on many
others.
But whether you're playing itarcade style or whether you're
playing it with a controller,I've always had equal amounts of
funds Add in the fun of playingas a mascot and like the little
modes they have.
It's nothing like it's nothinggenre breaking.
It doesn't really reinvent thewheel.
(25:17):
It does things at a simple, ata simple pace that they just
should be accomplishing and Ithink for that reason I've just
always appreciated this series.
Shout out to the on fireedition that I played on the
Xbox more times than I couldcount.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, for me, the reason I think I don't resonate
with this as much as you do isbasketball is one of those games
where I prefer simulation style, because I am such a big fan.
So, and also, you just whoop myass in the 2010 version.
I'll also be honest, like youjust got so good at that game, I
was like how are you puttingthis much?
time into nba jam, I will saythere is a fun spiritual
(25:56):
successor that we play atleaderboard.
It's called nba superstars andit's not the exact same, but it
is a good time.
So if you go to an arcade andyou see yourself and you see the
big arcade box, it's, it'spretty fun, um, and it is nice
to play with, like the updatedplayers as well.
So, but yeah, for nba jam, itis a whole lot of fun.
I just wasn't as good at it, um, because again, I was focusing
(26:18):
more like I've been playing nbalive and then nba 2k since like
1998, like that was mybasketball experience.
The only other game that Iplayed that was similar.
There was a basketball game onthe Sega Saturn and it was
centered around one player.
(26:39):
Oh my God, what was it?
I'm so dating myself here.
I am so mad about this, but itwas a basketball game.
Michael Jordan?
No, I think it might have beenKareem Abdul-Jabbar, what he was
like, the only licensed playerin the game.
Late 70s, early 80s.
I hear you.
Jordan?
No, I think it might have beenkareem abdul-jabbar, like it was
a what it was.
He was like the only licensedplayer in the game late 70s,
early 80s.
I hear you no it came out in thesega saturn, which was in the
(27:00):
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 isalso a series that should just
simply exist right now.
Like why wouldn't?
I feel like it would be veryit's all about content creation
(27:21):
and streaming now, right, Ithink it would be very much
appealing to to streamers.
I also think that it would bereally fun in terms of, like,
the competitive nature of thegame.
What's the difference between anNBA jam style game and a
fighting game like a Super SmashBrothers?
I don't really see what thedifference is there.
Those should both exist in acompetitive space, right?
(27:41):
I don't, I don't, maybe it'sbecause it's three on three, but
maybe it's because it's sportsand I don't know.
I don't.
I don't get it.
But NBA Jam is, I think, out ofall of these games on our list,
should be the one that's stillaround easiest, and then maybe
Hot Shots Golf right behind it.
But NBA Jam specifically has noreason to not be around right
now.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, no, that's 100% accurate.
And, like I said, even likewhen we talk about, when we're
talking about a lot of thesegames like you know, you brought
up Fever Street I think aboutbackyard, uh, backyard soccer.
Those backyard games have life,I think, in 2025, and that's
like the most simplistic versionof the classic sport game.
(28:23):
So when we're talking about annba jam, I think it's totally
doable.
It's totally doable if people'stotally doable, if people want
those older games theydefinitely 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 beprobably a free to play game at
(28:43):
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, ifyou you're gonna have a battle
pass, you know, yeah, so I thinkthat's probably why I mean it
is it's.
It shows up a lot in myalgorithm, but I'm also playing
the game, so I don't know howmuch.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
How much it's showing up outside of us, you know,
agreed no 100, yeah, and I justthink it's one of those things
where they made a mistake there.
I think a lot of these could belike very cheap or free to play
games and people could reallyjust sink a lot of time into
them and maybe you want to uselike, if you're these, these
leagues and these companies Idon't know how realistic this
(29:19):
would be, but you could use itto promote your major game like
your main franchise game, somaybe that could be something
that they consider in the future.
I have no clue if that's everin the cards.
But yeah, those are our numberthree and number two spots.
Phil, this is probably a greatspot for both of us to throw out
any honorable mentions, andthese may not necessarily be
(29:42):
games that are actually inconsideration for top three, but
are games that we want to bringup in this style of an episode,
because this is really going tobe our only chance to ever yeah
, I was trying to find out howmany 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 gamesthat should definitely still
exist.
I'm trying to think of some ofthe the other ones while I look
that up.
Eric, what, what did you havefor other honorable mentions?
Because I need to kind of lookup some here yeah, no, that's
(30:27):
totally fair.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So for me I'm gonna bring up just a couple um, you
know we talked about thebackyard games.
Uh, and I I really just wantedto highlight backyard soccer.
I recently played that onstream and it's really fun.
It's still really, really fun.
Also, backyard football isdefinitely one that was in high
consideration.
I think out of all the backyardgames, I like the football one
(30:49):
the most.
But going back and playingsoccer, I'm not really really
sure.
Now I will call out WWE CrushHour, which was a racing game
that I recently reminded myselfexisted, and of course, you
could bring up any of thoseclassic wrestling games.
Here comes the pain.
You've got so many differentgenres in wrestling, so, like,
(31:13):
really, take a pick of thelitter and you'll probably have
some fun there.
The one I'm going to call outhere that is like I think nobody
knows, is Disney's extremelygoofy skateboarding.
If you remember the sequel to agoofy movie, they came out with
a game and I used to play theshit out of that skateboarding
(31:35):
game Absolutely, absolutelyinsane, and I don't know.
I think I was just like on aDisney kick there, because
there's also like Walt Disneyworld quest magical racing tour,
which was just like clearly aripoff of Mario Kart, but with
Disney characters.
But it worked.
You could drive through theHaunted Mansion Like it was just
(31:56):
a lot of fun.
So those were two Disney sportsrelated games that also kind of
went into my rotation in likethe late 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
There's that Disney kart racing game a Speedstorm.
That should have been a slamdunk and it's terrible.
It was the easiest layup disneycould have been given to make a
kart racer in the 2020s andit's awful.
So they dropped the ball there.
Eric, how about this one ssxtricky?
There absolutely should be amarket for now.
(32:29):
There is kind of a.
It's not like totally similarin like how ssx tricky was
really arcadey.
And over the top, there's agame out right now it's called
riders republic and you can do alot of different things.
You can do bmx biking, you cando snowboarding, you can, I
(32:50):
believe, do skateboarding orsomething along those lines, but
there is a game out there thatis that is very much catered to
do whatever you want.
