In Modern Systems

I've hated organized sports from my childhood. Not sure why, my mom's entire side of the family are sports NUTS, but I never got pulled into it. Oddly enough, however, I did enjoy unorganized sandlot Baseball with my friends (there were never enough kids around here for full teams anyway). I also collected Baseball cards, but it was mostly because I wanted to collect something, not because I knew who any of these teams were, who any of these people were, or what any of the numbers on the back mean (still don't). I picked favorite teams based on who I thought had the coolest logo or uniforms.

Around the time I was forced into little league, Bases Loaded came out for the NES, and my youngest uncle (probably in his 20's at the time) picked it up, and I would occasionally play against him, since I basically understood the rules. Well, my mom finally allowed me to quit Little League Baseball, after 3 ruined summers, I quit collecting cards, and quit caring about Bases Loaded, the only sports game I had ever bothered to play.

On the Genesis, NBA Jam and Cyberball enjoyed brief stays in my console. Both had wacky gimmicks though, and weren't "simulations" of sports that I couldn't stand in real life. In fact in Cyberball, I would just pick random plays and try to run the ball every time, because I didn't understand football's rules (still don't). I skipped out on Baseball games for the next 3 generations. On the Dreamcast, I purchased Virtua Tennis because our arcade had it, and I liked it's simplicity. My mom had also forced me into 2 summers of Tennis lessons years before, so I understood how it worked. On PS2, an acquaintance tried to get me to play an early Madden game with him at a party, but again, I didn't understand how football worked. I would select random plays and try to run the ball every time until he gave up on me. On Gamecube, my girlfriend bought me Sega Soccer Slam, which is a blast to play. That is basically my entire history with sports games.

Recently, (within the last couple years) as my interest in the NES was refueled, I played some Bases Loaded again, then decided to see what else the system had to offer. Baseball Stars is now currently one of my favorite NES Games, and one of me and my friend Chuck's favorite pastimes (Baseball is one of the few sports Chuck understands, as well). Well, after countless games of Bases Loaded 1 and 2, RBI Baseball 1 and 3, and Baseball Stars, Chuck and I decided to see what we had been missing out on in Baseball games in the last 3 or 4 generations of game hardware.

On an NES run at locally owned Game Doctors, Chuck impulse bought Roger Clemen's MVP Baseball 2004 for $10. It was used! The equally sports-ignorant clerk informed us that he had heard that was the best series, and EA made no more money off our purchase. Now, we've been used to 2-button Baseball games for years now. Every Nintendo Baseball game plays basically the same, with a single button controlling some combination of pitching, throwing, batting, and stealing. We honestly had no idea what to expect with a 128bit Baseball game.

Honestly, we're a little disappointed. Drafts and stats were done in Baseball Stars. What else can you do with a hundred year old sport? Apparently, just make it look like how it's shown on TV. Redundant, obnoxious announcers and slick TV-like graphics and replays are about as far as we've come. I think that is just the WRONG way to approach the genre. Shouldn't we be able to approach a video game on it's own terms, not knowing what to expect, even from familiar source material? Why are the cameras, sound effects, and music all designed to replicate the act of watching Baseball on TV, instead of PLAYING Baseball? Not only were we disappointed with the general direction Baseball games have taken, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with the graphics.

This is the best the genre has to offer? Seriously? I know the game is multi-platform and has to be tailored to run on the lowest common denominator, but there is NOT that much going on on-screen in Baseball. SURELY even the PS2 could handle a couple hundred more polygons per player, and more interesting textures. There is absolutely no reason sports games should not look photo-real by this point. Player animation is well below where I expected it to be, as well. Sure, there are lots of great mo-capped throws and catches, but transitions animations was almost always awkward. Very little effort was put into facial expressions, but I assume that's because the generic TV-styled camera angles rarely get you close enough to the action to where it would matter. Occasionally on replays you could see a pitcher grimace as he threw, but it was rare, and the rest of the players seem to have that generic wide-eyed blank expression on their faces at all times, whether they just lost a game 28-2 or climbed the fence to catch a would-be home run. You'd think in a game where the focus is the players and not so much detailed, varied environments, more time and effort would be put into, well, the PLAYERS. It would also be nice if a videogame-exclusive camera system was implemented to put you more IN the game, rather than WATCHING as you passively issue commands to your mo-capped actors. Honestly, I think the gameplay has taken a step backwards since the 8bit era, with how much of the game is automated, and how disconnected you feel from the entire experience. I seriously consider the interactivity just a step above the FMV games of the Sega CD era, pressing buttons when prompted, and allowing a game to unfold before me.

