Sports games come in many shapes and sizes. Football Manager and Rocket League have almost nothing in common, but they’re both undeniably sports games. Meanwhile Fifa has added a story driven campaign, and Pyre is a fantasy RPG that plays like a sport.

To try and help, I’ve broken this list down into four broad categories. Sports Simulations, which attempt to realistically depict a sport, Sports Management games (self explanatory), Arcade Sports, which depict a stylised version of a real sport, and Fantasy Sports, which are wholly invented.

There’s obviously a lot of crossover, since even Rocket League is loosely based on football, but hopefully this will help you tell your QWOPs from your Fifas. 

SPORTS SIMS

Fifa 2018

Developer: EA SportsRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Official site

EA's annual football series is on a high right now, with the addition of a surprisingly compelling single player story mode. Unlike PES, Fifa's strength is in a Xavi-esque short, quick passing game. If you’re looking to play online, Fifa will be your football sim of choice, as a strong and healthy online community ensures it's always easy to find a game. 

PES 2018

Developer: KonamiRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Official site   

While Fifa will draw in those interested in the single player story or online multiplayer, PES is my preference for local multiplayer, or when I want to sink into the signature Master League. The two games also play slightly differently, with PES leaning more towards long passes and lofted through balls for a faster paced, more frenetic game.

NBA 2K18

Developer: Visual ConceptsRelease Date: Sep 2017Link: Steam

Basketball is one of the few annual sports franchises not dominated by EA, and 2K's NBA series is one of the few that releases on PC. 2018's installment confused people by adding a strange MMO-esque hub called The Neighbourhood, but what really matters is that the slamming and jamming is as strong as ever. 

MANAGEMENT GAMES

Football Manager 2018

Developer: Sports InteractiveRelease Date: Nov 2017Link: Official site

It’s hard to overrstate the enormity of Football Manager. It is consistently one of the most popular games on Steam, its scouting network rivals real life clubs and once a player received an international call up from the wrong country because of it. It's also incredibly absorbing and fun, even more so since they added the streamlined variant Football Manager Touch. Play it with care: it is all-consuming.

Out of the Park Baseball 18 

Developer: Out of the Park DevelopmentsRelease Date: Mar 2017Link: Official site 

It's strange how few other sports have a Football Manager equivalent, but understandable that the highly stat-driven baseball is one of those that does. Out of the Park Baseball doesn't seem to change that much from year to year, but the underlying game remains an engrossing way to live out your Moneyball fantasies.

Motorsport Manager

Developer: Playsport GamesRelease Date: Nov 2016Link: Official site

Another sensible sport to adapt into a management game, Motorsport Manager is half about the strategy, half about the cars. Between races you’ll spend time improving and upgrading your vehicle, then make strategic calls like what tires to use and when to make a pit stop, but all without having to bother getting your hands dirty actually steering the thing. 

ARCADE SPORTS

Sensible World of Soccer

Developer: Sensible SoftwareRelease Date: Jan 1996Link: GOG

"I don’t like football but I did enjoy Sensible Soccer" is a thing I’ve been told by more 40-year-old game journalists than I care to count. By stripping the sport down to its essentials, SWOS finds a purity in the tick tock of precision passes. GOG only stocks Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, so expect to be stuck in the days of David Seaman and Ian Wright. 

Super Arcade Football

Developer: Out of the BitRelease Date: Early AccessLink: Official site

Super Arcade Football is built on the classic top down approach of Sensible Soccer but with some more modern touches, the most impressive being a physics defying slow motion aftertouch shot. Unlike SWOS it also works online, making it much easier to get a game against a human. 

QWOP

Developer: Bennett Foddy Release Date: Nov 2008 Link: Official site

QWOP is, in many ways, the anti-sports game. Most sports games are about using easy, accessible controls to allow anyone to simulate being a peak athlete. QWOP on the other hand uses an overly complicated control scheme to make the relatively simple act of running a 110m hurdles (yes there are hurdles, most people don’t make it far enough to realise that) astonishingly difficult and hilarious. It’s the Eddie the Eagle of sports games.

Fire Pro Wrestler

Developer: Spike ChunsoftRelease Date: Early AccessLink: Steam

Is wrestling a sport? According to Vince McMahon it’s 'sports entertainment', which is close enough for this list. Unlike the awful official WWE games, Fire Pro Wrestling World leans into the fact that wrestling is a performance, subtly pushing players to put on an entertaining match, rather than just trying to win. That, coupled with its astonishing Steam Workshop-supported character creation makes it unique among wrestling games. 

OlliOlli

Developer: Roll7Release Date: Jul 2014Link: Steam

OlliOlli's great success is in taking all the fun of older skating games like Tony Hawk and distilling them down to two dimensions. The simplicity of OlliOlli's side on approach makes it easier to learn a track while constantly embellishing your performance with tricks and flourishes.

Desert Golfing

Developer: Captain GamesRelease Date: Aug 2014Link: Official site 

I was actually surprised to find viral mobile hit Desert Golfing is available on PC, but it is, via the Windows Store (remember that?). It's a strange, minimalist game that can lulls you into an almost zen mindset. Each hole achieves a lot with a simple geometric layout. Crucially, there is no going back, so every wasted stroke is there forever.

Tennes

Developer: Jan Willem NijmanRelease Date: Nov 2012Link: Official site

Originally a bonus game for people who backed the SportsFriends Kickstarter, Tennnes is a simplified tennis game with a flexible approach to rules. The game does not mind if, for example, you jump over the net and play on the other side of the court. If you liked SportsFriends, you'll like this.

