The 15 Most Violent Sports Video Games

Year: 2000
Developer: EA Sports Big
Sport: Snowboarding
System: Playstation 2
Lowdown: The original SSX was one of the launch games with PS2 and it's easy to see why: the game is fast, ridiculous, easy to grasp quickly, and above all incredibly fun. Playing as one of four caricatures, players can race and, physics having been sufficiently thrown out the window, perform absurd rail-slides, jumps, flips, grabs, and then win and unlock more weirdos. Someone in your way? Knock 'em down and watch them crash helplessly into the snow face first before doing a front-flip off a cliff, but don't forget to tweak it. Bail and suffer your own misfortune? With any luck someone will land on you and go tumbling as well. The cartoony aspects of the game take away some of the oomph, but a vicious face plant that's the result of your careless pushing and shoving of other is something everyone can take pride in.

Year: 2002
Developer: Midway
Sport: Soccer
System: Playstation 2, XBOX, GameCube
Lowdown: The PAL-version cover for RedCard Soccer tells you everything you need to know about the game: jostling for position, as one player grabs the nuts of the opponent behind him, and not in a necessarily friendly manner. The opponent winces and looks to be releasing a (presumably low-pitched) yap (the North American version features Brian McBride doing Brian McBride things-yawn.) The game's dirty and bathes in that fact. Players take opponents out with shin slides, flip them up into the air with vicious trips, and punch, punch your way to that next golazo. This is soccer the way Vinnie Jones intended it.

Year: 2002
Developer: Ubisoft (via SouthEnd Interactive)
Sport: "Blitz"
System: XBOX
Lowdown: In the year 2219, there is a sport called Blitz. It combines all the things you love about hockey, like fighting, frisbee, catching and running, and fighting. The game is vulgar, bloody, cruel-so modern sports fans would feel right at home. There are teams with really fun names like the Nukeheads and the tragic Training Droids, but there's also a team of genetically altered women. There's also a team that is on a lot of drugs and it is surprisingly not the Convicts who are playing for their freedom. Cheers to you, The Future. Deathrow is compatible with the 360, so get on it.

Year: 1987
Developer: Jaleco
Sport: Baseball
System: NES
Lowdown: At a time in which baseball games often look more realistic than actual baseball, itself-and is more dependable for fairness, given the drug-dependent nature of the major leagues-there is still one serious oversight and tragic shortcoming of all widely available baseball games, and one that will, in all likelihood, never be reconciled: The ability to rush the mound. And yet, at a time in which MLB-licensed games where few and far between, Japanese video game company Jaleco had the creative ingenuity to include it as a feature in Bases Loaded. The only catch? There was only one batter in every lineup who would rush the mound. It was the pitcher's job to figure out who it was. And then, bean them in the face.

Year: 1995
Developer: Games Workshop and MicroLeague
Sport: Football
System: PC
Lowdown: This is fantasy football, taken to the most literal extent of the term, in that there are goblins, elves, and so forth, all battling to survive. It's set in the Warhammer universe, so it's turn-based, and an RPG-which is something that your Madden and NBA 2K games have incorporated to some degree. But: Let's talk about the blood. Which there's a lot of. Such as in the mini-battles wherein you try to maim and kill your opponent. Succeed, and it's your ball, and the other guy's blood and bones become fertilizer for next year's crops. If there are crops. If this godforsaken game ever ends. It's slow, sure, but the gore is there; think of Blood Bowl as the unofficial sport of Lord of the Rings, and you'll be pretty close to home on it.

Year: 1991
Developer: Hudson Soft
Sport: Basketball
System: SNES
Lowdown: Literally, the first basketball game for Super Nintendo. Not NBA Live. Or one of those weird player-approved games, like Bulls vs. Blazers. Nope: Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball. Set in the future, Bill Laimbeer has gone mad with power after assuming the commissionership of a basketball league. The referees were unceremoniously fired, and the only rule is that there are no rules (except out of bounds, and also, backcourt violations, for some reason). If you want to use a weapon on the court, Bill Laimbeer isn't going to stop you. It's not even that violent, it's just delightfully low-rent, and it's considered one of the worst SNES games in the history of the console. Regardless: Players push and shove, bombs and landmines appear out of nowhere, and Bill Laimbeer collects some easy money and probably didn't even have to go to a photoshoot. Go Bulls.

Year: 1991
Developer: Konami
Sport: Baseball
System: NES
Lowdown: In the dystopian future, the owners of the baseball league have tired of skyrocketing player salaries and the natural deterioration of bodies all humans experience, and have replaced all the players with (presumably) non-union-represented robots. Four types of robots repeatedly destroy their AI-stricken brethren: An android-type, a tank, one that flies, and one that's also a motorcycle. In normal baseball, if there's a close play at a base, the umpire makes a decision and then receives a face-full of spittle from an ornery manager from the wronged team. Perils of the job, but easy enough. Base Wars decides these things with sweet, sweet robot fights. After a few fights, the robot (who may have used one of its lasers in one of its fights) will find itself without hit points and explode. Bad, robot.

Year: 2001
Developer: Sandbox Studios
Sport: Lacrosse
System: PlayStation
Lowdown: Blast Lacrosse lasted one year on the PSone, but you can totally still play it if you have a PS3. It's the only officially licensed game of the National Lacrosse League-which doesn't just exist, but is amazingly not defunct-and plays a lot like NBA Jam. Given the opportunity to knock a dude who probably went to Syracuse or Johns Hopkins into the boards, and because of lacrosse's violent off-the-field history that hangs like a spectre over the proceedings (and we're not talking about Duke, swear) it earns itself a rightful place in history and on this list.

