Operation Sports Game of the Decade Recap

Looking back on the 2010s, it was tough to narrow down the best footy game of the decade. Games like PES 2011, PES 2013 and FIFA 14 stood out as prime contenders. However, if there’s one game that really stood out for me, it was 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa. It seems like I was not alone here either as the community also voted for this game as the best soccer game of the decade.

I consider MLB The Show 19 sitting at number five for best sports game of the decade the equivalent of the unsaid lifetime achievement award that can happen at the Oscars. Sometimes an actor wins the Best Actor award for a role that will not stand up as their best role, but the voters know he should already have an award by now. So he ends up winning the award as a sort of mea culpa. On some level, I think that’s what’s going on here with MLB The Show 19 being considered the best baseball video game of the decade, and as the 5th best sports game of the decade.

Pound for pound, NBA 2K16 may have the most “stuff” ever in a sports video game. It wasn’t all the best stuff, but it was an incredibly ambitious title that pulled together a lot of moving parts to create what is still considered by some the last great NBA 2K title. For this reason and many more, it has been voted the fourth best sports video game of the decade here at Operation Sports.

It feels good to be able to write about NCAA Football 14 in this context while having a twinge of excitement that we could someday soon get this series back. It would be a bummer to have to write about why NCAA Football 14 is so great and simply feel like we’ll never see it again.

Rocket League has had such an impact on sports games and soccer that it’s hard to really sum up everything that has happened with the game since it was first released back in 2015. Beyond that, part of being a sports game of the decade is the legacy you leave behind. Rocket League‘s legacy is meaningful, and it’s important for good reasons. I understand if some sim-heads won’t like the pick here because it’s not a “traditional” sports game, but Rocket League has earned the support of the community and staff to be ranked the second best sports game of the decade.

NBA 2K11 was a turning point for basketball video games. It was simultaneously the beginning of the end for the NBA Live series, and the start of the true rise of the NBA 2K series. It was the game where people seemed to realize that NBA 2K was not just out there to make the next yearly basketball game, but rather become a series that was a love letter to the NBA as a whole.