It's it's gonna it's just gonnabe like a whole lot of fun.
Um, but ssx tricky definitelyshould still be around, like
snowboarding itself, I think,really lends itself to a lot of
really fun arcadey style action.
There is a I mean, if we'retalking about racing, which is
(33:13):
kind of like sports adjacent, Imean, it's really as simple as
giving me a updated and goodneed for speed underground game
like need for speed.
Uh, what was the need for speedthat came out in 2022, oh,
unbound was like, okay, it kindof scratched that itch, but it's
still just not the same.
(33:33):
And then really having somesort of arcadey style wwe
all-stars game like, I didn'treally like all stars too much,
but there should be a game likethat.
It doesn't have to releaseevery single year, obviously,
but giving us a game, that'sjust a lot.
That's a lot less of thetechnical stuff and the
(33:56):
grappling that we get in the 2kwwe games should also be a slam
dunk and I think they also triedthat.
There was another game that cameout after all stars, right,
that tried to do kind of like asimilar thing and it just wasn't
and I guess it was technicallyaw and that game is terrible.
So, yeah, the fact that thatdoesn't exist either and you
know, that also could have beenan easy slam dunk or layup for
(34:20):
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 andit 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 andsay that we could do this, but
we would certainly fund them ifwe could.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
No, a hundred percent , and I think for me I just it's
really been nice to go downmemory lane with a lot of these
different games.
Give them their shine, becausewe would never do like
individual episodes for any ofthese, like literally any of
them, as much as we love them.
We never would do that, phil.
I think it's now time to revealour ones, as we kind of start
to wrap up what is number one onyour list it's nhl hits.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
it's nhl hits and it's NHL hits.
And it's the one, specificallythat I played on the Xbox.
It was the original Xbox I'mtrying to think of, which one
NHL hits 2003.
The one with Anakin Skywalkerin the corner of the of the box.
Yep, the one with AnakinSkywalker.
(35:28):
It was that one.
And also the the one NHL hits2002.
So 2002, 2003,.
I would play that game.
And I don't even know how Icame into owning this game,
because I wasn't a hockey fan asa kid, I think I just knew that
it was adjacent to the NFLBlitz series and all of those
things.
So I think somehow I ended upwith it.
(35:51):
I don't know who bought it forme, or if I purchased it, who
knows what was going on, buthockey specifically lends itself
to this type of gameplay.
First off, it's in the name hits, so obviously hockey is a very
physical sport.
It's got the toughest peopleplaying that sport.
And then also it had theelement, eric, of being on fire.
(36:14):
So if, like, one of yourplayers started scoring a lot of
goals, they could catch fire,they could spin, move, they
could juke people out and juststart scoring goals at fucking
will.
And it was so much fun and youwould always get in shootouts
too.
It was, it was pretty, youcould get the difficulty to
where you could, it would bereally competitive against the c
CPU and it was just a reallyeasy game to play through.
You didn't have like a franchisemode you would do like a like
(36:36):
an elimination style game so youwould play the better teams as
you would rank up and you couldadd players to your team and get
better.
But I mean this was the heydayof 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 teamand just absolutely dominate.
So there is kind of a similarmode in the current day NHL
(36:59):
games.
They're not as crazy as, ofcourse, nhl hits, but I'm not
going to pay $70 for one modefor a hockey game, for a sport
that I also don't really knowanything about.
So maybe I would do like thatEA subscription for like a month
and get my fill and play it.
But if they came out with anNHL hits game today, I would
(37:21):
preorder whatever edition youwanted me to buy, any kind of
collector's edition.
I would get the back for bloodedition 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 first20 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 meold 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 bitof this, which is surprising
because this is absolutely myjam.
Like it's got the same likeelectricity of the characters
you see in like an NBA jam.
You got the uh, the puck movingin a way like it does in the
bigs and then there's justbeating the shit out of each
(38:01):
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 thefighting, which is the best part
box you literally just it'sincredible, it's so good.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
So I definitely like.
I'm surprised I didn't playthis more, but maybe that's
because of my number one game,and my number one game is blitz
the league, specifically blitzthe league 2.
This game is balls to the wall.
I don't know how it's made, Idon't know the the specifics.
I could probably do theresearch, but from real world
(38:35):
scandals being part of, like thecareer mode, to just the
gameplay of injecting yourplayers with clear steroids
clear steroids for them tocontinue playing to the injuries
that would be something like aI don't know a simple broken leg
.
To like a, a fracture withinyour rib that punctured your
(39:00):
lung, like the the absolutecraziness of the injuries and
then them showing thegraphicness of it, don't leave
out the best one, which is whenyour balls would explode.
Yeah, your testicle wouldexplode, Crack skull,
concussions galore.
I don't know how this is at allassociated with the NFL Blitz
(39:24):
series.
I don't know how that's allowed.
I don't know how you could haveLawrence 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 havelawrence taylor be on the front
of this game.
There's so much I don'tunderstand, I don't understand.
There's so much I don'tunderstand 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 understandwhy this wasn't your thing yeah,
those injuries were rough, butagain it was so revolutionary
and ballsy for and there's twoof 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 tookwhat you like about the arcade
game and then they turned it upby like 10,000.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Like forever.
Nba 2K has always tried toinfuse this story mode into my
player and it's always terrible.
People will know what I'mtalking about when you talk
about the Spike Lee days for 2K,and this gave you stories that
were like a really trashy HBOshow that you could not stop
(40:29):
watching.
It would be perfect.
I assume this is what Ballersis like.
I'm never going to watchBallers, but I assume that it's
like this so, yeah,unfortunately this would never
come out today.
It would have to be some sort ofindependent publisher on Steam.
So maybe there is somethingthat exists like that's in
similar vein, but I can'timagine people putting like a
(40:51):
publisher putting this mucheffort into stories, into
injuries, into gameplay.
All combined, you probablymaybe get like one or two of
those things out of the five youwanted.
But, yeah, the fact that thisgame exists and that they it was
successful enough to have asecond one before they were like
they pulled the plug on it ispretty crazy.
(41:13):
But even if you wanted to dothe original nfl blitz, I don't
know that they would do it justbecause of how violent it was.
And they don't.
They want the game even thoughit is in nature an incredibly
violent sport and all thoseathletes know what they're
signing up for.
