The 10 Best Sports Video Games of 2012

How do you judge the year's best sports video games? After all, sports games represent their respectively different sports, with different fans, and the games featuring them just might not be for some people.

But that's the thing: The very best sports games are for everyone, fan or not. In the end, they're judged like any other genre would be judged against itself. Do the play modes draw you further into the depths of the video game and the actual sport more than the others? Do the graphics enhance the experience more than any of the other games? And do they also, crucially, improve upon a previous year's edition? If last year's version of a game was a bigger step forward than this year's game, that's a huge mark against it.

But when you bottom-line all of these sports video games against each other, it simply comes down to the gameplay: the controls, the learning curve, how addictive they are, and mostly, how much flat-out fun they are. And this year saw some very, very fun sports titles.

These are The 10 Best Sports Video Games of 2012.

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Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports

When Midway Games folded, it seemed like some of their best arcade-style sports franchises were doomed, until EA Sports swept in to save them. But this can't be the same NFL Blitz everyone used to play until their N64 analog sticks were destroyed, can it?

It can't. It's missing the late hits. It's missing the trash talk. It's a little too turbo-charged. And it's finicky: Players can't even adjust their own game clocks, so no more 100-point-plus battles for you and your friends.

And yet: The announcers from the original game are back, and as hilarious as they've ever been, if not more. The playbooks-only what you need, nothing more-are still intact. At the end of the day, the grown-up NFL Blitz reboot might be a little too shiny for its own good, but it's also a lot of fun. Repetitive and massively unsophisticated fun, sure, but still fun no less. More than anything else, that stupid-fun is what made the original NFL Blitz a classic game, and somehow, EA Sports has managed to keep it all intact.

Developer: Codemasters Studios Birmingham
Publisher: Codemasters

It was a close, difficult call between this and Forza, but in the end, it was F1 2012 that burned the rubber. It was a shock to see Codemasters put out such a stunning improvement over the previous year's title, having heard players' complaints about AI difficulty and diversification in gameplay from F1 2010. Being able to hear the other cars around you is a revelation. And yes, it's still very hard, with a learning curve mostly meant for (and rewarding to) F1 fans.

But it's hard to deny the brilliance of something that delivers on those intentions so thoroughly like this. The only problem? It needs to be more welcoming to people who don't know anything about F1 past "these are the coolest race cars, ever." That'd be nice.

Developer: Yuke's
Publisher: THQ

UFC is technically a sport at this point, and there is a space in video games for a "fighting" game that isn't, supposedly, a button-smashing Capcom triple-jump fireball beat-em-up. At the end of the day, this game still kind of is that. But it's a different kind of fighting game, a particularly fun one, and one that just edges out WWE for sport-fighting game of the year. Just barely.

But there is a stunning amount of depth in this game that's been missing from sport-fighting games for the last few years, and this has traditionally been a franchise that's shown promise, and delivered this year: With gameplay, yes, but also graphics and game modes. The entire thing can be a little overwhelming at times, but it doesn't take much to get addicted to the distinct thrill of getting someone to tap out near the end of a ten-minute brawl.

Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports

When EA Sports Big released the original SSX, it was a revolution: A snowboarding game that shrugs off the pains of accuracy for a balls-out headtrip, instead. Riders doing headstands on their boards in triple-time trick modes as their sock each other in the jaw on the way down a mountain? Why not? But the formula got tired after four installments, and EA shelved the series after SSX Blur in 2007.

The reboot, released in February, was a revelation: By re-revolutionizing the snowboarding game, it reminded gamers who'd played the original just how innovative, creative, and downright brilliant it was. The graphics, lush, the characters, hilarious, and the gameplay is as perfect as it could be (with a halfway decent story mode, too). Over-the-top, and resembling nothing even remotely close to real snowboarding physics, yes. But who hasn't wanted to ride in Antarctica? The only thing that could make this game any better is if EA announced a re-boot of the only other EA Sports Big game that mattered, NBA Street. This, however, will do for now.

Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports

Are you surprised to see Madden so low on this list? Yeah, well, so are we.

But EA Sports, in our estimation, has continued to fumble the Madden ball down the field over the last two years: Ever since Madden '11, the game's gone a little soft in the gut. The announcers are drying out; the NBA 2K commentators, for example, make the Madden team look about as insightful to football as a bag of fortune cookies. And about those looks?

