Image via Complex Original
It's no secret that there are certain video game athletes who are just better than their polygon brethren.
"Tecmo" Bo Jackson is the gold standard of video game athletes and there have been many like him since. But what about the completely made up athletes who, because of the strangeness of the game itself, licensing issues, or bizarre tie-ins with other properties end up in video games? Let's take a look at some of the most dominant, strangest, and most memorable made-up guys in sports video game history.
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20. Mark Turmell
Video Game: NBA Jam (1993)
Mark Turmell was the lead designer on the original NBA Jam and he wound up in the game as an unlockable player. Since he helped make the game he made himself better than any of the other unlockable players that were found in the NBA Jam games. Yes, even The Fresh Prince himself and the Phoenix Suns Gorilla.
19. Zachary Priest
Video Game: NHL 06 (2005)
Zachary Priest was a sick young man who ended up as part of NHL 06 as part of the Make A Wish foundation. So, like, Mark Turmell in the NBA Jam games, Priest is more of a cool easter egg than a dominant creation like some of the other entries on this list, but at the same time, he was a really good player.
He was given a fairly high overall rating along with 85 potential. And since NHL 06 was rushed to be released before NHL 2K6, it lacks the draft picks from that year, including Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin, and several others, so Priest makes for a nifty replacement to one of the many missing superstars for your franchise mode. Whether or not be becomes dominant is completely up to you.
18. Super Mex
Video Game: Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf (1988)
Coming from a game that was the basis for Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge on The Simpsons, you can't really expect much from Lee Trevino's Fighting Golf, especially if you were looking for fighting. There's no question that the game has an odd name, but without question the character that is supposed to be Trevino, Super Mex is pretty good at this golf game.
Sure Big Jumbo could hit thunderous drives and Miracle Chosuke could putt with the best of them, but as there are more aspects to golf than just hitting the ball really far or really short distances, Super Mex usually came out on top just like the real guy.
17. Jango Fett
Video Game: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (2002)
Throwing a known character into a video game is nothing new, as anyone who has played Smash Bros. enough can tell you. But for pure wackiness, cashing-in-on-the-zeitgeist, as well as all-around skill, nothing beats Jango Fett showing up in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4.
Using the abilities and tools that come with the territory of being an intergalactic assassin, Jango Fett can use grappling hook to corral an errant deck during a trick and even fire up his jetpack to complete the ever-elusive, physically impossible sans rocket fuel 1800.
16. Bowser
Video Game: Mario Kart 64 (1997)
If racecar drivers can be seen as athletes in real life, then Mario Kart drivers can certainly be considered fictional athletes. While there are arguments to be made for all the characters, especially the perennially in danger Princess Peach, there is a fairly clear winner.
For all his life, Bowser has been trying to best Mario through not-so-complicated kidnapping schemes. If only he had known that he just needed to rev up a cart and start racing because that's just about the only way he'll ever defeat Mario. Coming in as the fastest of the heavy-weight racers, and pretty big in his own right, Bowser can use his solid acceleration skills to smash into other racers and cross that finish line without seeing tailights with regularity.
15. Kid Franchise
Video Game: Blitz: The League II (2008)
Blitz: The League II takes the ridiculousness of the previous entries in the franchise by adding in a corrupt commissioner who is trying to get a team in LA who is at odds with the newest star in The League, "Kid Franchise," the nickname given to the player in campaign mode no matter what the player names him.
Kid Franchise plays on both sides of the ball (you can choose between QB, RB, WR, or TE and DE, LB, CB, or S; finally a QB who lines up at DE and gets some sacks of his own can be yours). The Commissioner tries to get KF to play for his pet project, the LA Riot, but KF will only play for his hometown team, so so the game begins. Franchise then gets his drink spiked by Quentin Sands (back again) and is sent to prison, where he has to compete in prison football games to get an early release.
Like Little Mac of Punch-Out!! before him, but actually highly skilled, Kid Franchise needs to overcome a lot of adversity to take his place at the top of The League.
14. Star Man
Video Game: Pro Wrestling (1985)
Hailing from "Mexico?" but most likely from outer space and wearing a pink-purple body suit-he's the original Green Man-with a star covering his face, Star Man used his Flying Cross Chop to great success in Pro Wrestling.