I'm pretty sure they would signon for a new nfl blitz video
game.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
But yeah, unfortunately this one is
probably stuck in the past andwe'll, we'll stay there yeah,
and seeing the ratings for someof these games that we've talked
about, uh, really just likepissed me off.
So if you want to just be in abad mood and you like these
games, go look up, like theMetacritic or just like the, the
scores what are the reviews forfor FIFA Street 2 from like IGN
(41:56):
or something said.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
It didn't nail the essence of defense.
Bitch, I don't want to playdefense in NFL Street.
What the fuck are you?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
talking about.
I don't, I don't get it, man, II genuinely don't understand it
.
But so here's what I'll sayagain, this was a really fun
episode for us to be able to do,to reminisce, to talk about
some of these games and give youa little bit of insight into,
like some of the other gamesthat we know and love, that,
(42:25):
while we don't necessarily playtoday, we are craving, which is
why, again, if you see astreaming rematch like that's,
why is like getting that itch ofthis genre of gaming that is
essentially kind of dead in thewater right now.
I would love to see a comebackin any way, shape or form and,
phil, I think that is a greatway to maybe wrap things up on
(42:49):
just a really casual episodereminiscing 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 somany we didn't even get to
mention so many games that gotthe green light back in the day
that we just don't see anymore.
And I think a lot of that hasto do with, like publishers and
developers are under morepressure than well.
(43:15):
It's more so.
The developer is under morepressure than ever from the
publisher.
Like that, no one wants to takeany risks.
That's why we don't get atitanfall 3, you know, in in
these days, even though everyoneis clamoring, for it's why we
don't get a lot of innovation.
So when we see something comealong like a clear, obscure, uh,
like a south of midnight, youknow, like those games that are
(43:36):
breaking the mold and tryingsomething new.
That's why we're soappreciative of them.
So let us know what games againin this space, you would like
to see return.
Um, if you, if you think wecould ever return to this era of
gaming, we would love to hearfrom you.
So if you want to, let us knowone of the best ways to keep up
with us, you can find everythingyou need in the Linktree link,
(43:56):
in the show notes of this andevery single episode.
Follow us on social media overat Instagram, tiktok, join our
Discord channel Also.
Find a lot of our content onYouTube, 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 beneficialas well and follow Eric and I on
(44:21):
our personal channels.
You can find those prettyeasily while you're searching
through everything as well, butif 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 letyou 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 aresupporting us monthly and in
exchange they are gettingexclusive perks, like behind the
scenes, and early access toepisodes like this one.
So shout out to all of ourpatrons briar t3, kato, vintage
macaroni, cory from the world ismy burrito.
And nick casparo, the author ofthe vidalarium series several
(45:01):
of these people that wehopefully had a good time with
at infinity con in tallahassee.
It was a great time with atInfinity Con in Tallahassee.
It was a great time.
Really enjoyed the conventionand hope that you guys follow us
along for a lot of thesejourneys that we're doing here
locally here in Florida andeverything that we're doing
beyond that through social mediaand the podcast.
(45:21):
All those free things that Philmentioned go a long way and if
you can go the extra mile tosupport us more, patreon is the
place to do it.
With all that being said, myname is Mr Eric Almighty.
That is my co-host, phil theFilipino, and please don't
forget that we release newepisodes every Wednesday for the
podcast and all you got to dois wait for it.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment.
Wait for it.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Gaming.
Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino.
Yeah, they've got you covered.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
And all you gotta do is wait for it.
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Hey, everyone, welcome back tothe Wait For it Podcast.
(00:37):
I am your co-host, phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and
for this edition of the GameRoom, where it happens, we're
not just going to reminisceabout 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 daysthe way they used to, and that's
those classic sports games,those arcade-y fun sports games
(01:02):
that, phil, just don't seem toexist in 2025.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
This is going to be a very much a old man get off my
lawn type of episode and a typeof game that they, like you,
said they don't.
They just don't make anymoreand I think they're kind of
afraid to make, and we'll talkabout that here as the episode
moves along.
So very excited to jump intothis conversation.
Just going to be a fun lightconvo and probably a relatively
(01:31):
short episode, although we dosay that a lot, and then we got
45 minutes out of the bad guysthe other day.
So who knows what's going tohappen with this episode.
But as you can tell in the title, we're going to be talking
about classic sports games fromour childhood and also more
recent as well.
So if you want to keep up withthe way for a podcast and any
other games that we have talkedabout here on this series, make
(01:51):
sure you stick around to thevery end and we'll let you know
where you can find all the restof that content.
But yeah, eric, let's just jumpinto this here and you know,
when we're talking about classicsports games, we're talking
about your NFL blitzes, your NBAjams, nhl hits, even to an
extent like a Tony Hawk's proskater, some of the old WWF WCW
games.
(02:11):
When you think about this genre, eric, I know your brain goes
to a specific set of games.
So where would you like tostart, because really we could
go anywhere with thisconversation.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, and that's interesting, right, Because we
were talking in the pre-show alittle bit about how we might
want to tackle this.
And I think for me, maybe let'sstart by talking about, like,
why we wanted to do this episode.
And then I personally have likea holy trinity of sports games.
(02:45):
I have three games that Iconsider to be like if I was to
die tomorrow and I had to playonly three of these games in
this genre, what would they be?
And there's so many to choosefrom, so many honorable mentions
.
But I think we could probablycircle around that because I
feel like I'm pretty sureactually that ours will be
(03:07):
completely different, actuallypretty confident.
So, phil, I mean I guess I'lljust kind of kick things off
with the fact that you knowbeing born in the nineties and I
know you're like I think youwere born in the seventies, like
early eighties, so it's alittle different.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was born in 88.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So I'm barely an 80s kid.
Okay, still an 80s kid.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, but again, I was born before you and you are
now older than me, so that's nothow that works, so yeah,
there'll be a generationaldifference in this episode?
Speaker 1 (03:39):
There's not a generational difference at all.
Phil, you can't keepinterrupting me.
I know that's an 80s thing, butyou can't keep chiming in.
Yeah, so generationaldifferences on this episode.
But being a nineties kid, Ireally feel like Phil and this
is why I chose this as the coverart for this episode.
(04:00):
It was around 97 with backyardbaseball, these backyard sports
games where I'm not saying thereweren't like sports games in
arcades you know, you got yourNFL blitzes and stuff like that
but like when it actually whenwe talk about like video games
in general, I felt like it wasaround this time where this
became like a craze.
