Pyle of List

Let me start out by saying I haven’t played every sports game under the sun. I’m pretty partial to a couple mainstays: Madden NFL and NBA Live. In fact, I’m really just an EA sports whore. I’ll dabble in the 2K Sports once in a while, but I always come back to the best. After many blistered thumbs and controllers thrown in frustration, I feel I’m as qualified as anyone to make this list. The one glaring omission is video game baseball athletes. I’ve never gotten into those games. The following are some of the best or most surprising video game athletes for the current-ish era (ie: no Bo Jackson references today.) If I’ve left any of your favorites off, please feel free to say so in the comments.

Michael Vick - PS2, Madden 2004, 2005

After Vick peaked played well in the 2003 playoffs by defeating the Packers at Lambeau Field, everyone was crowning him the rising King of the NFL. (Remember when he said he wasn’t going to cut his hair until he won the Super Bowl?) You could say those proclamations (and hairdo promises) have been a bit scaled back since then. Regardless of all that fuss, vide0-game-Vick was unstoppable in these two seasons. They gave him laser-guided accuracy and made him so fast and agile, he made gazelles look like they run in quick sand. You could literally run circles around any defender on your way to the end zone. My buddies and I had an unspoken gentleman’s agreement not to use him because it was tantamount to cheating.

Chris Webber - PS2, NBA Live 2002

It was often proclaimed that CWebb was, physically, a perfect prototypical NBA player. Good court vision, well-rounded offensive game, soft hands (I hate that term, but I don’t know what else to call it), super-long arms, good footwork, etc. The biggest knock on him was not physical. It was his decision making in crunch time. Fortunately, video game players don’t have to make any crucial decisions for themselves. You, the gamer, get to make those decisions. Webber was made for video game domination. In NBA Live 2002 he was a rabid beast. Dunks could come from practically anywhere inside the 3-point line. His favorite dunk seemed to be the crotch-swinging variety to give your opponent just a little bit more shame every time he hung from the rim. And I swear, sometimes video-game-Webber seemed to have particular vendettas against specific opponents. Most notabe on this list was pre-pigtails Danny Fortson.

Seneca Wallace - PS2, Madden 2005

The only reason I know about his video game skills is because my roommates and I did one of those Madden fantasy drafts. Eric decided to draft all rookies. And his main criteria for quarterbacks was a high “speed” ranking. Well, Seneca was the fastest rookie QB according to the Madden rankings. That was all Eric needed to see. Seneca was like a poor man’s Michael Vick. He wasn’t as fast as Vick and he wasn’t as good at throwing the ball, but he was still pretty good. Way too good considering he was a freaking rookie. I guess the programmers saw the crazy play he had at Iowa State.

Any time a play would break down, he’d go running down the sideline for 20 yards. Hell, I think Eric made plays break down on purpose just so that he could run that cheap-ass shit as often as possible. This could probably be considered a breach of the aforementioned gentleman’s agreement.

Wang Zhizhi - PS2, NBA Live 2002

This is probably the most ridiculous of them all. He was really a nobody in the NBA. So much so that he doesn’t even play in the NBA anymore. However, the guys over at EA thought it would be great if Wang was capable of making it rain from anywhere outside the arc. It was supremely frustrating. No lead was safe. If your team was hurting for a few points, you could bring him in off the bench and he’d be good for four out of the next five three point shots he attempted. I think his record for a game was something like 13 three pointers. I don’t know if it was a glitch, a joke, or if they talent evaluators really thought he’d be that great. He was before Yao and so I guess they were just excited to have a Chinese guy in the league. I don’t know…

Keyshawn Johnson - PS2, Madden 2001

JP and I played an awful lot of Madden ‘01 in college. He liked the Titans and I liked the Bucs. Anyway, Shaun King to Keyshawn Johnson was an easy six points every time. JP started calling him Super Keyshawn. I like to think it was because would-be tacklers would bounce off of Super Keyshawn the same way bullets bounce off of Superman. He caught anything thrown in his direction and he outran bolts of lightning. I don’t think he was the top rated receiver in the game or anything, but his dominance was undeniable. I hear JP still has nights where he screams Keyshawn’s name in his sleep.

Randy Moss - Sega Dreamcast, NFL 2K

Super Keyshawn was great, but Randy Moss in NFL2k was a deity. He outran every schmuck assigned to cover him by ten yards before the ball came down out of the sky. In fact, some believe he had a physical forcefield around him. He left defenders in his wake of untackle-ibility. Any throw his way was an automatic completion. Whoever made this game was seriously jonesing for Randy’s jock. He was on the cover of the game for THREE years in a row!! I remember it got to the point where no one even wanted to play the game anymore because one of our friends was a Vikings fan and insisted on abusing the situation repeatedly. I still get grumpy when I think about that game.