When a player emerges on the scene with an exciting skill set and dynamic play, it’s common to compare the feats they pull off in a game to the exploits of video game characters. How common is it for the players who look so electric in the real world to actually be the most exciting players to use in their video game versions? We’ve pulled out some of our favorite players who terrorized digital sports just as much as their real selves, as well as counterparts who publishers just couldn’t find a way to make into a suitably impressive virtual baller.
World Football
While self belief may not be a freely available attribute in EA Sports FC games through the years, if it was it’s safe to say that Zlatan Ibrahimovic would have had a 99 in every edition in which he featured. The big Swede built a reputation as one of the most audacious and can’t miss players in football history and his digital selves have lived up to the billing. Routinely boasting among both the best finishing and most shot power in the game, EA Zlatan could make magic on your console as much as on your TV on the weekend.
On the other side of the spectrum, Thomas Muller possesses a skillset so hard to translate to video games effectively that it has stumped developers for years. While Muller has undoubtedly been one of the best players on the planet over the last decade and change, he was so famously underrated in FIFA games that EA began needing to consciously boost his attributes from how they would have been if assessed on a skill to skill basis in order to accurately reflect how good he truly was.
Basketball
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if J.R. Smith was as dominant as his confidence on the court would have you think? Then look no further than the world of NBA 2K where his propensity for having attributes points in the places that really matter on the digital court made him a player you could always count on to out-perform his overall rating when a human player is in control of his actions.
When it comes to players who don’t seem to translate quite right, look no further than Nikola Jokic, the barely-disputed best player in the world for about half a decade now. On real-life courts, Joker routinely does things that defy your eyes and, in the case of poor Anthony Davis, leave the opposition with nothing left to do but laugh their way into meme history. In-game, a slow jumper motion hampers his effective deep game, while the 2K meta does not skew toward the post game, where his skills are more accurately portrayed, leaving the big fella as a worthwhile addition to any team but not nearly as dominant a force as your eyes know he is.
American Football
A player doesn’t have to be non-elite to still have a video game representation that feels borderline broken with their in-game abilities, and the Madden series proves that perhaps more than any other. Plenty of incredible players are even more outstanding on the virtual gridiron, but in a game where speed kills, Tyreek Hill shows that even the best players in the league can be even better in a video game, with defenses completely unready to deal with a speed merchant with complementary skills to boot, like Hill.
For the most poorly translated option, the pick was always going to be a pocket passer with limited mobility, and darned if that’s not a description of the (begrudgingly admitted by a diehard Steeler fan) GOAT, Tom Brady. Now, this comes with a bit of a caveat that a gamer who can truly read a defense can excel with a high-mentals, low physical QB, but for most players, a mobile threat with merely good passing attributes will be better. The brief dalliance with a vision cone benefited players like Brady, but they never truly matched their real-world chops for most players.
Hockey
When it comes to the EA NHL series, sometimes you just have to acknowledge that the player who feels most like a video game character in real life is also the most unplayable in the video game, too, so enter Connor McDavid. In the real world, McDavid is a multi-tool player who can do it all with rockets in his skates, and that’s just what you find in the digital rinks of ‘Chel, too. With speed to beat opponents clean and skills to snipe or serve up assists, he’s the epitome of a video game player.
On the flip side, EA is famous for seeming to be rather opposed to the idea of goaltending in general. While nearly any elite goalie can likely feel hard done by through the years, that means you have to give the nod to the greatest to ever do it, Martin Brodeur, simultaneously one of the best virtual goalies ever and also criminally underperforming.
Baseball
Perhaps no player has better encapsulated the feeling of a video game while translating that to said games than Ken Griffey Jr., and the decision to name a franchise for him was no surprise. In the real world, Griffey’s effortless athleticism saw him flying around the outfield and mashing bombs with ease. In video games, this speed and power translate to a true force of nature.
Things are less rosy for the best closer ever. While Mariano Rivera’s cutter may be the most lethal pitch in the history of baseball, its predictability and lack of real-world untouchability in The Show means that many players find it to border on batting practice when facing off against him.
These are our favorite so-good and somehow-so-bad players from video games through the years, but there are plenty of great examples in each category. Who are some of your favorite players to grab for your franchise, and who simply never lived up to their real-world hype?
