The Nintendo 64 is rapidly closing in on 30 years of existence and the legacy it created continues to see it held out as one of the most beloved franchises of all time. While many of the biggest games in the history of the console took place away from the digital sports world, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still plenty of fantastic sports games in its catalog.
These are the five most iconic games sure to trigger a nostalgic gaze into the middle distance if mentioned to a 90s gamer, as well as a few honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut.
Honorable Mentions
With so many fantastic options to choose from, some games had to fall by the wayside. Each of these games is iconic in its own right and will be held up as the console’s sports gaming GOAT by no small part of the N64 fanbase:
- Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball: Continuing strong off the back of a SNES version that is iconic to that console, the N64 added real player names as well as developed an intuitive and fun system that offered the best virtual baseball experience to date, bar none.
- Mario Sports: It would be easy to see a bunch of sports games starring Nintendo’s iconic characters and assume they were lazy cash ins, but on the contrary every Mario sports title was crafted with obvious love and care and nearly everyone holds a place in the heart of N64 sports gamers around the world.
- NBA Hangtime: Like with Griff, this misses the top five by virtue of its predecessor, in this case NBA Jam, being more iconicly linked to the prior generation, but the 64-bit upgrade with Hangtime was still an outstanding addition to the sports gaming scene.
- Wave Race 64: Releasing in the early months of the console, Wave Race 64 offered a unique racing experience with the skill required to navigate around choppy waters so unlike any other popular racing games.
- Wayne Gretzky’s 3D Hockey: With apologies to NHL 99, broadly considered the best hockey sim on the console, Nintendo 64 sports gaming will always be defined by its arcadey feel as home consoles began to match arcade cabinets, and that gives The Great One’s game the edge.
- WWF No Mercy: Some of the best wrestling games of all time came out on the N64, and there is heated debate about the best of the bunch, but it’s WWF No Mercy making the grade as the standard bearer here.
1080° Snowboarding
An internally produced sports gaming masterpiece, 1080° Snowboarding is the originator of the 3D snowboarding game world that would later spawn the also excellent SSX series. One thing that made 1080° stand out as an all-time Nintendo 64 sports game is the way it offered a variety of gaming options for players.
While there were great racing games and great extreme sports trick games, 1080° let you do both. Players looking to channel their inner speed demon could battle opponents to find the fastest lines down the game’s mountains, while button-pressing pros could look to hang high scores on their opponents’ heads. More than likely, however, the game hooked you on both, providing hours upon hours of downhill fun.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3
The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series is one of the most iconic sports gaming franchises in history, not just across many consoles but in many ways, including both the excellent gameplay and the unbeatable in-game soundtracks. While any of the THPS games could fit comfortably into any list of all-time great N64 video games, let alone a sports-game only list, as the last one on the console Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is the choice.
In fact, the game wasn’t just the last Tony Hawk release on the system, but also the final commercial release for the console full-stop, dropping three months after the console was discontinued and nearly a year after the next latest game. THPS 3 is still beloved decades later, as evidenced by the latest remake being so eagerly anticipated, and modern gamers can now see for themselves why this game and series was such a big hit.
NFL Blitz 2000
When it comes to arcade-style sports games the conversation for GOAT likely starts and ends with a heated debate between NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, but for the N64 that makes Blitz the obvious choice. NFL Blitz is a game it is hard to see the NFL signing off on now. When the world got wise to the horrific damage the sport’s big hits was doing to its players it became important to the NFL to tone down violence in its licensed games.
NFL Blitz never heard of the concept of toning down. Featuring gameplay that didn’t make a pretense at realism, Blitz was an all-action game of fast play and big hits. Once the opposing player was down is where the real fun started for a lot of players, however, as repeated dogpiles and frog splashes were the norm. NFL Blitz is simply put the most iconic big four sports game the N64 ever received.
FIFA Road to World Cup 98
There may not have been much room at the top of this list for games looking to accurately simulate their sports but coming in at #2 is a game that took real world integration to levels not just unseen then, but even unseen in modern sports games. FIFA Road to World Cup 98 was not just a catchy title to cash in on the upcoming biggest tournament in international sports, it was an accurate description of what was in the box, as the game featured full representation and qualifying procedures for every confederation in international football and all of their nation members.
Many gamers developed a newfound obsession with the World Cup qualifying process from this game, which also benefited from an excellent engine that was fun to play. While modern gamers may have the Pentagon Challenge, on the Nintendo 64 the true ballers were on the sticks winning the World Cup with a team from all six confederations.
Mario Kart 64
Nintendo consoles are often defined by the official Nintendo releases they played host to and Mario Kart 64 may define a console more thoroughly than any other. While the series has been a popular choice on every console generation, the Nintendo 64 version was a must-have for anyone with the console.
For racing, 90s kids would happily pour hundreds of summer and school year evening hours into racing around the game’s circuits to lower their times, be it in Grand Prix mode or racing ghosts in a time trial. That was just part of the fun, however, because at a time when four player split screen gaming was the norm Mario Kart 64’s Battle Mode is second to only Goldeneye on the list of most popular and iconic ways to battle your friends.
The sports gaming landscape on the Nintendo 64 is an underrated part of its legacy, with many of the greatest games the console ever saw taking place on virtual sports fields. What was your favorite Nintendo 64 sports game and did it make the cut here?
