Does anyone smell that? We're getting a whiff of shady business practices and microtransactions which must mean we're talking EA. All jokes aside (as truthful as they may be) EA used to be a force to be reckoned with and, in terms of sales, they still are today.
Regardless of how you feel about the company, there's no denying EA has almost single-handedly pioneered the sports game genre. From Madden to FIFA to NBA Street to SSX, the list goes on. They might have one of the most prolific catalogs in the entire industry and that's why today we're going to narrow down the 10 best that EA Sports has ever put out.
10 Fight Night Champion
It's a shame that boxing hasn't held the spotlight it used to in the last century, but nobody told EA that, and we're glad for it. Fight Night Champion not only takes the best characters and elements of boxing but also has the sweet addition of the UFC.
The UFC had already been going strong up to this point, but in the gaming scene, it barely made a dent. In comes this gaming wonder that felt like Marvel Vs. Capcom by combining two of the biggest fighting sports to date. This game could go head to head with many of the Fight Night games, but we think it stands on the top rope.
9 NBA Street Homecourt
Yup, you're seeing that right, Chris Paul is five feet above rim ready to yam sandwich that hoop into oblivion. This is NBA Street. The games knew how to have so much fun and were ten times better than their lifelike counterpart NBA Live.
You could breakdance the ball between your body, complete midair alley-oops and if that wasn't enough, you could double and triple dunk the ball (catching it and re-dunking it each time in all the glory that is that move). It came out in an era where EA didn't take itself too seriously -- we miss that era.
8 NHL
The NHL games are some of the best representations of their source material and have been beloved by hockey fans for a long time. Like Fifa and Madden, these games have faced many infamous changes over the years and in recent years have also been plagued with microtransactions.
Even if you aren't a fan of hockey these games are an absolute blast. The graphics are top-notch, the games feel extremely lively and who doesn't like a good fight? These games have everything and more, and their more contemporary titles have received less flak than the Fifa and Madden titles.
7 NCAA Football
It's a shame these games went away -- although the extreme mistreatment of NCAA athletes obviously goes first and foremost. You'd think that these games would be a rehash of the already wildly popular Madden games, but not only was that not the case, these games were, in a lot of ways, even better.
Like college football the games felt so fast and so fluid and were a heck of a lot more fun to play then the tiresome formula of the Madden games. The games still hold up in a lot of ways although you likely won't recognize most of the players unless you're a huge college football head.
6 Skate 3
The Tony Hawk games were dying, if not already dead by the time the Skate games broke onto the gaming scene, and boy were they the best skateboarding games this side of the Mississippi. These games reeked of style, were a heck of a lot of fun to play and like many of the Tony Hawk games, had one banging soundtrack.
You could just free skate for hours without getting bored and it definitely turned many onto the real sport of skateboarding. It was definitely the last great 3D skating game to come out.
5 SSX Tricky
Speaking of games that were the last good titles of its genre. Sure, they are passable snowboarding games today -- Steep does a fantastic job of showing the grandeur of the sport and Shaun White wasn't too shabby either -- but none are SSX.
The third game is pretty great and there were a few good titles here and there, but Tricky is the GOAT. It's one of those games that you can pick up without having any interest in snowboarding at all as it's just a blast from the opening cut scene which aptly blasts Run-DMC's "Tricky."
4 NBA Street Vol. 3
This was EA's best effort when it came to a basketball game, and we don't care if you have a $2000 dollar PC rig or only stick to mobile gaming, find a way to play this one.
Preferably on the GameCube where you can squad up with Mario, Luigi and Peach and break Allen Iverson's Ankles after dunking on Shaq. Oh yeah, that's 1000 percent possible.
3 NBA Jam
Many will defend the NBA Street games to their core, and will even take both games over their highly profitable 2K games. But all of them lose to the king, NBA Jam. This is one of those games that if it came out today it would set the entire gaming landscape on fire. It's two-on-two basketball with the best the golden 90's era of basketball had to offer.
Not only could you shatter backboards and shove players to the ground, but there was this commentator who had some of the best one-liners of all time. "He's heating up," "He’s on fire!” “BOOMSHAKALAKA” were some of the best lines featured in any game.
2 Madden
So we've already hated on this game a few times throughout this list. But no matter how much we'd love to bottom tier this thing to the shadow realm, there's no denying how great it once was and how influential it still is.
It made sports games mainstream, pioneered graphics many times, helped fans better understand the actual game and engineered a curse that only Tom Brady has fought off. The game is so big that it's become culture itself, something that we've become accustomed to seeing and likely won't stop seeing for a very long time.
1 FIFA
It's not always wise to judge a game by its sales, if we did that than Call of Duty would be the best game of all time. But when it comes to FIFA, the best-selling sports video game franchise of all time, and eleventh best selling game franchise overall we think an exception can be made.
The world loves soccer and FIFA just as much, and the U.S. is upping their culture game and is getting on the hype train themselves. It's also the GOAT of games perfect to just pick up and play one match of, fan of soccer or not.