Sport

It has been a long wait. It seems like years since we received our first screens, months since that detailed, energetic Nintendo Direct... Now, it will only be a little over a week before we can all play it. It's almost Mario Kart time, and it just cannot seem to come fast enough. I had zero desire to sit down and write this up. I don't want to tell you about Mario Kart, I don't want to discuss Mario Kart, and I definitely don't want to waste valuable time editing anything about Mario Kart.

Mario and friends have been absent from the golf course since 2004. 10 years later, however, the gang is back at it. This time, your Mii is invited! Mario Golf World Tour takes everything that is good about the Mario Golf franchise and takes it to a new level.

Old-timey PC gamers might recall a game from the 80's called Shufflepuck Cafe, a science-fiction air-hockey sim with overt influences from Star Wars. The new PC game Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe takes the same concept and allows modern gamers to experience the exotic thrills of Air Hockey... IN SPAAAAAACE!

The annual release of sport games for EA continues with the latest entry in the commercially successful Fifa franchise, Fifa 14. The sports title, developed by EA Canada, continues the series’ habit of providing solid, and addicting virtual soccer experiences that offer the closest thing to actually attending, or participating in a real live match. The franchise has ensconced itself pretty comfortably as the go-to sports video game for the majority of consumers. With Konami’s PES franchise lacking significant licensing prowess and marketing appeal, Fifa has ...

Ridge Racer 3D - now over a couple of years old - is staunch reminder of two things. First, arcade racers are awesome. More titles should drop the realism and rap music of recent racing titles and should instead employ someone to shout down the speakers at you.

While EA has cornered the market on NFL games (by default, really), 2K has appeared to do the same with NBA sports simulations. While publisher Take-Two Interactive has been accused of just releasing roster updates with these annual releases, their series has been known to take risks and tweak major gameplay elements on occasion. NBA 2K14 continues this tradition to a degree, but it's not as crafted and accessible as it should be.

Mario has long enjoyed a wide variety of spin-offs. Best known is Mario Kart, although the little plumber that could has never been completely tied to to the racetrack. This tradition of allowing an untrained fat man to star in various sporting events continues with Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS.

The Vita is a treasure trove of titles, offering more or less everything you might want to play within only a few taps of your grasp. Real Boxing is the first of its kind though, and is the sort of game you might not know you want until you see it. With a sharp idea unavailable anywhere else on the Vita, you may be able to overlook the fairly constant shortcomings and see your boxer through to the final belt.

Motorbike games have always been a part of video gaming culture. Go back to the early days of SEGA and Nintendo and you'll see countless attempts at bringing those two-wheeled speed demons to the digital realm. This has kind of dropped off in recent years as developers would rather show off pretty cars with high end labels. MotoGP 13 proves that there are still games out there for people that want their motorbike fix, offering high speeds, realistic physics and challenging gameplay that will keep a hardcore fan happy for months.

Since releasing Title Bout Championship Boxing 2.5 back in 2008, the boxing simulation series has laid dormant, as Out of the Park Developments shifted their focus full-time to their baseball management sim, finally selling it to frequent collaborator studio P.I.S.D. Ltd. back in May. Hand in hand with that news came word that the long-awaited Title Bout Championship Boxing 2013 would be released - and it arrived this week on PC and Mac, a (somewhat) successful for the oft-forgotten franchise.