After throwing his opponent off the ropes and bouncing off the opposite ropes himself, Star Man would pummel his opponents with a flying forearm smash. His other patented move? A somersault kick. Hit Down+B and spam your way to cheap, cheap victory with this ridiculously dominant wrassler.
13. Cheetah
Video Game: World Class Track Meet (1988)
World Class Track Meet used the NES' Power Pad and while it has sort of a strange history regarding its name, there's no question that it was a fun game. Featuring four events and opponents named after animals, there was no tougher foe than Cheetah. You had to actually run in place on the Power Pad and since that was hard enough to do, beating Cheetah was next to impossible.
12. King
Video Game: Virtua Tennis (1999)
As an unlockable boss in many of the Virtua Tennis titles, King was the perfect tennis player. Dressed as a cross between a pageboy and an ice cream truck driver out of central casting-it takes a lot of gumption to play tennis in pants-and sporting Tom Selleck's mustache, King didn't look the part of a tennis superstar, but he was.
Later versions of the series made King, and his equally dapper fellow boss Duke, a little easier to beat, but unlocking him in the original game by beating him was an accomplishment through and through.
11. Mr. Dream
Video Game: Punch-Out!! (1990)
After Nintendo's licensing agreement with Mike Tyson expired-before all his legal trouble, surprisingly, his contract ended and he had lost the heavyweight belt to Buster Douglas, so Nintendo wasn't interested in bringing him back-Nintendo re-released the game with the fictitious Mr. Dream as the final boss.
Hailing from Dreamland and boasting a 99-0 career record with 99 KOs, Mr. Dream was every bit as dominant as Tyson was in the original version. With lightning quick reflexes and the ability to floor Little Mac with an uppercut in the first 90 seconds of the first round, Mr. Dream was just as likely to put an end to Little Mac's title hopes as Tyson was before him.
10. The Fat Guy
Video Game: Ice Hockey (1988)
Of the three types of players in the NES stable, The Fat Guy more than made up for his lack of speed and inability to win face-offs with a mighty slap shot and knock-you-into-next-week checking skills.
However, The Fat Guy really shined when he was teamed up his fellow The Fat Guys to create a super-line of The Fat Guys to check the smaller players on the other team into submission and release a barrage of mighty slapshots at the unsuspecting goalie on the other team. While the game isn't the most accurate portrayal of hockey, and The Fat Guy would likely not stand a chance against NHL 94 Roenick, for classic Nintendo fun, The Fat Guy is tough to beat.
9. Mr. Doc
Video Game: Hoops (1988)
The 1988 NES title Hoops featured eight players who just wanted to play a little pickup ball, be it 1-on-1 or 2-on-2. While there are arguments to be made as to the quality of Face or Bomber, there was no one better than Mr. Doc, the lanky, all-around baller.
Dubbed an "all round player" who could run, shoot, pass, and dribble, Mr. Doc could dominate in all facets of the game-the opening shootout, around the world mode, and especially in games. It's no secret that at the end of the game you learn that Mr. Doc has become a star forward in the NBA and, in a Twilight Zone-esque twist, now endorses the very game he is in.
8. Quentin Sands
Video Game: Blitz: The League (2005)
Blitz: The League is the delightful football "sim" that lets you horrifically injure your competition, gamble on games, perform "dirty" hits, send prostitutes to their hotel the night before a game-sapping them of their "energy" before kickoff-bribe the referees, and "juice" a player in order to ignore an injury. It's no wonder why the game doesn't have an NFL license and features made-up players and teams.
None of these fictional players can affect the game like Quentin Sands, star linebacker of the New York Nightmare. Based on, and voiced by, real-life...feisty NFL legend Lawrence Taylor, Sands begins the campaign mode by ending the career of a quarterback with a devastating hit, and has set his sights on you! Sands becomes an ally in Blitz: The League II and is responsible for the game's incomprehensible climax that sees Sands taping the League Commissioner committing illegal activities and sending Definitely Not Roger Goodell to prison.