(04:22):
It became something very popularand again, not that it hadn't
been done before, but we startedto see an influx in the mid to
late 90s, going into the early2000s, of people taking very
popular sports genres and justmeshing them into that arcade-y
fun style, giving characters bigheads and being able to jump a
(04:47):
thousand hundred feet into theair, like, again, all these type
of little things where youwould be able to have a lot of
fun.
And at some point we turned intowanting to make these sports
games more realistic and that'sprobably happened in the last
decade or so, more than everbefore.
So when we played a game in2025 like rematch, which kind of
(05:12):
gave us like similar vibes of agame that we really missed, a
game style we really missed, itmade a lot of sense to jump into
this particular theme, thisparticular topic.
So, phil, again, I know you'regoing to have an extreme
difference based off of you know, when you were born, but what
was your kind of like thoughtabout this whole genre as a
(05:36):
whole from the early days to now?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Early days is crazy, so back in the day early days is
crazy.
So back in the day, so with withthis, like again back when I
was like a kid, you know, likegrowing up in the 90s, it was
kind of I didn't play a wholelot of non-sports games because
I was also a very active kid Iwas playing baseball, I was
(06:00):
playing, you know, soccer, I wasplaying basketball.
So I wanted to play games thatlike that sports was my
basically my entire life.
Sports and Nickelodeon, likethat was my entire personality
back in the 90s.
So games like NFL Blitz Iremember there was a we would go
to a community pool in the townthat I grew up in in Michigan
(06:21):
and I always had to make sure Ihad 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 dayfootball or quarterback club,
like those were the sports gamesthat were out like simulation
style, like we have now.
So when something like that,like you said, like big head
mode and you could late hiteverybody and like stuff like
(06:42):
that was just totally unheard of.
So those kind of games are, youcan like hear them in the uh,
in the arcade, like when we goto leaderboard and we that's one
of the games we always seek outis nfl blitz.
It's always a whole lot of fun.
And then when you talk aboutthe, you know the backyard
baseballs, like you said.
For me, nhl hits is one I'lldefinitely bring up here and
(07:04):
lengthen in just a moment.
And honestly, what it comes downto now is people are afraid to
make these games because ofconcussions, that's everything.
That's why you don't seeheadshots in wrestling.
It's why they don't glorify thebig hit.
Remember, like in the early2000s, you could Google Ray
Lewis big hit compilation and itwould have.
It would go at whatever viralwas back then.
(07:26):
People would look for thosehits.
And and then now we see whatthese older players are going
through now, when everyone'slike, oh, we should probably not
make a game where you decide togive a NFL player, a football
player, pills to get them backonto the field.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
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 yourfavorite compilation of ray
lewis sean taylor sean taylor isthe goat and it would always be
to.
Here comes the boom so or bodiesor you have the bodies to the
(08:05):
floor, you know any type ofaggressive like headbanging song
or something that really fitthe mold of.
I really want to hurt thisperson.
And when we talk about the holytrinity of games, I have a
football game that is absolutelywould never be made today and
I'm excited to talk about thatand phil knows I love that game
(08:25):
way too fucking much.
But yeah, I have a perfectexample for that.
But there's just like so manydifferent things and you know we
are going to talk about some ofthe big ones, like you know
basketball, baseball, footballbut there's other things too.
There's been great hockey gamesbeen great, uh, skateboarding
games.
We talk.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Did you play Hot Shots Golf?
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Why does that sound so familiar?
It was a.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
PlayStation game.
It was out in the PS2, 3, and 4.
Oh yeah, and I miss Hot ShotsGolf.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I was going to say there's probably some really
great golf games too.
There's just so many differenttypes of sports.
We mentioned wrestling a littlebit as well, and there'll be a
couple of arcadey ones weprobably bring up.
So, again, it won't just be thebig sports that, like you may
know of.
There's just so many differentgenres, phil, that there was
(09:20):
something coming out for everysingle type of sport known to
man, and now we can barely get aconsistent one for a single
genre, and I just think that's abummer.
So what I'm thinking is that wetalk about our kind of like
(09:40):
Holy Trinity, our top three ofsports games, and we kind of see
where the conversation takes us.
Maybe before that first one, wethrow out some honorable
mentions.
But yeah, I mean, I think Ihave 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 inor I know what number one is.
So I think between two andthree it would be a little
difficult.
I guess we'll just start here.
So number three for me would belike the um, the hot shots golf
series, just in in general golf, what?
(10:26):
Why do we like top golf?
Right, you just go in, yousmack the shit out of the ball.
I don't want to putt, I don'twant to chip, I want to go in
there with a, with a driver, andjust smack the shit out of it
and make it go as far aspossible and rack up those
points.
And yes, you did have to dosome of those other things in
hot shots, but because it was socartoony, arcadey, it had
(10:50):
really fun courses, it hadreally like wacky looking
characters and I really dobelieve that there could be a
like a, a community that wouldwant to play that game now.
And there are games that arekind of like spiritual
successors that are out, butthey're not.
There's, like everybody golf,which I think was similar, but
(11:10):
that might have been a vr game,if I remember correctly, or
maybe that was just a differentseries.
I'm not 100 sure, but regulargolf is boring, all right, I I
don't think we have anylisteners here that just watch
the Masters on a yearly basis.
Once Tiger Woods I mean he'sstill active, but once Tiger
(11:30):
Woods was out of his prime, myinterest in golf also left.
I listened to this sports radioshow on ESPN, which is
absolutely terrible, but likeit'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 thatthese two golfers, whose names I
cannot remember, have the bestrivalry in sports and I was like
(11:52):
who the fuck are these guysLike?
I understand a one on onerivalry, like it wanted to be,
like people wanted it to beTiger Woods and Phil Mickelson
back in the day, and it reallywasn't.
Tiger Woods was just reallygood.
I understand that one-on-onerivalries, like tennis, you know
, serena versus Venus, stufflike that Federer versus Nadal
those are cool, but I don't knowwho these golfers are.
(12:13):
I think it's like Brooks Koepkaand somebody else.
But the regular, justday-to-day sports fan doesn't
know who those people are andit's one of the most frustrating
takes I've ever heard on a showthat has a lot of really stupid
takes which, again, I don'tknow why, I listen to it.
But when you can make somethingreally mundane, a lot of fun,
(12:33):
like the Mario Golf games.
