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Underground > Games & Gameplay >

Sporting Videogames

14:11 / 25.10.05

What sporting videogames do you play and what do you like about them? How would you compare them to other games that you play?

I rarely play videogames but I do have EA Cricket 2003 at home which I play occasionally, more for the cricket than for the game itself. The graphics aren’t very good, but I am thinking of getting the latest version which should be better. As a young’un I seem to recall playing the odd sporting games. I had a golf game once and a decathlon one where you did all the events. This was like 15 years ago though, with shitty little stick figures running along then you pressed a key to make them jump.

I like the idea of a sporting game because it presents a real situation that you may have been in, which allows for the possibility of an increased connection between player and game. In a way, it’s almost like practising the sport, because you are making the same decisions you would in real life. Unfortunately however you can never mimic real-life strategies because, like all videogames, once you get to know it you find certain moves that work better than others, even if it is a tactic that wouldn’t work in real life. Not only does this reduce the reality factor but it also gets boring. I think this flaw is more pronounced in sporting games than in others, because you are in essence replaying the same thing over and over with each game, rather than progressing to more complex levels with different types of challenges and opponents.

And what about the “manager” type sporting games where you manage a team, buying and selling players and guiding them through the competition? Does that add something that you don’t get in non-sporting games? I’ve never played one of those but am considering getting one.

Thoughts, experiences, comparisons?

The Return Of Rothkoid

01:05 / 26.10.05

To be honest, I've never really been that into sports games. Sure, I've got a couple of the SSX games, but I suppose they fall into the extreme/fabulist sports category, rather than actual sporty games like the EA lines.

Curiously, I loved Pete Rose Baseball on my old PC, because it was a real challenge. But I can't find myself really getting into things like hockey or rugby games. Even the copy of Pele's Soccer I had on my old Atari was cast aside for other games... I don't know why, but I just don't seem to gel with the genre.

That said, and though they're not sports in the same manner, I find things like the Colin McRae series of rally sims a bit more engrossing, as they seem to challenge me a bit more. That's not to say that I'm amazingly good at all other sports games; no, rather, it's an indicator that they bore me less.

Maybe I should give it a try a bit more. But I honestly don't see myself getting excited by sports sims. Especially things like cricket - I'd be more inclined to go to the park and have a bash around, instead.

A curling sim, however, would be ace.

04:26 / 26.10.05

Cricket has yet to work as a videogame for me. Fifa's great with your mates, I have some fond memories.

07:58 / 26.10.05

I've never really got into sports games. I've dabbled in Fifa in its various incarnations since the Megadrive, & as Krug says with a few mates it can be great fun. I also have a soft spot for some of the more ridiculous basketball games (the NBA Jam style, rather than the sim style).
However for me gaming is a form of escapism, of vicariously experiencing things I'll never do, like blasting tie fighters into dust, defending the earth from alien invasion, or questing through dungeons to stop the Dark Lord. If I want to play cricket, I can just go outside & play cricket, I guess that's why they never appealed.
However Loomis, I will warn you about Football Manager. All my friends who have played it have ended up horribly addicted, emerging weeks afterwards, a tattered husk of their former selves, mumbling that they've taken Partick Thistle (insert own low level team here) to the top of Europe.

Jake, Colossus of Clout

04:00 / 05.11.05

MVP Baseball 2005 is an addiction for me. It's the most realistic baseball sim out there, and it has this great owner mode where you take over a team and it's minor league franchises (not all of them, thank god, just the AAA, AA and most prominent A teams) and try to make them successful, financially and by winning divisions, pennants and championships. You can manage the most inane minutae of a ballclub, down to the concessions, ballpark upgrades, merchandise and minor-league batting coaches. Primadonna players will bitch about their contracts, fans will stop coming if the team sucks, relief pitchers will moan about their playing time, trades will be proposed- All of the drama and insanity of baseball is contained on one disc, and the gameplay is phenomenal. No steroids, however.

Too bad the absolutely shit 2K Sports got exclusive MLB rights, so this franchise is dead now. Fuckers.

On a related note, I also play Fantasy Baseball, where you and your buddies draft twenty real-life layers and earn points based on their performances over a season. lots of good, old-fashioned smack-talk and wheelin' and dealin'. It's incredibly addictive. I made it to the semifinals this year, and I'm confident that my team (the Syringes) will go all the way next year, unlike the goddamn Red Sox. I predict an unprecedented flop of a season for the Olde Towne Team.