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Denver, 7:10 AM
Tue Dec 15
57 posts in the last 24 hours
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12/06/09
You people have no idea how difficult it is to root for 'the BJ's'.
11/15/09
Ever.
That said, I'm honestly surprised that (and this could have been done already, I wouldn't know) some of these sports titles haven't taken the "Tony Hawk" route and incorporated some manner of Story Mode.
Start out as a regular high school football/baseball/basketball/whatever player, get your stats up to get recruited by a college team, repeat, sign with the majors, go for the superbowl/wolrd series, etc.
It seems like a good way to squeeze a little more narrative into a genre where you're basically paying full-price, year after year, for updated stats and rosters . #sports
11/15/09
11/14/09
11/14/09
I won't be playing an NFL title again until Visual Concepts gets the license back. To hell with madden. #sports
11/14/09
11/15/09
Do people still update and download rosters for 2K5? I might go re-buy it, as I had Madden 10 and after playing it for two weeks returned it. It's a broken game. #sports
11/16/09
11/16/09
11/14/09
It's worked to keep PES an option in a category where EA's FIFA really has the money and the influence to get the licenses they want. #sports
11/14/09
11/16/09
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11/14/09
The thing is, NHL or FIFA are actually excellent videogames on top of being excellent simulations of the sport. They are fast-paced and require tons of strategy and fast reflexes. The control is fine tuned and allows simple basic operations and very complex manuevers. There are tons of modes with near endless depth. Etc. For my money, FIFA 10 is one of this year's top games.
11/14/09
11/14/09
There needs to be some form of anti-trust action taken for this sort of stuff, lol. #sports
11/14/09
Still, I understand your frustration with a predatory business deal that has diminished the quality and quantity of selection. #sports
11/14/09
[www.nfl2k5rosters.com] #sports
11/14/09
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11/14/09
And I think you're right, Owen, in that it has something to do with storytelling-- we consider that an essential criterion for a game that could win GOTY. Sports games simply don't tell stories; they create structures in which the gamer can tell a story. That, of course, brings us back to NFL 2k5, which used the ESPN format to come closer than any other football title to telling a story. It gets my nod as Sports Game of the Decade.
11/14/09
This isn't necessarily true. Real sports certainly do have narratives - multiple ones at any given time - and I would *love it* if any sports game really tried to model this in both a realistic (ie. non-cheesy) and in-depth way. Some EA games have started to do it; the whole "player happiness" and "media reaction" things are *parts* of the real-life narrative of sports, but these are basically just treated as score modifiers right now in most sports games.
It would be great if sports games had real, multiple storylines that ran throughout your career (so you could really get to "know" the players involved over the years), that changed depending on your actions, that affected gameplay and were an integral part of the game rather than an afterthought. Like, I want to see players shooting themselves in the leg at nightclubs in the off-season. Or deciding to retire, then un-retire, then retire again, then un-retire again. Throw some wrinkles like that into your team management!
This is probably the last frontier in sports games - everything else has been done. I feel like all EA's doing in all their sports games anymore is improving the graphics and adding a new move or two each year that just makes the controls more complex. #sports
11/14/09
11/14/09
Later, MVP Baseball 05 was released, easily the best baseball game I will ever play. The perfect combination of simulation and playability, I must've put in 1000 hours into it, at the very least. Online play was tons of fun, dynasty mode was a blast, and the PC version was updated yearly (MVP 06 and 07 were quality).
These franchises were sadly ripped away from the market. I actually picked up the MVP NCAA games and enjoyed them quite a bit, as well as All Pro Football 2K8, but neither were the same. Both were small-budget releases with nothing but little updates over the previous editions (aside from the well done load and fire batting system in MVP 06).
While MLB: The Show is a fantastic series, I'm still waiting for MVP to come back. 2K's MLB franchise is a joke, and looking it up, the deal is apparently up in 2012. I cannot wait. #sports
11/14/09
11/14/09
Any sports game that had this type of reinvention of itself would seem to be a master of the genre, especially in a genre that just repackages and reproduces the same crap over and over again. The players of 2k5 just saw an advancement and are waiting for a jump of equal proportions before they can let the 2k5 name die.
But this is all my opinion, and I'll admit, I'm not a sport, or sports game fan, so I could biased, or I could be impartial, it's hard to say. We rarely see the full truth when blinded by hidden prejudices.
11/14/09
11/14/09
They should integrate a role-playing game with the sports game, and I'm surprised they have never done that. Make NBA The Journey, or something like that and have it where you grow up, level up, and eventually make it into the NBA. Have it be open world like a GTA so you can explore your hood.
Make it possible to go the wrong direction by choosing the wrong path in life where you could end up just making the D-League, playing YMCA basketball, or just playing with all the new talent coming up in the hood instead of ever making the NBA.
New Game+ could be where you end up having children and living through them to try to make them the best player they can be, certain stats would carry over that would mimic knowledge you had gained on your first playthrough to make the journey to the NBA a bit easier.
Make money a factor, instead of buying guns like in GTA you could buy Jordan camp trips, sneakers, and other gear. Car accidents or drug deals gone bad could leave you injured which would affect your stats. After a 60 point high school basketball game the neighborhood would be buzzing, mcdonalds team would come knocking, and the possibilities are really endless.
I think all sports fans would be floored by a game mode like this and the competition would be so far away instead of it just being a toss up of which sports game is best. It would be clear that your development team actually put some thought and work into the title you're releasing. #sports
11/14/09
I would buy that. #sports
11/14/09