Digital Disasters: The 10 Lamest Sports Video Games of All-Time

Being passionate about sports goes beyond following your favorite teams and watching hours upon hours of Sportscenter. It's a lifestyle.

That lifestyle develops early, from the MLB bed sheets, playing pee wee football and of course, developing your love for competition through video games.

Sure it's easy to relish in the memories of the great video games like Madden, Mario Tennis and the immortal NFL Blitz, but what about the flops?

As long as there have been great sports video games, there have been awful sports video games. These are the worst of the worst, the 10 lamest sports video games of all time.

10. Blitz: The League

Lawrence Taylor acted as the spokesperson for Midway's extension of their wildly popular NFL: Blitz franchise.

The gameplay is similar as you can perform "dirty" stiff arms and hits. First downs are 30 yards instead of 10 and all rules cease to exist.

However, what sets this game apart is its references to illicit activities.

Players can put a cut of their paychecks towards gambling activities. Minor injuries can be "juiced" heal players faster. Heck, you can even send prostitutes to an opposing team's hotel room before gameday to decrease their performance on the field.

The writer of the campaign mode was incidentally the same guy who wrote the show "Playmakers" for ESPN way back when.

The game was ultimately banned in Australia due to drugs and gambling being used an incentives for success.

9. Blast Lacrosse

The 2001 PlayStation game was based off of lacrosse's indoor league, the NLL.

The game was officially licensed, included all teams and players, but just couldn't deliver, gameplay-wise.

The graphics are awful and the game doesn't feel fluid at all. Being a lacrosse player and fan it pains me to throw this one up on the list, but it is certainly deserving of being on here.

College Lacrosse 2010 hit XBOX live systems this year, but it might be a while before the sport gets popular on a video game platform.

8. Kurt Warner's Arena Football Unleashed

Apparently Midway thought the success of their NFL Blitz franchise would benefit from Kurt Warner endorsing their Arena League project

It didn't work.

I find it a bit ironic how the game's tagline is "unleashed", yet the game is being played in an arena, go figure.

Keep your eyes out for "Daunte Culpepper's UFL Football Unleashed", set to drop next year.

7. Slam City with Scottie Pippen

The game just sucks, you're Scottie Pippen and you go one on one against other city ballers to earn respect, that's about it.

In the golden age of NBA Jam, you can't bring this weak stuff into my house, and certainly not into my gaming console.

Scottie Pippen performed the theme song for the game by himself, enough said.

6. NFL Head Coach '09

Released in 2008, NFL Head Coach provides the player with the real life experience of being a successful coach in the NFL.

The features seem really realistic: you control playcalling, invite players to training camp and create your own draft strategy.

That said, you'd have to be really, and I mean really, intense to play this game.

It just seems like a tedious experience. It's one thing to develop a franchise in Madden, but building up a team when you can't even control the players? I don't know how long I'd be able to take it.

5. Sterling Sharpe: End 2 End

Another game that just didn't deliver. It was 1995 and the Madden age was just around the corner, the game just fell short.

Super Nintendo games back then needed to make up for their lack of graphics and advanced gameplay by being really fun to play, and End 2 End didn't deliver.

Plus, Sterling Sharpe? Come on.

4. Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball

Laimbeer's licensed his name to the product at a point in his career when he was notoriously known for being aggressive and physical on the court.

The game takes place in 2030, basketball has gone through some serious changes. Robots toss the ball up for tip off, as Laimbeer deemed it necessary to fire all referees sometime prior to the year 2030, all players wear armor to their games, physical body checks are allowed and fans throw weapons onto the court.

The game was criticized for over-simplified controls. Weapons such as bombs appeared on the court at various times yet one button was used for all in-game actions.

It probably doesn't help that Laimbeer's former NBA team, the Detroit Pistons were participants in the 2004 Brawl at the Palace. Artest is the first guy I'm calling for a contract in 2030.

3. Shaq Fu

Released in 1994, Shaq Fu is acknowledged as one of the worst video games of all time, not just sports video games.

I'd try to explain it's concept but the game's own description tells you all you need to know.

"In the game's storyline, O'Neal wanders into a kung fu dojo while heading to a charity basketball game in Tokyo, Japan. There, he stumbles into another dimension, where he is forced to rescue a young boy named Nezu from the evil mummy Sett-Ra."

We all know Shaq is an eclectic character who can make make us laugh in almost any situation, but I think he bit off more than he could chew with this game.

The concept makes me highly suspicious of marijuana-usage by the developers, and lack of childhood friends of the gamers.

Now here's the real question: Would you rather play Shaq Fu for two hours, or watch Kazaam in its entirety?

2. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden

The unofficial sequel to the Barkley, Shut Up and Jam original games, the Gaiden version out did itself in the lame department.

The plot of the game on Wikipedia is a whole page long, but I only had to read: "The game takes place in a post-cyberpocalyptic New York called "Neo New York", after a "chaos dunk" causes the death of millions.", before I stopped reading.

So apparently Barkley uses basketball power-ups and enlists the help of stars like Michael Jordan and Vince Carter (referred to in the game as Vinceborg 2050 because he was killed in the chaos dunk and then re-built as a cyborg) to discover the performer of the chaos dunk and bring him to justice for doing such "turrible" things.

The plot goes on to further describe (I kid you not) how Charles' son is struck by a dart containing diabetes, prompting Barkley to seek out none other than Wilford Brimley to cure him. Brimley hooks Barkley's son up to a massive insulin machine where he is kept alive, but at the expense of of Brimley, who dies as a result of his own case of diabetes.

Thanks, Wikipedia.

1. Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City

Far be it from me to deem Michael Jordan anything other than super, but his depiction as a crime fighter in Chaos in the Windy City is downright ludicrous.

It was released in 1994, the same year as Shaq Fu, the two games proceeded to duke it out for supreme suckiness.

Not only is the concept right up there in terms of lame-ness with Shaq Fu, but the gameplay doesn't deliver either.

It's presented in a 2D platform, much like the "Mario" games, making it really outdated for a mid-90's game. Jordan uses different basketballs with different powers for his attacks, the freeze ball freezes the ground, the bomb ball makes and explosion. Can you guess what the fire ball does? I thought so.

Jordan can also use a slam dunk for a secondary attack. A secondary attack? Give me a break, MJ would be posterizing criminals if he were a real superhero, don't give me this secondary attack BS.

At least his collars on his Hanes t-shirts didn't stretch out while he was serving justice in Chicago.