Are also Any of the Mariosports 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 definitelyput Hot Shots on there and I
would love to see it make somekind of return.
Even if it was just like a youknow kind of a spiritual
successor on Steam, I would playit.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I mean that's a great choice.
It's again one I like forgotabout honestly.
It's again one I like forgotabout honestly.
And you obviously have beenmore 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 abad choice at all.
I think man for me, because Ididn'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 theone that I don't think a lot of
people would have in their topthree.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So I'm going to go with the Biggs series Damn, I
really thought Biggs was goingto be number one.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I know, I love the Biggs man.
I love the Biggs, you know youcan emulate that game.
I would love to.
I need to, because the bigs twois crazy Everything from the
way the ball zips around thefield you know the baseball
field to throwing the that you'dbe able to completely hit the
ball out of the park All of thethings that were happening on
(14:06):
screen.
I also think this is a fairlygood looking video game, for I
think it was 2007 when it cameout.
I really just enjoyed it.
They had a career mode and alegends mode that I definitely
sunk some time into.
They obviously, you know theyhave the home run derby type
style game modes that you canplay as well.
I remember you were able tolike do it in a city.
(14:29):
I believe like the backdropsweren't just baseball fields,
like in some of those mini gamemodes.
They would have like reallyunique styles and feels.
I really enjoyed the bigsseries, but the Biggs 2
specifically is the one I sunkthe most time in and, phil, I've
always said it I feel likebaseball is like such a boring
(14:50):
sport to watch on TV.
But going to a baseball and aperfectly crafted baseball game
yeah, sign me up for that.
I I mean everybody knows aboutbackyard baseball.
That's a close contender, butthis one, I think just brought
the actual realism, a little bitof baseball, like the actual
franchises, the setting, and itjust elevated it with that
(15:13):
arcade style where backyardbaseball again was very much
just kids playing baseball intheir backyard, which is a
different vibe, although PabloSanchez 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 ofthose bigs elements, especially
when you hit a big home run.
It also has old school playersin it as well, so you might
recognize some of them.
There's like David Ortiz andstuff like that.
So you probably write Randyandyjohnson, you recognize some of
those players.
So I do think that's somethingyou should look into at least
(15:46):
again, a spiritual successor toa game such as the bigs.
And yeah, it just really doesn'tmake any sense.
Well, actually it does makesense 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 thoseguys watching those guys, jose,
(16:09):
can say go more.
Like those watching thoseroided up guys.
Barry Bonds with those giantheads hit dingers out of the
park.
Man, that's the baseball that Iwant to go back to, and you're
right.
Going man, that's the baseballthat I want to go back to, and
you're right, going to abaseball game is one of the most
like relaxing, fun experiencesyou can do with a group of
friends.
Have a beer, enjoy a game, havea hot dog I really just go for
the hot dogs, but the baseballis cool as well too.
(16:36):
But it is one of those thingsthat's like watching it on TV
just does not translate verywell unless you're a really big
fan of that team and it's likethe playoffs.
I'll watch playoff baseballfrom time to time, but I can't
tell you the last time I watcheda baseball game on tv.
So you'd think they'd want totry and infuse some sort of
arcadiness into baseball just tobring in younger fans and also,
to your point, like baseball ona video game.
(16:56):
Think about we sports.
The baseball feature is one ofthe most popular things on there
.
Baseball, golf and bowlingthose three things are like the
most popular.
Wii Sports, I think, is thehighest selling sports game of
all time.
It's kind of cheating becauseit came with every Nintendo Wii,
but still I can't tell you howdifficult it was as a former
(17:18):
GameStop employee to keep keepwii sports in stock in the wii's
heyday.
So it just makes sense thatbaseball should embrace the
arcadiness and like get backinto 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 ofthose things where I think
baseball specifically just wasin such a time capsule when it
came to games.
I don't think they'll reallyever replicate that.
But yeah, again, the bigs isone of those games where I think
almost kind of like you know,like hot shot golf, like it's
(17:51):
one of those games that's like apersonal choice where, like, I
think the next two are a littlebit more wide appealing.
So I'm very curious whereyou're going to go for number
two, because while you know whatmy 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 waspretty comfortable with where I
was going to put one and two.
Okay, yeah, yeah, just based onhow much I played them, I will
will put FIFA Street, theoriginal FIFA Street which came
out in.
Give me just a moment, I thinkit was FIFA Street 2, actually
(18:26):
was the one that I was really,really into.
That's the one I think weplayed 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 SportsBig publisher.
So all those games that they putout back in the day and this
(18:47):
one, this is again a sport Idon't care about, which is why
it's pretty crazy.
We're so invested in rematchbecause it does.
While it's not full on fifastreet.
It is arcadey enough andrewarding enough that it brings
back a similar feel to the fifastreet series.
I just came out on all consoles, um, as well as mobile phone.
(19:09):
That's interesting.
I remember when they tried tothrow every single ea game on a
mobile phone, but fifa streetwas so incredibly arcadey it had
a lot of those big name playersas well that, like you know,
international football fanswould recognize.
Pele, I'm pretty sure, is that?
Who is that on the cover?
I don't know any.
(19:29):
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 thisis Messi on the cover.
Yeah, messi is on the cover ofthe first game, but again there
was just something about thefreestyle.
So it very much was.
It basically was just like NBAStreet, except with soccer, and
I think with soccer it's alittle bit more impressive
because you're pulling thesetricks off Street, except with
(20:00):
soccer, and I think with soccerit's a little bit more
impressive because you'repulling these tricks off like,
obviously, with only your feet,and the type of goals that you
can score the team, like theteam ups you could do were just
so much fun.
And then by the time FIFA Streetthree came out, they were
trying to make it a little bittoo like much of a simulator,
like it was too much likeregular FIFA.
It was still arcadey, but itjust wasn't the same.
(20:20):
So when that one came out itwas like a huge bummer.
So I would even like to seerematch go deeper into the FIFA
Street-esque style of gameplay,because really the only thing
you can do, eric, is like thatone trick, like where you pop
the ball over their head right.
I want a FIFA Street 2 whereI'm like literally crossing over
people like Allen Iverson witha soccer ball.
That's what I want.
(20:46):
And these crazy tricks.
And and then also the reallycool goal animations, like or
like when you like an NBA Street, like when you did an alley-oop
.