FANTASY SPORTS

Rocket League

Developer: PsyonixRelease Date: Jul 2015Link: Official site

I've had Rocket League installed on my PC for nearly two years now, and I still find myself jumping in for a quick 15 minute game every couple of weeks. The premise is simple: it’s football with rocket powered cars. What makes it work is the strange physics: the ball seems to be moving almost in slow motion, resulting in great slapstick comedy and much rage on the part of PC Gamer editor Sam Roberts. 

SportsFriends

Developer: De Gute FabrikRelease Date: Dec 2014Link: Official site

SportsFriends is a bundle of local multiplayer indie games loosely themed around sports. Hokra is a very fast, minimalist ice hockey game, BariBariBall is a blend of Super Smash Bros and volleyball, Super Pole Riders is a strange pole vaulter jousting game and Johan Sebastian Joust is a kind of full contact musical chairs played with motion controllers. What they have in common is that they’re all a amazing fun with a group of friends.

Bloodbowl 2

Developer: Cyanide ReleaseDate: Sep 2015Link: Official site

The Blood Bowl board game is as old as I am, which is testament to its enduring appeal. It is simultaneously one of the most frustrating and entertaining games I've ever played. Dice rolls are required for everything, meaning sometimes players fall over and die because they ran too fast. The digital port is solid enough, but the real charm lies in the time tested rules.

Frozen Cortex

Developer: Mode7Release Date: Feb 2015Link: Official site

Frozen Synapse's trademark interpretation of turn-based combat, where both sides plan their moves and execute them simultaneously, turns out to translate really well into sports. A paired down version of American Football featuring big stompy robots on a small pitch, Frozen Cortex excels at replicating the execution of a single play, but lacks the back and forth of larger, more fluid sports. 

Pyre

Developer: Supergiant GamesRelease Date: Jul 2017Link: Official site

Pyre is essentially an RPG with a sport instead of random battles. The story and atmosphere are the kind of strong stuff you'd expect from SuperGiant (who also made Bastion and Transistor). The sport itself can end up a little one dimensional, as attacking players can’t move without the ball, there's little point in the passing game. Still, the way in which the fiction and the sport combine is a unique delight. 

For developers, creating an annual update to an already-revered sports management sim is a bit like advanced Jenga. They re expected to deftly pile on an abundance of heavyweight new features, without troubling the foundations of success. It s especially difficult for a game such as Out of the Park Baseball, considered the most accomplished offering in its particular discipline for nearly a decade. So to say it plays just like last year s outing is in an obvious complement, but also a subtle criticism.

No sports game ever—including the ever-vaunted Football Manager—has afforded so much control to the user. Matches can be played in an array of ways—3D, top-down view, text commentary, radio commentary, any variation of the above—and cleverly offer the same sense of engagement no matter your level of experience. Never played before? Set all options to auto, advance between pitches by tapping the space bar, and let the AI make decisions for you. Want to oversee every last pitching change, fielding substitution, and baserunning decision? The field is yours.

In both cases—and all variations in between these extremes—there s an astounding statistical similarity to real life, with every eventuality thrown up at least once or twice in a 162-game campaign. You consider packing things in after a couple of defeats to unfancied teams, only to swear yourself to OOTP and OOTP alone when a 9th-inning, two-out home run seals an unlikely comeback win against the best team in baseball. It really, really is just like the real thing.

How can any this be considered a negative? Because every last word was true of OOTP 16. Indeed, I could have cut and pasted  the entire review of that game here and been happy that it provides an accurate verdict. I ve no hesitation in recommending this to anyone new to the sport, or genre, who wants to dive straight into the best of the best. For those who took our advice this time last year—doing exactly that—the discussion becomes more complex.

Changes are present. Everything runs a touch more swiftly, which makes a difference when tackling a full season. The default skin utilises a neater interface too, with vital manager options streamlined into a home screen drop-down menu, and more peripheral needs relocated from the top of the screen to its right-hand side. Another neat revision, but taken in isolation not one which should cause you to re-invest.

Of more note is the instant text-based recap which accompanies your scorecard at the end of every contest. This sounds like the most trivial thing—an automatically generated match report which translates numbers into words—but it makes a huge difference in terms of believing you re in a real game world. Some of the player quotes could be snappier— Bogaerts attributed the win to a well-rounded effort by the whole team —but pro sportsmen aren t exactly famed for their erudite post-game analysis, so perhaps such perfunctory nuggets are a deliberate nod to reality.

Strike old

As for modes, the big new addition is the ability to replay any past World Series dating back to 1903. It s an impressive developmental feat, and a commendable addition to the returning option to start the game in any year as any team, but once you ve set right the failings of your real side (for me, winning the big one with the Red Sox in 1986 as if Bill Buckner s infamous error against the Mets never happened) appeal is limited. If you had the time it might be fun to play them all in succession and compare against reality, but that would take months—if not years.

What will appeal most to returning fans are updated rosters, team logos and the like. Although these elements should be a given for any sports game that wishes to be taken seriously, OOTP presses hard for perfection. Licenses for both MLBPA and MLB.com mean real badges are used for even the most anonymous of minor teams, while facegen technology—essentially, an accurate render of the relative player s mug—enables them to visibly age season after season. The dev also promises to update every roster to exactly match real life come opening day (April 5th).

While it mightn t pile on the new features to any noteworthy level, the salient point is that those delicate Jenga blocks remain snugly in place. A wealth of up-to-date licences and attribute ratings make OOTP 17 an essential purchase for the devoted player, while newcomers will swiftly grasp, and love, its relentless brilliance. For those not fussed about having, say, megabucks import Kenta Maeda on the Dodgers, the message is stick with last year s. But whichever bracket you fit into, know this: whether this year s or last, even the most minor of baseball fans needs to be playing OOTP.