Author Bio
Chase BecotteHome Town: Nomads don't have home towns
Sports: A bunch
Games: Too many to list
Teams: Sixers, Flyers, Pirates
OS Username: ChaseB
Tags: PS3: Slizeezyc / 360: Slizeezyc
Monday, April 25, 2016
12:36 PM - April 25, 2016. Posted by Steve_OS. Written by Chase Becotte
The question of realism in sports games is always a tricky thing to discuss. Most of us want our sports games to be “realistic” depictions of what we watch on TV or experience in our day-to-day lives.
What that usually means is hoping Madden makes the passing game more diversified, or hoping you can botch your cap situation like a true Jerry Jones disciple. In many respects, what people are talking about wanting here at Operation Sports are “simulation” aspects that help keep a game dynamic and interesting. Repetition is the enemy.
But there’s another layer of “realism” in sports games, as well as another set of creative liberties that go along with it. I would classify this element of realism as visual realism. It’s one part graphics, but it’s also just one part physicality. Hockey games, football games, basketball games, even baseball games all have to deal with collisions and physics. What do these interactions look like? How do they make you feel? (Boxing games and MMA games are built around visual physicality, so I’m ignoring them here because combat sports are a whole other disucssion.)
Read More - Do You Care About Dangerous Hits in Madden? (Written By: Chase Becotte)
Friday, February 12, 2016
01:38 PM - February 12, 2016. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
When it comes to NBA 2K, the developers who have to figure out the best way to create an environment where both defense and offense are rewarded has to be a tricky balancing act. I would even say it has to be frustrating at times. Some of the decisions you have to make in terms of deciding what two-man interactions you implement, deciding how dribble moves work, how the defensive slide works, how defensive assist plays into the equation, how the ball itself acts in this situation, and how physical you can even be all play into a showdown that occurs 100 billion times a game.
In other words, it feels really complex to me.
Some folks have been poking me to write about on-ball defense, and I’ve sort of tried to avoid writing about it because it’s a quagmire of sorts. I don’t know if it’s really possible to nail a perfect balance when you have a million animations, a ton of attributes, oodles of dribble moves, and a lot of various player types and bodies all bouncing off each other in all these scenarios. It’s not a simple paper beats rock scenario (though come on, we all know rock flies right through paper).
That being said, I’ve come to think of on-ball defense like a mini-game version of a fighting game. It’s reading and reacting as one player tries to do an input that the other is predicting or trying to counter. I’m not sure if that’s the right way to think about it or not, but it’s the way I’ve settled on thinking about on-ball defense as I’ve written this all up.
After the jump, I’ll talk a little bit about the real NBA vs. NBA 2K. From there, I’ll dive into what I see as the positives, the negatives and the I-am-not-even-really-sure territory of on-ball defense in NBA 2K16.
This one might get a little weird. Let’s do it.
Read More - NBA 2K16: On-Ball Physicality
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
12:55 PM - February 9, 2016. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
A pet peeve in a video game is just a little thing that drives you crazy. It’s not really a “game killer” or anything like that to me, it’s just that one thing you wish was better. It can be something small like a player's signature shot being slightly off, or it can even be a bit bigger like an inability to import a draft class.
The point is this pet peeve gnaws at you even though you actively try to ignore it. It’s that big brother who pokes you in that spot between your chest and shoulder (come on, you know the spot). He just keeps doing it over and over trying to get a rise out of you. You try to pretend it doesn’t bother you, but inside your own head you’re screaming. Finally, you snap and check him through the wall. From there, you have a moment of jubilation, only to then realize you’ve sealed your own fate and the pummeling of a lifetime. So you immediately sprint out of the house and plan to hide in the small wooded area until your mom gets home from work. Only you realize your mom is going to be pissed about the brother-sized hole in the living room wall, so you do the math on how long you need to stay out before she’s just happy you’re home and totally forgets about the wall. However, somewhere along the line you realize you’re a 10-year-old kid who's totally not cool with being in the woods when it gets dark. This realization ends with a sad slink home as you accept your doomed fate.
...Oh, uh yeah sorry, got a bit off track there I guess.
The point is we all have these pet peeves in our video games. I’m going to highlight just a couple of my own in NBA 2K16, and then maybe you all will have some to share as well. Let’s do it.