There was stuff like that inFIFA Street and FIFA Street 2
and I would just love for themto bring that back like FIFA.
Well, first off, the FIFA namedoesn't exist anymore.
That's why it's like FC25 orwhatever.
But they could definitely builda game like this and I don't
think there's any negativeconnotation as far as I know and
(21:08):
if there are any football fanslistening to us, let us know but
I don't think there would beany negative connotations to
having this style of game stillstick around.
I don't know if maybe it was ait didn't sell very well or it
was just again.
Remember back in the day, likeback in these times, there were
just so many of these types ofgames, so maybe they were all a
dime a dozen, but I would loveto see this style of football
(21:30):
slash soccer game come back andI would pay good money to see it
happen.
Maybe you strip it from EA andhave somebody else make it for
sure.
But remember they did after,did after NFL.
What did they have?
Nfl, they had like a quoteunquote blitz style game.
What was that called NFL?
What?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Oh my God.
Yeah, I know what you'retalking about.
It was so bad.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
It wasn't good.
It had like Sean Merriman onthe 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 ofthe 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 stylegameplay into that.
Not hits wise, but like as faras jumping off walls and making
crazy trick plays, it's just notfun.
So, uh yeah, keep anything likethat away from ea and maybe
we'll be back maybe we'll beback.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, fifa street was one of my honorable mentions.
Honestly, it's probably four orfive like it's right outside
the cusp any of the first twoand I you know I didn't hate the
third one, but any of the firsttwo fifa streets specifically.
There are two things I want tomention and add to that game is
one we're like we're playingrematch and enjoying it for very
similar aspects.
(22:47):
Rematch still has a little bitof that like challenge because
it's a bigger field, but likefifa 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, likepeople 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.
And then my other favorite thingis just the fucking replays,
the replays were so good in thatgame so yeah, just from the
gameplay, the thing about all ofthese games is that they're not
all very challenging, but youcan get like really good, like
(23:27):
with practice, like they're notextremely challenging where it
stops newcomers from wanting toplay it.
I think one of the things thatI noticed the most when it came
to these type of style of gamesis this is the type of game you
could bring on a friend to playwith you who's never played the
sport or never watched the sportbefore, and they can find some
fun and enjoyment in it.
(23:48):
So fever street's just such agreat example of that and I
think also my number two is agreat example of that.
Now I've really had to sit hereand 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 somuch fun.
(24:11):
Phil, as the uh, the basketballperson, 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 seein like an arcade-y basketball.
Yeah, sure, you got the bighead mode and stuff like that,
but the real fun here is notjust shooting the ball but
obviously dunking it Like ifyou're gonna have an arcade-y
(24:35):
style basketball game, the dunkshave to feel special and, god
forbid, you get on fire and youlaunch yourself millions of
miles into the air to dunk thatball.
How that glass doesn't shattereach time I'll never know, but
it's such a fun game.
It's probably the most popularseries that I'm going to have on
(24:56):
my list and shouldn't besurprising to see it on many
others.
But whether you're playing itarcade style or whether you're
playing it with a controller,I've always had equal amounts of
funds Add in the fun of playingas a mascot and like the little
modes they have.
It's nothing like it's nothinggenre breaking.
It doesn't really reinvent thewheel.
(25:17):
It does things at a simple, ata simple pace that they just
should be accomplishing and Ithink for that reason I've just
always appreciated this series.
Shout out to the on fireedition that I played on the
Xbox more times than I couldcount.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
Yeah, for me, the reason I think I don't resonate
with this as much as you do isbasketball is one of those games
where I prefer simulation style, because I am such a big fan.
So, and also, you just whoop myass in the 2010 version.
I'll also be honest, like youjust got so good at that game, I
was like how are you puttingthis much?
time into nba jam, I will saythere is a fun spiritual
(25:56):
successor that we play atleaderboard.
It's called nba superstars andit's not the exact same, but it
is a good time.
So if you go to an arcade andyou see yourself and you see the
big arcade box, it's, it'spretty fun, um, and it is nice
to play with, like the updatedplayers as well.
So, but yeah, for nba jam, itis a whole lot of fun.
I just wasn't as good at it, um, because again, I was focusing
(26:18):
more like I've been playing nbalive and then nba 2k since like
1998, like that was mybasketball experience.
The only other game that Iplayed that was similar.
There was a basketball game onthe Sega Saturn and it was
centered around one player.
(26:39):
Oh my God, what was it?
I'm so dating myself here.
I am so mad about this, but itwas a basketball game.
Michael Jordan?
No, I think it might have beenKareem Abdul-Jabbar, what he was
like, the only licensed playerin the game.
Late 70s, early 80s.
I hear you.
Jordan?
No, I think it might have beenkareem abdul-jabbar, like it was
a what it was.
He was like the only licensedplayer in the game late 70s,
early 80s.
I hear you no it came out in thesega saturn, which was in the
(27:00):
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 isalso a series that should just
simply exist right now.
Like why wouldn't?
I feel like it would be veryit's all about content creation
(27:21):
and streaming now, right, Ithink it would be very much
appealing to to streamers.
I also think that it would bereally fun in terms of, like,
the competitive nature of thegame.
What's the difference between anNBA jam style game and a
fighting game like a Super SmashBrothers?
I don't really see what thedifference is there.
Those should both exist in acompetitive space, right?
(27:41):
I don't, I don't, maybe it'sbecause it's three on three, but
maybe it's because it's sportsand I don't know.
I don't.
I don't get it.
But NBA Jam is, I think, out ofall of these games on our list,
should be the one that's stillaround easiest, and then maybe
Hot Shots Golf right behind it.
But NBA Jam specifically has noreason to not be around right
now.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah, no, that's 100% accurate.
And, like I said, even likewhen we talk about, when we're
talking about a lot of thesegames like you know, you brought
up Fever Street I think aboutbackyard, uh, backyard soccer.
Those backyard games have life,I think, in 2025, and that's
like the most simplistic versionof the classic sport game.
(28:23):
So when we're talking about annba jam, I think it's totally
doable.
It's totally doable if people'stotally doable, if people want
those older games theydefinitely 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 beprobably a free to play game at
(28:43):
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, ifyou you're gonna have a battle
pass, you know, yeah, so I thinkthat's probably why I mean it
is it's.
