Major Nelson recently posted on his blog the 20 most played games this past week on Xbox Live. Four of the titles in the chart, are sports games, so this got me an enthusiast sports gamer thinking, what does the current gen sports gamer expect from next years iteration.

I’m going to focus in particular upon the two biggest series in sports, FIFA and Madden. I will also however mention two of my favourites, because in terms of reality and bringing a sports gamer what they want, they are the two titles which are currently the closest to reality, 2K’s NBA series and EA’s NHL series have won countless Sports Game of the year awards, and have dominated their sports market for nearly a decade. Honourable mentions will also go out to Codemasters superb F1 series, EA’s Tiger Woods and the new kid on the block, Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge.

Lets start with the most relevent to us europeans, FIFA.

This past years iteration of FIFA was in a word, debateble. Some gamers loved it, others hated it. It adopted a new defensive system, one of which relied on the gamers patience and tactical skill. However it annoyed many people, because for some it took the fun out of the game. I however quite enjoyed it, it made a nice change to see myself having realistic scores in a football game and not the usual 6-0 affair of the previous FIFA’s. However on the harder difficulty, most notably Legendary, it became a real annoyance. The ai in the game would be superior in everyway, making perfectly timed slide tackles, and always equalising or winning the game in the last second. It made you play perfect, and even then it usually wasn’t enough. This makes me question whether EA have gone too far in terms of realism with the series, therefore it is my belief that they need to begin focusing on other important aspects of representing the sport of Football, the worlds greatest game. Presentation wise, FIFA has always been poor, until this year the Career mode was dull and uneventful, and in some respects it still is. What I want to see is a drastic overhaul of the way the game is presented, they have a license with ESPN and Sky Sports, so why not use it. It would be amazing to play a Manchester derby on a Sunday in Career mode and have the Super Sunday intros for example. Why don’t we see a pre game show of a couple of minutes debating the pros and cons of each team. LMA manager used to have a Match of the Day style recap at the end of every week, so why not just copy that. It is also about time every stadium was put into FIFA. You would only have to do it once, and then they are there forever. EA could even farm out a stadium builder, and have the huge FIFA community, which has wanted this for years, create their favourite teams grounds. For example I don’t want to be playing against Blackburn and see them playing in a 50,000 seater stadium, with a Spanish name. Combining these real stadiums with items like team emblems, flags, flares (Italy) and chants would create an immense realistic atmosphere unique to each team.

Noticeable improvements in the commentary would also be nice, for example have them react to Career mode events in detail, if Rooney wants out of Manchester United, why not have the commentary crew debate it, and carry on the debate throughout the length of the match. Granted they did try this this year, however you could make a record breaking transfer, for example Messi to Manchester City, and all the commentators would mention was ‘the new signing’. Why in this day and age don’t they recognise the player and say his name in the commentary. Simple things like that make all the difference. Also if Martin Tyler is mid way through discussing Arsenal and their history, dont have him change track the second someone does something on the pitch. We know it is possible to do this because in NBA 2k11 and 12 the crew will discuss something , comment on the current play and then go back to the discussion they started with beforehand. It adds a great sense of realism to the game. Also in relation to improving commentary, stadium atmospheres and crowd chants should be more vast and varied depending on the condition of the game. Something similar to the PS2 FIFA 07 would be nice, where if you were losing your fans would boo you. An improvement of that would be if you were winning with a low league team at a big teams ground. You could have the home teams crowd act nervously, and then finally erupt when their side equalises. Another tiny but noticeable improvement would be if you score a goal to seal the championship, you should then immediately see the emotion from the players, for example have them break down on the pitch in tears or rush to the sidelines to hug the manager in excitement. Things like this would be simple to implement, and with the resources EA sports have, they could easily pull it off in a brilliant and new way.

So for me the two key aspects FIFA 13 could and should improve on are: Presentation. Sound.

When FIFA has presentation this good, I will be happy.


For my original post please visit www.epicfailpodcast.com