Read More - NBA 2K16: Biggest Pet Peeve
Thursday, February 4, 2016
01:26 PM - February 4, 2016. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
My last two NBA 2K16 pieces have been a bit on the heavy side, both in terms of tackling multiple issues and asking many community questions. This week, I’m going with a more brisk topic and asking one simple question:
What two-man interactions make you rage out?
I have a larger point about two-man interactions I’ll hopefully cement and talk about in a future article, but for now I want to ask about this one specific issue. After the jump, I’ll highlight three two-man interactions that chap my butt, and I hope you all will throw some out there as well in the comments below.
Let’s do it.
Read More - NBA 2K16: Two-Man Interactions You Hate
Friday, January 29, 2016
11:55 AM - January 29, 2016. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
In the first part of this feature I wrote a lot about how often NBA teams are making each type of contested shot in comparison to NBA 2K. The feedback has been great both on here and elsewhere, and today I want to talk more about the specifics of these contested shots.
What that means is plenty more GIFs, and also a look at some shot types (some contested, some uncontested) in NBA 2K and how they relate to the NBA. In addition, I want to talk more about contested shots in terms of the disconnect between video games and the actual NBA.
All in all, this will be slightly less nerdy and a little more philosophical than part one. However, let me make one thing clear before the jump: Contested shots are a fact of NBA life.
Great, now let me dive in here.
Read More - The Contested Shot Conundrum (Part 2)
Thursday, January 21, 2016
01:05 PM - January 21, 2016. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
“The NBA is a make or miss league,” said every NBA head coach ever. The drive-and-kick-pick-and-roll world that we now live in is what the NBA is about in 2016. To beat a lot of the best defenses, you have to get them moving side to side, run multiple side pick-and-roll actions, and just hope that rapid ball movement can get you a semi-open look.
In a lot of cases, you’re hoping the ball moves quicker than the defense, or you’re hoping there’s just a single breakdown in the help rotations. Other times you’re hoping the gravity of a great shooter like a Redick or the general greatness of someone like a Curry can bend the defense to give you an easy backdoor cut for a screener or skip pass to an open shooter on the opposite wing.
Oh, and obviously the open corner 3 is still a magical paradise of efficiency.
The point is, even when you do all of these things, it still comes down to making or missing the shot. In many cases, this still means making a semi-contested shot.
The explosion of information made available to the public via SportVU on NBA.com’s stats page has been a nice little toy to mess with for NBA fans these last couple years. While we don’t have every piece of data, we (the public) do have enough to make some general observations. As a video game player and NBA fan, this means I have an extra data set as well: NBA 2K16.
With that in mind, after the jump I’ll be talking about contested and uncontested shots from behind the 3-point line. It’s been a major talking point these last couple years when it comes to NBA 2K. Whether it was the “green release” patch four from last year that made jumpers too easy, or just the general discussion around the frequency with which contested shots do or do not go in the basket, people have a lot of strong opinions on this topic. I have an opinion on this topic as well. However, in the first part of this series, I simply want to outline the data and give you all a chance to provide feedback.
So after the jump, I’ll detail some of the data points I’m working off of to put this article together, and let the numbers mostly speak for themselves from there. Then when I release part two, I’ll dig more into my thoughts on the topic contested shots and discuss it from the perspective of a NBA 2K16 player.
Read More - The Contested Shot Conundrum
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
09:49 PM - January 13, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
So we come now to the end of award season, and of course that means it's time to crown 2015's Sports Game of the Year. I've slapped together a bunch of words and Chris has said a lot in his videos these past two weeks, but it needs to be said again that 2015 was a really good year for sports video games. It's really hard to think of any games that truly took a step back, and more importantly, it's really hard to think of any games that didn't set themselves up to be even better moving forward. With that in mind, it's time to stop posturing and get to talking about the Sports Game of the Year.