It shows up a lot in myalgorithm, but I'm also playing
the game, so I don't know howmuch.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
How much it's showing up outside of us, you know,
agreed no 100, yeah, and I justthink it's one of those things
where they made a mistake there.
I think a lot of these could belike very cheap or free to play
games and people could reallyjust sink a lot of time into
them and maybe you want to uselike, if you're these, these
leagues and these companies Idon't know how realistic this
(29:19):
would be, but you could use itto promote your major game like
your main franchise game, somaybe that could be something
that they consider in the future.
I have no clue if that's everin the cards.
But yeah, those are our numberthree and number two spots.
Phil, this is probably a greatspot for both of us to throw out
any honorable mentions, andthese may not necessarily be
(29:42):
games that are actually inconsideration for top three, but
are games that we want to bringup in this style of an episode,
because this is really going tobe our only chance to ever yeah
, I was trying to find out howmany 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 gamesthat should definitely still
exist.
I'm trying to think of some ofthe the other ones while I look
that up.
Eric, what, what did you havefor other honorable mentions?
Because I need to kind of lookup some here yeah, no, that's
(30:27):
totally fair.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
So for me I'm gonna bring up just a couple um, you
know we talked about thebackyard games.
Uh, and I I really just wantedto highlight backyard soccer.
I recently played that onstream and it's really fun.
It's still really, really fun.
Also, backyard football isdefinitely one that was in high
consideration.
I think out of all the backyardgames, I like the football one
(30:49):
the most.
But going back and playingsoccer, I'm not really really
sure.
Now I will call out WWE CrushHour, which was a racing game
that I recently reminded myselfexisted, and of course, you
could bring up any of thoseclassic wrestling games.
Here comes the pain.
You've got so many differentgenres in wrestling, so, like,
(31:13):
really, take a pick of thelitter and you'll probably have
some fun there.
The one I'm going to call outhere that is like I think nobody
knows, is Disney's extremelygoofy skateboarding.
If you remember the sequel to agoofy movie, they came out with
a game and I used to play theshit out of that skateboarding
(31:35):
game Absolutely, absolutelyinsane, and I don't know.
I think I was just like on aDisney kick there, because
there's also like Walt Disneyworld quest magical racing tour,
which was just like clearly aripoff of Mario Kart, but with
Disney characters.
But it worked.
You could drive through theHaunted Mansion Like it was just
(31:56):
a lot of fun.
So those were two Disney sportsrelated games that also kind of
went into my rotation in likethe late 90s, early 2000s.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
There's that Disney kart racing game a Speedstorm.
That should have been a slamdunk and it's terrible.
It was the easiest layup disneycould have been given to make a
kart racer in the 2020s andit's awful.
So they dropped the ball there.
Eric, how about this one ssxtricky?
There absolutely should be amarket for now.
(32:29):
There is kind of a.
It's not like totally similarin like how ssx tricky was
really arcadey.
And over the top, there's agame out right now it's called
riders republic and you can do alot of different things.
You can do bmx biking, you cando snowboarding, you can, I
(32:50):
believe, do skateboarding orsomething along those lines, but
there is a game out there thatis that is very much catered to
do whatever you want.
It's it's gonna it's just gonnabe like a whole lot of fun.
Um, but ssx tricky definitelyshould still be around, like
snowboarding itself, I think,really lends itself to a lot of
really fun arcadey style action.
There is a I mean, if we'retalking about racing, which is
(33:13):
kind of like sports adjacent, Imean, it's really as simple as
giving me a updated and goodneed for speed underground game
like need for speed.
Uh, what was the need for speedthat came out in 2022, oh,
unbound was like, okay, it kindof scratched that itch, but it's
still just not the same.
(33:33):
And then really having somesort of arcadey style wwe
all-stars game like, I didn'treally like all stars too much,
but there should be a game likethat.
It doesn't have to releaseevery single year, obviously,
but giving us a game, that'sjust a lot.
That's a lot less of thetechnical stuff and the
(33:56):
grappling that we get in the 2kwwe games should also be a slam
dunk and I think they also triedthat.
There was another game that cameout after all stars, right,
that tried to do kind of like asimilar thing and it just wasn't
and I guess it was technicallyaw and that game is terrible.
So, yeah, the fact that thatdoesn't exist either and you
know, that also could have beenan easy slam dunk or layup for
(34:20):
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 andit 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 andsay that we could do this, but
we would certainly fund them ifwe could.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
No, a hundred percent , and I think for me I just it's
really been nice to go downmemory lane with a lot of these
different games.
Give them their shine, becausewe would never do like
individual episodes for any ofthese, like literally any of
them, as much as we love them.
We never would do that, phil.
I think it's now time to revealour ones, as we kind of start
to wrap up what is number one onyour list it's nhl hits.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
it's nhl hits and it's NHL hits.
And it's the one, specificallythat I played on the Xbox.
It was the original Xbox I'mtrying to think of, which one
NHL hits 2003.
The one with Anakin Skywalkerin the corner of the of the box.
Yep, the one with AnakinSkywalker.
(35:28):
It was that one.
And also the the one NHL hits2002.
So 2002, 2003,.
I would play that game.
And I don't even know how Icame into owning this game,
because I wasn't a hockey fan asa kid, I think I just knew that
it was adjacent to the NFLBlitz series and all of those
things.
So I think somehow I ended upwith it.
(35:51):
I don't know who bought it forme, or if I purchased it, who
knows what was going on, buthockey specifically lends itself
to this type of gameplay.
First off, it's in the name hits, so obviously hockey is a very
physical sport.
It's got the toughest peopleplaying that sport.
And then also it had theelement, eric, of being on fire.
(36:14):
So if, like, one of yourplayers started scoring a lot of
goals, they could catch fire,they could spin, move, they
could juke people out and juststart scoring goals at fucking
will.
And it was so much fun and youwould always get in shootouts
too.
It was, it was pretty, youcould get the difficulty to
where you could, it would bereally competitive against the c
CPU and it was just a reallyeasy game to play through.
You didn't have like a franchisemode you would do like a like
(36:36):
an elimination style game so youwould play the better teams as
you would rank up and you couldadd players to your team and get
better.
But I mean this was the heydayof 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 teamand just absolutely dominate.
So there is kind of a similarmode in the current day NHL
(36:59):
games.
They're not as crazy as, ofcourse, nhl hits, but I'm not
going to pay $70 for one modefor a hockey game, for a sport
that I also don't really knowanything about.
