10 best NBA video games of all time

8. Tecmo NBA Basketball

Released just a few months prior to Bulls vs. Blazers, 1992’s Tecmo NBA Basketball is the first-ever game to feature a full license from both the NBA and NBA Players Association. Thus, like Bulls vs. Blazers, Tecmo NBA Basketball featured each and every official NBA team and every single NBA player. Like Tecmo’s wildly popular football games, Tecmo NBA Basketball featured cinematic cutscenes during play as well as a refined play-calling system.

Rougher around the edges than EA’s NBA Playoff series, Tecmo NBA Basketball excelled in the little things adding details and elements that revolutionized the genre. For starters, you could play a full 82-game season and have your stats tracked throughout the year — an absolutely revolutionary concept for video games in 1992. Likewise, the rosters were given extreme care as stat-based attributes were given to each player. No longer would Michael Jordan and Mark Price play similarly on the court, each player was designed to look and feel like their real-life counterpart.