Combined with my experience with Madden, I have to ask: THIS is why EA owns the world? Seems that I put just a little too much faith in the casual gamer. These are hardly gaming. These are a television watching simulation. Time for a change in the sports genre, or maybe even a step backwards. I enjoy MVP 2004 well enough, but I'll take my two-button Baseball over it any day.

Man! Great write-up! I enjoyed the newer Baseball games that I've played, but they've only been DC games, so I'm not sure about some of the other systems newer ones. That's something that I never thought about; players' expressions. It would seem to be more entertaining if they would.

As for why they made it like your watching instead of playing... that's probably because they try to target the general population with "stunning" graphics, and "stunning" sound. You've got a really good point about some of this, though. More than likely, it will continue in this fashion. With the money they make they probably think, "If it ain't broke..."

That's definately a refreshing view, and something to take into consideration...

By the way, I borrowed Virtua Tennis from a friend, and I love that game as well! Very simple, yet somehow they made it really fun.

Baseball Stars rules!

As for sports games I only played soccer (ISSS and Fifa) and Tennis on the NES and Gameboy.
And I get your point very well. Nowadays' games focus too much on the looks than on gameplay it seems.

I've never liked sports games... and most recently I have a weekly discussion about how much I hate the fact that they just release the same game every year, just remark the date on it...

that's the main reason I hate them beside that fact that most sports are boring anyway... The only sports game I've played seriously was NBA Jam on the SNES, my brother loved it, so I played it with him all the time, and grew to enjoy it myself. That wasn't for the fact that it was basketball, that was just a fun game.

That's an issue I also don't like.
Always the same games with just another number on the title screen. That sucks.
But there are (rich) people, that buy every installment of that games. I'll never understand those people.

That seems to be a common theme with NBA Jam. It's an awesome game, even though I, too, am not fond of sports games. Madden 2004 might be enjoyable if I knew football at the play level a bit better, but I don't... I've heard some people setup computer on computer games and watch them like they're watching a real game!

International Superstar Soccer 64 or whatever I played was pretty decent, but the control always eems to be lacking in sports games-- it's hard to control a whole TEAM of characters with one controller-- I constantly find myself saying, "NO-- I meant I want to move THAT guy this way-- not THAT guy!" Oh well...


--
Derek

...

That seems to be a common theme with NBA Jam. It's an awesome game, even though I, too, am not fond of sports games. Madden 2004 might be enjoyable if I knew football at the play level a bit better, but I don't... I've heard some people setup computer on computer games and watch them like they're watching a real game!

International Superstar Soccer 64 or whatever I played was pretty decent, but the control always eems to be lacking in sports games-- it's hard to control a whole TEAM of characters with one controller-- I constantly find myself saying, "NO-- I meant I want to move THAT guy this way-- not THAT guy!" Oh well...

I also liked NBA Jam very much.

And I think everybody has the same problems with soccer games. I always mean another guy when somebody in my team does something I didn't inted to.

I've hated organized sports from my childhood. Not sure why, my mom's entire side of the family are sports NUTS, but I never got pulled into it. Oddly enough, however, I did enjoy unorganized sandlot Baseball with my friends (there were never enough kids around here for full teams anyway). I also collected Baseball cards, but it was mostly because I wanted to collect something, not because I knew who any of these teams were, who any of these people were, or what any of the numbers on the back mean (still don't). I picked favorite teams based on who I thought had the coolest logo or uniforms.

Around the time I was forced into little league, Bases Loaded came out for the NES, and my youngest uncle (probably in his 20's at the time) picked it up, and I would occasionally play against him, since I basically understood the rules. Well, my mom finally allowed me to quit Little League Baseball, after 3 ruined summers, I quit collecting cards, and quit caring about Bases Loaded, the only sports game I had ever bothered to play.

On the Genesis, NBA Jam and Cyberball enjoyed brief stays in my console. Both had wacky gimmicks though, and weren't "simulations" of sports that I couldn't stand in real life. In fact in Cyberball, I would just pick random plays and try to run the ball every time, because I didn't understand football's rules (still don't). I skipped out on Baseball games for the next 3 generations. On the Dreamcast, I purchased Virtua Tennis because our arcade had it, and I liked it's simplicity. My mom had also forced me into 2 summers of Tennis lessons years before, so I understood how it worked. On PS2, an acquaintance tried to get me to play an early Madden game with him at a party, but again, I didn't understand how football worked. I would select random plays and try to run the ball every time until he gave up on me. On Gamecube, my girlfriend bought me Sega Soccer Slam, which is a blast to play. That is basically my entire history with sports games.