So maybe I would do like thatEA subscription for like a month
and get my fill and play it.
But if they came out with anNHL hits game today, I would
(37:21):
preorder whatever edition youwanted me to buy, any kind of
collector's edition.
I would get the back for bloodedition 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 first20 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 meold 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 bitof this, which is surprising
because this is absolutely myjam.
Like it's got the same likeelectricity of the characters
you see in like an NBA jam.
You got the uh, the puck movingin a way like it does in the
bigs and then there's justbeating the shit out of each
(38:01):
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 thefighting, which is the best part
box you literally just it'sincredible, it's so good.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
So I definitely like.
I'm surprised I didn't playthis more, but maybe that's
because of my number one game,and my number one game is blitz
the league, specifically blitzthe league 2.
This game is balls to the wall.
I don't know how it's made, Idon't know the the specifics.
I could probably do theresearch, but from real world
(38:35):
scandals being part of, like thecareer mode, to just the
gameplay of injecting yourplayers with clear steroids
clear steroids for them tocontinue playing to the injuries
that would be something like aI don't know a simple broken leg
.
To like a, a fracture withinyour rib that punctured your
(39:00):
lung, like the the absolutecraziness of the injuries and
then them showing thegraphicness of it, don't leave
out the best one, which is whenyour balls would explode.
Yeah, your testicle wouldexplode, Crack skull,
concussions galore.
I don't know how this is at allassociated with the NFL Blitz
(39:24):
series.
I don't know how that's allowed.
I don't know how you could haveLawrence 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 havelawrence taylor be on the front
of this game.
There's so much I don'tunderstand, I don't understand.
There's so much I don'tunderstand 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 understandwhy this wasn't your thing yeah,
those injuries were rough, butagain it was so revolutionary
and ballsy for and there's twoof 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 tookwhat you like about the arcade
game and then they turned it upby like 10,000.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Like forever.
Nba 2K has always tried toinfuse this story mode into my
player and it's always terrible.
People will know what I'mtalking about when you talk
about the Spike Lee days for 2K,and this gave you stories that
were like a really trashy HBOshow that you could not stop
(40:29):
watching.
It would be perfect.
I assume this is what Ballersis like.
I'm never going to watchBallers, but I assume that it's
like this so, yeah,unfortunately this would never
come out today.
It would have to be some sort ofindependent publisher on Steam.
So maybe there is somethingthat exists like that's in
similar vein, but I can'timagine people putting like a
(40:51):
publisher putting this mucheffort into stories, into
injuries, into gameplay.
All combined, you probablymaybe get like one or two of
those things out of the five youwanted.
But, yeah, the fact that thisgame exists and that they it was
successful enough to have asecond one before they were like
they pulled the plug on it ispretty crazy.
(41:13):
But even if you wanted to dothe original nfl blitz, I don't
know that they would do it justbecause of how violent it was.
And they don't.
They want the game even thoughit is in nature an incredibly
violent sport and all thoseathletes know what they're
signing up for.
I'm pretty sure they would signon for a new nfl blitz video
game.
Speaker 1 (41:33):
But yeah, unfortunately this one is
probably stuck in the past andwe'll, we'll stay there yeah,
and seeing the ratings for someof these games that we've talked
about, uh, really just likepissed me off.
So if you want to just be in abad mood and you like these
games, go look up, like theMetacritic or just like the, the
scores what are the reviews forfor FIFA Street 2 from like IGN
(41:56):
or something said.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
It didn't nail the essence of defense.
Bitch, I don't want to playdefense in NFL Street.
What the fuck are you?
Speaker 1 (42:04):
talking about.
I don't, I don't get it, man, II genuinely don't understand it
.
But so here's what I'll sayagain, this was a really fun
episode for us to be able to do,to reminisce, to talk about
some of these games and give youa little bit of insight into,
like some of the other gamesthat we know and love, that,
(42:25):
while we don't necessarily playtoday, we are craving, which is
why, again, if you see astreaming rematch like that's,
why is like getting that itch ofthis genre of gaming that is
essentially kind of dead in thewater right now.
I would love to see a comebackin any way, shape or form and,
phil, I think that is a greatway to maybe wrap things up on
(42:49):
just a really casual episodereminiscing 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 somany we didn't even get to
mention so many games that gotthe green light back in the day
that we just don't see anymore.
And I think a lot of that hasto do with, like publishers and
developers are under morepressure than well.
(43:15):
It's more so.
The developer is under morepressure than ever from the
publisher.
Like that, no one wants to takeany risks.
That's why we don't get atitanfall 3, you know, in in
these days, even though everyoneis clamoring, for it's why we
don't get a lot of innovation.
So when we see something comealong like a clear, obscure, uh,
like a south of midnight, youknow, like those games that are
(43:36):
breaking the mold and tryingsomething new.
That's why we're soappreciative of them.
So let us know what games againin this space, you would like
to see return.
Um, if you, if you think wecould ever return to this era of
gaming, we would love to hearfrom you.
So if you want to, let us knowone of the best ways to keep up
with us, you can find everythingyou need in the Linktree link,
(43:56):
in the show notes of this andevery single episode.
Follow us on social media overat Instagram, tiktok, join our
Discord channel Also.
Find a lot of our content onYouTube, 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 beneficialas well and follow Eric and I on
(44:21):
our personal channels.
You can find those prettyeasily while you're searching
through everything as well, butif 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 letyou 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 aresupporting us monthly and in
exchange they are gettingexclusive perks, like behind the
scenes, and early access toepisodes like this one.
So shout out to all of ourpatrons briar t3, kato, vintage
macaroni, cory from the world ismy burrito.
And nick casparo, the author ofthe vidalarium series several
(45:01):
of these people that wehopefully had a good time with
at infinity con in tallahassee.
It was a great time with atInfinity Con in Tallahassee.
It was a great time.
Really enjoyed the conventionand hope that you guys follow us
along for a lot of thesejourneys that we're doing here
locally here in Florida andeverything that we're doing
beyond that through social mediaand the podcast.
(45:21):
All those free things that Philmentioned go a long way and if
you can go the extra mile tosupport us more, patreon is the
place to do it.
With all that being said, myname is Mr Eric Almighty.
That is my co-host, phil theFilipino, and please don't
forget that we release newepisodes every Wednesday for the
podcast and all you got to dois wait for it.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
This is the Wait For it Podcast.
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