10 Timeless Football Videogames

There aren't many video games upon which the mass market consumer and core gamer can agree, but when it comes to football, there's plenty of love on both sides.

Madden (based on legendary coach and broadcaster John Madden) is the undisputed king of the videogame football hill, but there are plenty of other titles that have captivated players throughout the years. Most of them are no longer around, due to industry consolidation, licensing deals or pure bad luck. But each of them can still bring a smile to the face of virtual gridiron fans.

By Chris Morris, Special to CNBC.com
Posted 19 Jan 2012

First published in 1988, the game is now one of the industry's best-selling titles on an annual basis. Its release each August, in fact, is a nightmare for some HR departments, as it's not uncommon for fans to call in sick to spend that first day playing the game. The 2012 installment registered first-week sales that were 10 percent higher than last year's game and 19 percent above the 2010 version. To date, it has brought in more than $3 billion for Electronic Arts.

If there was one game that could have given Madden a real challenge, it was Take-Two's NFL2K line. Adored by fans and praised by critics, the game teamed with ESPN to offer a different take on how football had traditionally been presented in videogames and saw its popularity increase each year. That came to a screeching halt in December 2004 when EA signed an exclusivity deal with the NFL, essentially killing the competition.

Instead of focusing on strategy, the Blitz series celebrated the rough side of football — specifically spectacular tackles. It started as an arcade game in 1997, but quickly found its way to home consoles. When developer Midway lost the NFL license in 2005, it ramped up the violence to an over-the-top level, winning some fans. The game, however, wasn't popular enough to save the company, which was liquidated in 2009. EA has brought Blitz back this year as an Xbox Live downloadable title, but at the request of the NFL it has dialed back the violence levels.

This arcade favorite from 1988 didn't feature any NFL licenses. Instead, the game was played by robots, which either had to score or get a first down before the ball exploded. (The robotic players would explode after too many hits, as well.) Realistic? Not even close, but the game's use of two screens and four simultaneous players made it a favorite quarter-gobbler among mall-goers of the time.

This EA series was, in some ways, a kinder, gentler Blitz. NFL pros were taken off the field and made to play by street rules, meaning seven-on-seven teams with no fouls and few penalties. Instead of focusing on hits, though, Street focused on style, rewarding players for huge plays or taunts of their opponents. The game did well, but not great, and was cancelled in 2006 after three installments.

Anyone who had a Nintendo Entertainment System likely remembers this 1989 hit, which was the one of the first games to feature real players and teams. Though it got its start in arcades, this was the gateway game for many long-term Madden fans. It's horribly outdated today, but the sense of nostalgia that surrounds it has prompted Nintendo to reissue the game several times. It’s available in both arcade and NES versions through its Virtual Console program on the Wii, which lets modern players sample historical games for a low price.

In the early 1990s, Sierra Online's sports line was even more popular than Madden games. The 1996 version, in fact, was at one time named the 11th best title of all time by Computer Gaming World. Problems at Sierra and a disastrous 1999 version of the game (which had to be recalled by the company) brought an end to the series, though — but not before the franchise had a chance to change how football videogames were made.

If you were a child of the late 1970s or early 1980s, there's a decent chance you had one of these in your back pocket a fair bit of the time. The game was primitive, consisting of horizontal and vertical lines. And it wasn't especially hard to beat, but the button mashing excitement and thrill of scoring against those imaginary opponents was arguably a bigger rush than that of many games today.

It's hard to contemplate today, but for 10 years, Sony's PlayStation division had its own sports development department — and that division (called 989 Studios) managed to give EA a run for its money for a while. In the days of the original PlayStation, the "GameDay" series was a strong brand, but when the PS2 came out, the game quickly fell out of favor. When EA signed its exclusivity deal with the NFL, the franchise was quickly killed, though few were around to mourn it at that point.

Sega's gridiron efforts are something of a legend in gaming. In 1991, the company signed the biggest athlete of the time — San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana — to a five-year, $1.7 million contract. The developer it hired to make the game, though, was in turmoil — and never got the job done, so Sega turned to EA for help. The finished product was nowhere near as good as that year's Madden game, though — and didn't hit shelves until January, which further hurt it. Despite that, Sega stuck with the franchise, eventually establishing its Genesis console as a top-tier sports gaming platform.