If I had to quantify the amount of time I’ve spent begging for particular games to make a comeback, I’d guess the EA BIG Street series has gotten somewhere between 50%-55% of my attention. This was a classic mid-2000s arcade sports series that represented everything right about gaming at the time. Back when developers had the freedom to just try stuff, these games straight-up represented fun. It’s time for another Retro Runback. This time around, NFL and NBA Street. Both NFL and NBA Street got sequels, with NBA Street getting four mainline games, and NFL Street getting three.

‘NBA STREET’

Looking back, the first NBA Street feels fairly bare-bones, more of a proof of concept than anything else. But in the moment? It felt like NBA Jam turned up to 11. Clearly inspired by streetball culture and specifically the legendary AND1 Basketball, NBA Street brought a much-needed arcade spin to the proceedings as sim games had started to take hold with the advancements in console tech. But it was the next game in the series that would change the way we looked at arcade sports gaming forever.

NBA Street Vol. 2 was THE arcade basketball game. It took everything that made the first game great and mashed it with rap culture. To this day, I will contend that this game has the greatest soundtrack ever. The moment you start the game up, you hear the legendary track “T.R.O.Y.” by Pete Rock & CL Smooth. And it only got better from there. Commentary by the iconic Bobbito Garcia had some of the greatest lines in sports game history.

This would be followed up by NBA Street Vol. 3 and NBA Street Homecourt. The latter employs a more realistic graphical style separate from the previous games. While both of these games were good, they didn’t reach the heights of the second game. But there were great things done that could be employed in the future if there was to be one.

‘NFL STREET’

The NFL Street games hold a special place in my heart because of my time with the NFL Blitz games. Now because the NFL is a bit more strict about its presentation than the NBA is, the NFL games were a bit more straightforward in their gameplay and presentation. You weren’t going to get the Blitz-style post-play leg drops, but there were some pretty cool animations, such as the no-look pass. And then I ended up living through an era where two real-life Quarterbacks have that pass in their bag. What a time to be alive indeed.

NFL Street 2 could have been the big inflection point in arcade football gaming. But the series dropped in quality after that. NFL Street 3 came out and was a bit of a dud. Not a bad game, but it’s annoyingly average. As can be the case with sports gaming sequels, there was more to do, but just not a lot of incentive to do it. I do think that today’s NFL is far more arcade game-friendly, especially since knocking someone’s neck loose has been legislated out of the game. Because of that, there’s no expectation of that in your video game, so you don’t have to focus on working around it.

Should WE RUN IT BACK?

We need a new NBA Street. That is not up for debate. How we can go through the primes of LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and Russell Westbrook and not have an arcade game with them in it is beyond me. You will never get me to believe that watching developers accidentally turn Giannis into an unstoppable video game character on the level of Tecmo Bo, ’04 Vick, and 2K1 Randy Moss shouldn’t have happened. We’re missing out on something special. You’re gonna tell me we don’t get an arcade Victor Wembanyama? Terrible. Run it back.

NFL Street, on the other hand, I could take it or leave it. I’ll always love the games, but as I said, that has more to do with another game entirely. I’d be fine with a new one just to see what can be done with it. Regardless, run it back. An arcade Mahomes would be fun.