Recently, (within the last couple years) as my interest in the NES was refueled, I played some Bases Loaded again, then decided to see what else the system had to offer. Baseball Stars is now currently one of my favorite NES Games, and one of me and my friend Chuck's favorite pastimes (Baseball is one of the few sports Chuck understands, as well). Well, after countless games of Bases Loaded 1 and 2, RBI Baseball 1 and 3, and Baseball Stars, Chuck and I decided to see what we had been missing out on in Baseball games in the last 3 or 4 generations of game hardware.

On an NES run at locally owned Game Doctors, Chuck impulse bought Roger Clemen's MVP Baseball 2004 for $10. It was used! The equally sports-ignorant clerk informed us that he had heard that was the best series, and EA made no more money off our purchase. Now, we've been used to 2-button Baseball games for years now. Every Nintendo Baseball game plays basically the same, with a single button controlling some combination of pitching, throwing, batting, and stealing. We honestly had no idea what to expect with a 128bit Baseball game.

Honestly, we're a little disappointed. Drafts and stats were done in Baseball Stars. What else can you do with a hundred year old sport? Apparently, just make it look like how it's shown on TV. Redundant, obnoxious announcers and slick TV-like graphics and replays are about as far as we've come. I think that is just the WRONG way to approach the genre. Shouldn't we be able to approach a video game on it's own terms, not knowing what to expect, even from familiar source material? Why are the cameras, sound effects, and music all designed to replicate the act of watching Baseball on TV, instead of PLAYING Baseball? Not only were we disappointed with the general direction Baseball games have taken, I was EXTREMELY disappointed with the graphics.

This is the best the genre has to offer? Seriously? I know the game is multi-platform and has to be tailored to run on the lowest common denominator, but there is NOT that much going on on-screen in Baseball. SURELY even the PS2 could handle a couple hundred more polygons per player, and more interesting textures. There is absolutely no reason sports games should not look photo-real by this point. Player animation is well below where I expected it to be, as well. Sure, there are lots of great mo-capped throws and catches, but transitions animations was almost always awkward. Very little effort was put into facial expressions, but I assume that's because the generic TV-styled camera angles rarely get you close enough to the action to where it would matter. Occasionally on replays you could see a pitcher grimace as he threw, but it was rare, and the rest of the players seem to have that generic wide-eyed blank expression on their faces at all times, whether they just lost a game 28-2 or climbed the fence to catch a would-be home run. You'd think in a game where the focus is the players and not so much detailed, varied environments, more time and effort would be put into, well, the PLAYERS. It would also be nice if a videogame-exclusive camera system was implemented to put you more IN the game, rather than WATCHING as you passively issue commands to your mo-capped actors. Honestly, I think the gameplay has taken a step backwards since the 8bit era, with how much of the game is automated, and how disconnected you feel from the entire experience. I seriously consider the interactivity just a step above the FMV games of the Sega CD era, pressing buttons when prompted, and allowing a game to unfold before me.

Combined with my experience with Madden, I have to ask: THIS is why EA owns the world? Seems that I put just a little too much faith in the casual gamer. These are hardly gaming. These are a television watching simulation. Time for a change in the sports genre, or maybe even a step backwards. I enjoy MVP 2004 well enough, but I'll take my two-button Baseball over it any day.
I just wanted to "quote" all that.

And also to say that most of the newer sports games can be customized to remove the commercialized commentary or to adjust the camera angle view.

The only real way to capture a true "real life" experience of a sports game would be to play as just one player on a team, see everything from first-person view, and only hear sounds that you would hear when actually playing the real game. There would also be angry fans shouting at you, and the occasional "projectile" thrown in your general direction.


So in "real life" the offensive ball carrier should run from the defense in a zig-zag pattern to avoid being tackled. Well that strategy might work when playing football against alligators, but real life humans are smarter than that.

The only real way to capture a true "real life" experience of a sports game would be to play as just one player on a team, see everything from first-person view, and only hear sounds that you would hear when actually playing the real game. There would also be angry fans shouting at you, and the occasional "projectile" thrown in your general direction.


That'd be nice. But this would only make sense, e.g. in online games, when you have human partners. If not, you'd have to let the computer play most of the game, as you only can control one man.