Madden players don't want to see Jim Nantz and Phil Simms digitized. It's just straight-up weird. And creepy. Also, the tackle-animations look more like claymation repeats of guys blending into each other than they do the supposedly sophisticated nonsense they've sold the rest of the gaming press on.

Real talk: The graphics have lost some smoothness in their ambition, the presentation is overbearing, the game modes are snoozers (also: maybe the worst training/practice mode we've ever seen), and the gameflow playcalling feature has only taken a turn for the worst in the last two editions. Is it still a great game? Of course. It's Madden. But is it as incredible as it should be? It isn't. This definitely was not a winning season for Madden. And all that said? Those commercials with Paul Rudd and Ray Lewis were pretty great, though.

Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports

Not that there are a ton of hockey releases every year, but without this one, the hockey-playing world would be in a bad, bad place. The improvement between this year's installment and 2011's might, in fact, be the largest on this list.

This isn't just the first hockey game with female players, but it's also the first with a truly competent opponent A.I. system in place. The physics engine got a huge revamp, the presentation is incredible, and the control scheme was made for entry-level players to build on (finally). The only gripe here is sound design: The announces wear on you, quickly. But it doesn't detract much from the rest of the game's sharp, sharp edges: Don't wait for '14. This is the one to buy, and it's well-timed, considering it's also the most new NHL action hockey fans might actually see this season.

Developer: Visual Concepts
Publisher: 2K Sports

As if it weren't enough for Jay-Z to own an NBA team, now he has to "produce" the most important basketball game in the land? Apparently so, and yes, The Brand That Is Jay-Z and its stamp is all over this game.

Not that it's a bad thing. The soundtrack is better than it's ever been, and that's saying something. All of those Hova-touches aside, in all the ways that it needed to, 2K 12 improved on last year's edition enough to make it worth buying, and didn't mess with a great formula too much where it shouldn't have. The graphics remain top-of-its-class, the gameplay flawless, and the commentary diverse, smart, and funny. The game modes aren't perfect, but that seems to be a growing trend in sports games. It's okay: NBA 2K games still shine above the rest. Also, it's hard to hate on the first basketball game to bring the Dream Team into full digitization. On that count alone, it scores high with us.

Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports

At the end of the day, it's just a really, really luxe game of pong. But EA Sports managed to get as close to a "real" tennis game as there's ever been, one that's stupidly addictive with smooth-as-butter graphics, and one that reduced every other tennis franchise to child's play (sorry, Virtua Tennis). It's also one of the first sports games to make a dual-analog control scheme work to perfection: Once you learn it, the only buttons you need to hit are modifiers, one for lob shots and the other for drop shots.

Throw in John McEnroe screaming at you during training sessions, and a mode that allows you to replay some of the greatest tennis matches in history, and you've got one of the most surprisingly brilliant and overlooked games of the year, sports or otherwise. On top of that? It's the rare sports game that wants to teach you about the sport you're playing, and even more rare in that it does so exceptionally well.

Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: Electornic Arts

Yes, it's true: If you're new to the FIFA series, you may spend the first few plays of FIFA 2012 taking a player, having him dribble right up to the goal, and booting the ball straight into the upper-deck of the stands. Give it a few more plays. And a few more after that. And a few more after that. Before you know it, you'll be running aggressive triple-juke rainbow-kick plays to get downfield, crossing to center, and bicycle-kicking your way to FIFA supremacy.

This is more than just a soccer game. It's an insanely fun master class in physics, quick smarts, and reflexes. The graphics are the most stunning in any sports game this year, bar none. Watch the rain change directions as you're taking a goal kick, and then watch as players slip on the pitch as they side-kick a ball, only to have it stop short on a bottom-roll (the physics are mindblowing). The sound design brings some of the greatest announcers of any sports game ever; they react quickly, they're smart, and they're actually helpful.

Are the game modes perfect? Actually, for once: Yeah, they are. The skill games are insanely fun, the league modes and online modes, as deep as you want them to be. But they're all overshadowed by that gameplay-factor. The learning curve starts shallow, but builds to a steep angle as you grow in skill. In other words: Pulling off that rainbow kick is as hard as it is incredibly rewarding, and so are the celebrations (which you can now customize!) in their wake. Get those grass stains. You earned 'em.