Read More - The 2015 Sports Game of the Year
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
05:04 PM - January 12, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
Indie sports games are becoming more popular year over year and that's exciting. It's not necessarily the "traditional" sports experiences that are always being created at this point (Sportsfriends in 2014 being an example), but rather those games that match up with the ethos of what you would want out of a sports game. This year continued the trend of independent darlings as you had classics like Out of the Park and Football Manager on the team-building side of things, but then there was also something new and amazing like Rocket League. I'll obviously be talking more about Rocket League after the jump, but if the success of Rocket League helps push more developers towards creating sports-like experiences, it can only be a good thing. Now let's get to the Best Independent Game of 2015.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Indie Game
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Indie Game
03:44 PM - January 12, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
Some people fear the end of the single-player experience in sports games, but I'm here to tell you it's going to be okay. The shadowy "them" is not going to take your single player away from you. In 2015 there were a bunch of quality candidates vying for the best single-player experience award, and it was a very competitive vote both among the staff and readers. So let's get to the winners.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Single Player Experience
Monday, January 11, 2016
02:29 PM - January 11, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
Online is where I spend 90 percent of my sports-gaming life. I love playing with and against others in sports games so the Best Online Experience category is the one nearest and dearest to my heart. So I'm happy to say this was a really good year for online gaming. We got an amazing new experience in Rocket League, NBA 2K took steps towards figuring out their online difficulties, NHL 16's EASHL returned with a new twist, and overall we got some really solid multi-year online franchise options in a lot of the biggest sports games of 2015. With all that being said, let's get to the winners for the Best Online Experience of 2015.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Online Experience
Friday, January 8, 2016
02:23 PM - January 8, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
Ah yes gameplay. The nuts and bolts of how a game actually plays on the field, ice, pitch, track, etc. (when it comes to sports games at least). Everything from how the game controls, to its realism, to its balance encompasses gameplay. In 2015, gameplay was an almost universally high quality amongst sports games. That meant picking winners was a little difficult...
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Gameplay
Thursday, January 7, 2016
11:09 AM - January 7, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
If you were to remove "gameplay" from the discussion, it could very much be argued that presentation is the most talked about item on Operation Sports. People want to be wowed by presentation; they want to imagine it as something that can live up to what they see on TV every night; they want to be surprised by something unique even after weeks of playing a game. With that in mind, I wouldn't say it was a banner year for presentation in sports games, but there were still some strong contenders for Best Presentation of 2015, and we'll get to the winners after the jump.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Presentation
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
03:16 PM - January 6, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
For better or worse, card collecting modes are here to stay. They make money for companies after a game has been released, and it's become one of the easiest ways to add new content -- in the form of new cards -- to a current sports game. So at this point what's become interesting to watch with these card modes is how the various developers implement a feature that is a "given" in a card collecting mode. Whether that's how they do pack openings, or how they do the stock market or how they divvy out rewards, the execution is what separates these card collecting modes at this point. With that in mind, this year there were plenty of very strong contenders in the Card Collecting Mode category, so let's get to the winners.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Best Card Collecting Mode
Tuesday, January 5, 2016
03:15 PM - January 5, 2016. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Chase Becotte
Innovation is hard to come by at times for sports games. Not only do most of these games come out on a yearly basis, they're also usually trying to simply mimic real life. There are fewer arcade games around that can surprise you with weird and niche touches, and so what we sometimes end up with are "safe" games that try to nail realism as much as possible. And look, that's commendable and appreciated, but being innovative while trying to copy what you watch on TV is not always going to get you your due credit from a wider audience. That being said, there were some standout innovations in this year's crop of games, and we'll get to them after the jump.
Read More - 2015 Sports Game of the Year: Most Innovative Feature
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
01:35 PM - December 8, 2015. Posted by ChaseB. Written by Chase Becotte
"He’s playing like it’s a video game out here."
If you’ve watched the Warriors play on national television or read any number of articles by any number of basketball writers, you’ve read or heard some sort of amalgamation of “playing like a video game” in comparison to Steph Curry. But here’s the thing: people who play simulation basketball video games would never stand for Steph’s shenanigans.
The moment any number of some of Steph’s ill-advised, downright terrible shots went in, many would be screaming “LAZY DEVS!” or “THIS GAME’S BROKEN” or would immediately head into the sliders menu to start tweaking things.
People at Operation Sports understand that sometimes the absurd and unlikely does actually happen in the NBA, which is why this thread in the NBA 2K forum is one of my favorites in a very long time. The “If This Would Have Happened In 2K Thread” is great because it encompasses all the absurd ways video game players would speak out against the NBA if it were happening in a video game.
Of course, it’s all meant to be tongue-in-cheek comments, but it’s also a not-so-subtle way to point out that all the ways we try to control our video game experiences via sliders and difficulty levels and so on still fly in the face of how great players and teams can make us all look like fools for trying to be overbearing, stat-obsessed loons when we have a controller in our hands.
But this is not about the rest of the NBA, this is about the man who owns the NBA right now: Steph Curry. So after the jump, let’s chat more about Curry and how he would make you rage quit your favorite NBA video game.
Read More - Real Steph Curry Would Beat Video Game Steph Curry
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