Year: 1990
Developer: BlueSky Software
Sport: Golf
System: Atari 7800
Lowdown: In Ninja Golf, you were just a ninja, looking to have a nice pleasant round of golf. It's also apparently your final test before you can be an official ninja, but hey, there are movies based on a whole hell of a lot less. After you step to the tee and hit a real beauty of a shot, you run to your ball-yes, run-and encounter a series of traps, foes, or gophers (or sharks-flying sharks-if you're near a water hazard). Since you are, in fact, a ninja, you're also tasked with battling other ninjas who are intent on completely ruining your game. For the final hole, you have to defeat a dragon. It's like 'Happy Gilmore' meets 'Enter the Dragon': Unnecessary, stupid, but also, kind of inspired.

Year: 1992
Developer: Midway
Sport: Football
System: Sega Genesis
Lowdown: Did you think Bill Laimbeer was a weird person to be a spokesperson for a bizarro-world version of a sport? Well, you were right, but Jerry Glanville putting his name on a 7th-century-set approximation of football with Vikings? Even weirder. And yes: That's warriors, plural, as in "two." Each player controls an armored warrior. The rest of the players, not so much. Players get to pick up weapons and slaughter the lambs who are also playing this abomination of a sport. Or not bother, and just knock them into the trees littering the field. The game itself? Similar to rugby, in that it never stops, no matter how many corpses you scatter over the field. If you're really taking a beating, your fans can summon a troll as powerful as an armored player. Also, in the castle level, do avoid the trap doors.

Year: 1993
Developer: Electronic Arts
Sport: Football
System: Sega Genesis
Lowdown: MFL ran on the Madden '93 engine, but who was EA trying to kid here? You play with mutants. Mutants in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, in which everyone was poisoned by radiation, who also deal with the occasional zombie. The field of play? Some of it's on fire. There are landmines, and just some straight-up voids into nothingness. You could die during a game, at which point you will...fumble the ball. If the landmines don't get you, the ol' exploding ball trick will. Or are you more into administering electric shocks? You can also bribe the refs once a half, in order to get them making bad calls (and thus: become an assassination target of the other team). You can also kill the ref by piling up on him or pushing him onto a mine (and since it's totally an accident in this hellscape-no penalty). There's also a season mode. Win it? The other team explodes. Just out of nowhere. Kaboom.

Year: 1989
Developer: Midway
Sport: Basketball
System: Arcade
Lowdown: Arch Rivals was a basketball game. Two-on-two. Four four-minute quarters. Just score more than the other guy. Standard arcade stuff. Eight possible characters (they're chosen at random) are in play, some with weird names (Blade, Hammer, Mohawk, Moose, Lewis), some normal (Reggie, Vinnie, Tyronne). They have different skill sets, like real basketball players. But there was one caveat: The fallaway-J not falling? Punch the other guy in the face, and drive to the hoop. You can punch to your hearts content, really. Just punch everyone to be safe. The game was seemingly created by a group of people (at Midway, natch) who saw Kermit Washington give Rudy T a broken face-an event that nearly caused a race riot and very well could have destroyed the NBA-and said, "Yes." It's the original NBA Jam before NBA Jam existed, but with teeth. And for that, we are grateful.

Year: 1990 / 1988
Developer: Williams / Konami
Sport: Hockey
System: Arcade / NES
Lowdown: Fighting in hockey games would presumably be a given, but when it first appeared, there was still something shocking about it: The most shamed aspect of the sport being glorified as its central appeal. Enter NES classic Blades of Steel and Hit The Ice. The OG of these games, Blades is a hockey game in that The Rock is an insightful film about touring Alcatraz. Bump into someone three times, it's go time. An eight-bit voice commands: "FIGHT!" and after some truly absurd trash talking, the punching begins. When your opponent lets out a death rattle and crumples to the ice, know that you've won. Hit The Ice looked a little better, and also, could be found in coin-op format in many an American hockey rinks' arcade stall or snack bar, but had more in common with NBA Jam in terms of gameplay. Yet, the express mandate? Fighting. A lot. The gloves fly off in a now-classic animation, and the punching? Fast and frequent.

Year: 2006
Developer: Midway Games
Sport: Football
System: Xbox 360
Lowdown: After Midway lost their license to make NFL games, NFL Blitz was dead and gone forever (at least until the NFL let them make it again earlier this year, but without the big, late hits, and thus: the fun). So what'd Midway do? Soldiered on, and make their game more culturally obscene than any video game in existence, on their own terms, without any official players or NFL blessings. For example: The creators behind Blitz: The League got Lawrence Taylor to be their spokesman, and put him in the game as a character named Quintin Sands, captain of the fictitious New York Nightmare. The gameplay? It was basically Blitz, but on steroids. Literally. You could buy steroids for your players. You can also fill your Clash Meter to perform "dirty" moves, leaving your opponent with less stamina or injured (especially glorious: the close-up x-ray shots of snapped bones, torn ligaments, and the like). The campaign/season mode? Not so much a "build your team carefully over the years" mandate as it was a "win at any cost" directive. Your players can earn extra money by gambling on the outcomes of the games they are playing. Or: Participating in bounty programs. [Good thing these aren't issues affecting real sports leagues.] With that money, you can buy upgraded equipment...or drugs. The last line of defense your 'roided-up, tac-vest wearing team has before they get on the gridiron? Send ing prostitutes to the other team (a trick apparently used by Taylor during his time in the NFL) who, powerless to stop their advances, will be too tired from all-night activity to perform well on the field the following day. The game was actually banned in Australia for promoting the beneficial uses of illegal drugs. Blitz: The League rewards users by letting them capitalize on all the things old white writers hate about the NFL these days and any game that should come with a fainting couch in case Mike Lupica is within earshot, is, of course, a no-questions classic.