The most dominant video game athletes of all time

No video game athlete is more storied than Bo Jackson in “Tecmo Super Bowl.” Jackson is incredibly famous for an athlete who didn’t have a terribly great career, injuries aside. In “Tecmo Super Bowl,” though, he was truly unstoppable. If you played as the Raiders, you gave the ball to Bo and he scored. It was that simple.

Before Lamar Jackson came around, Vick was the greatest running quarterback ever. He also had a big arm. The 2004 version of “Madden” wasn’t quite able to figure out how to include this in their game. If you played as the Falcons, on most plays you could just scramble with Vick for huge chunks or yards. That, or you could run around until your receivers were open downfield and unleash a bomb.

This is a dominant athlete you didn’t play as, but against. At the end of “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” you had to beat Tyson as the final boss. He was basically impossible. Many a gamer who had run through King Hippo and Soda Popinski were suddenly at a loss. Eventually, Tyson was taken out of the game, replaced by Mr. Dream.

As you will see a couple more times on this list, it pays to have your name on a video game franchise. That was the case for Hawk when it came to “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.” It was helped that he was justifiably considered by many as the best skateboarder in the world at the time of the first game being released. It happened around the time he became the first skater to land a 900. Hence, he was a supremely skilled skater in his own game.

Curry is arguably the greatest shooter in NBA history in real life. Not only can he nail threes, his range is incredible. In “NBA2K16” the game really played up Curry’s skills. If you were uncontested, you could basically pull up for a three one step over the half-court line and get a bucket. Try stopping that in a video game.

Roenick was a great player in his prime, but he was never on the level of a Wayne Gretzky or a Mario Lemieux. In “NHL ‘94,” though, he was arguably better than both of them. When they were putting the game together the numbers got skewed a bit so that players with size and speed got an unexpected, and perhaps extreme, boost. That was Roenick’s game, and so he ended up incredibly dominant. Just ask the guys in “Swingers.”

Tiger’s dominance wasn’t limited to just one game. That makes sense. Not only was he the most-dominant golfer in the actual world for years, he had his own video game series. Basically in every game of the “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” series features Woods as a truly dominant force. The talk on the internet seems to be that he was at his most formidable in the 2008 version of the game, especially in “Sunday Tiger” form.

LeBron is basically the Tiger Woods of basketball, and he’s been unstoppable in a few different games. All indications is that he’s at his peak in “NBA2K14.” We concur. In real life, he was winning MVPs, and NBA titles, with the Miami Heat around then. NBA fans may have disliked the decision, but the programmers of the “NBA2K” series clearly didn’t mind LeBron taking his talents to South Beach.

Do you remember the “NBA Ballers” series? They were more in line with an “NBA Jam” or an “NBA Street,” which meant that they had more of an arcade vibe. The game was all about offense and dunks and having fun, and this was before the three-point revolution had fully begun. This may be why they gave Peja Stojakovic the highest three-point-shooting rating of any player. They didn’t think much of it, but if you played as Peja, he was truly unstoppable from beyond the arc. Especially from the hot spot.

Poor Christian Okoye. If not for Bo Jackson, we’d be talking about how dominant Okoye was in “Tecmo Super Bowl.” This game clearly played up to the skills of big, burly running backs. The Nigerian Nightmare was just that for the Chiefs. Honestly, Okoye was probably a better back than Bo. He just didn’t have the name recognition, and he didn’t get the same love from the Tecmo folks.

For a brief period of time, Ronaldinho was the best soccer player in the world. That time coincided with “FIFA ’06.” The Brazilian was with Barcelona at the time, and he was coming off a 26-goal season. It was basically unfair to play as Barca in the game because of Ronaldinho, unless you let your friends play as Real Madrid. Even then, if you gave the ball to Ronaldinho he was always a threat to dribble around everybody.

Griffey was a superstar, and a Hall of Famer, and his stardom got him a couple different baseball games with his name on it. He’s quite good in “Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest,” but he was at his most dominant in “Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball” for Super Nintendo. This was in the early ‘90s, when the Kid was just exploding onto the scene as a Mariner.

Bush didn’t quite pan out as a pro, but man was he amazing in college. Nobody was more exciting in college football than Bush in the 2000s. He even won a Heisman, though it was eventually “vacated.” You know what can’t be vacated? How unstoppable his speed and athleticism made him in “NCAA Football ’06.” Well, by Bush we of course mean “RB #5” for USC. Pay athletes for their images.

MMA games aren’t quite as popular as, say, football or basketball games, but there are MMA game aficionados out there. They will probably tell you how dominant Jones was in “EA Sports UFC.” He was a dominant fighter in real life, when he wasn’t getting suspended for one reason or another, and had a vast array of skills. In games like this, being really good at everything tends to make you unstoppable.

Remember the “Greatest Show on Turf?” When the Rams had the most-exciting offense in football? Faulk was a big reason for that. It also made him incredible in “Madden” games of the era. Not only was he a great rusher, Faulk was ahead of the curve when it comes to getting involved in the receiving game. His ability to catch passes was a really benefit in the video game world.

In real life, Barry Sanders made a lot of defenders look bad. The same was true in video games. If you wanted to spend your time juking hapless defenders in “Madden ’98,” then playing as the Lions was your best bet.

They released a special soccer game for the 2010 World Cup, namely “FIFA World Cup 2010.” Luckily for gamers looking for an advantage, Ivory Coast made it to the World Cup that year. That allowed them to play as Didier Drogba. His shot was so forceful that if you took a shot at net from anywhere near the goal, there was a good chance it was going in.

No, we’re not talking about some Atari game from the early days of video games. Ali was included in the boxing game “Fight Night Round 3,” which many consider the best boxing game ever. Ali was given incredible speed and stamina for his size, which made him basically impossible to beat. When other boxers were slowing down later in fights, Ali was still going strong.

They called Bure the “Russian Rocket” for a reason. He had incredible speed, and that speed was on display in a few ‘90s NHL games. Bure would often be the fasting player on the ice, and with his scoring touch he was always a threat to blow past the defense and light the lamp.

This name may not sound familiar. No, this isn’t a fictional athlete, at least not entirely. We avoided fictional athletes for this game. In the 2000s, Barry Bonds was breaking baseball records left and right. He had also pulled out of the MLBPA’s licensing agreement, which meant he couldn’t be included in “MVP Baseball ’05.” The Giants still needed a left fielder, though, and so EA Sports included a guy named Jon Dowd, who had skills suspiciously similar to Bonds. They didn’t look alike, because of imaging issues, but we’re counting Dowd as Bonds, and definitely counting Dowd as dominant.