7. Allejo
Video Game: International Superstar Soccer (1995)
After the 1994 World Cup took the US by storm, Brazil became a popular team to play as in soccer games. However, without a license from FIFA, developers like Konami, makers of International Superstar Soccer, were forced to make up names for all their characters. Enter Allejo. Fast and with a mighty powerful leg, Allejo was either Ronaldo or much more likely Bebeto since they both wore #7 for the Seleção.
6. Jon Dowd
Video Game: MVP Baseball 2005 (2004)
Hands down the best replacement character in baseball video game history. Jon Dowd was slugging outfielder for the San Francisco Giants who was only there because Barry Bonds had withdrawn from the MLBPA licensing agreement.
Unlike Barry, Dowd was a righty. While that resulted in far fewer moon shots into Digital McCovey Cove, Dowd was even better than Bonds. He could routinely smash gargantuan homers to left and center, much like his real-world counterpart, but with far more frequency-100 round-trippers in a season was not out of the question.
5. Little Mac
Video Game: Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987)
Standing only 3'10" and weighing in at a scant 90lbs, Little Mac should have no business stepping into a boxing ring. But Little Mac has the one thing that sports movies have told us is all a hero needs: a big old heart.
While other fighters had skills and the ability to be Mike Tyson, all Little Mac has is some rudimentary boxing skills-he needs to jump a lot of the time to hit anything-but he can jab and body blow his way to the top. And if Little Mac beat Iron Mike at the end of the game-and this wasn't a guarantee, mind you-then Little Mac accomplished one of the toughest feats in sports video game history and that's why he belongs on this list.
4. Paste
Video Game: Bases Loaded (1988)
Paste was the one in the one-two punch of Paste and Bay, perhaps the most formidable third and clean-up hitters in baseball video game history. While Bay was a talented slugger in his own right having hit .331 with 30 dingers, Paste was otherworldly.
Had Paste been real, Paste would have been the greatest of all-time and surely have been the basis for several new religions. Like Matt Christopher's Kid Who Only Hits Homers, Paste pretty much only hits homers, 60 of them in fact to go with his .467 (!!) batting average. Simply put, Paste's New Jersey squad was just about unbeatable and that makes him the greatest video game slugger of them all.
3. Player 99
Video Game: NBA Live '96 (1995)
Michael Jordan is renowned for two things: being the best basketball player who ever lived and being the one of the world's greatest jerks. MJ wasn't part of the NBA player's association and only did his own video games, so the Live series was left with a big hole to fill in lieu of having His Airness in their game. Their solution: make a player even better than Jordan. Player 99 did everything that Jordan could and managed to do it all with a full head of air.
2. QB Eagles
Video Game: Tecmo Super Bowl (1991)
Forget Michael Vick in Madden 2004, QB Eagles is the greatest dual-threat quarterback to ever be pixelated. Cannon arm? Check. As fast as a running back? You betcha. There are countless blog posts on the internet praising his skills and only Bo Jackson and the Raiders have probably been banned in more rec rooms the world over. Is he actually Randall Cunningham?
Not technically since Cunningham, along with others likes Jim "QB Bills" Kelly and Bernie "QB Browns" Kosar, were not part of the NFLPA's licensing agreement. Cunningham would dominate sports games as himself eight years later throwing bombs to NFL 2K coverboy Randy Moss, but that's nowhere near as fun as scrambling all over a field and forcing your buddy to throw his NES controller in frustration.
1. Bones Jackson
Video Game: Mutant League Football (1993)
Another lost gem in desperate need of a remake.
Mutant League Football was a hyper-violent portrayal of football-landmines on the field, quarterbacks throwing actual bombs, referee murder abound-that used the Madden '93 engine, and tacked on carnage.
But there was no monstrous creation more monstrous on the field than Bones Jackson of the Midway Monsters. Loosely based on Bo Jackson,who by all accounts was not a psychotic skeleton, Bones had the best attributes in the game. He could really only be stopped by one of those pesky landmines. And, like Bo before him, Bones Jackson was also a two-sport star, showing up in Mutant League Hockey as the greatest skeleton to ever play video game hockey.