Difficulty levels in sports video games have long been about making the computer bigger, stronger, faster and only slightly smarter. How many times on All-Madden has a defensive lineman ran you down or how many times have you been outskated by 'seemingly' slower players in NHL? Chances are you have been 'cheated' many a time by the superior computer opponent on these higher difficulty levels.

It seems gaming companies believe that a higher difficulty level can only be achieved by one thing: beefing up the computer's attributes while keeping yours about where they're at -- sometimes even making them worse. This is not a phenomenon just directly related to sports games either, check out first person shooters. How is the difficulty changed? It usually is directly related to how many bullets it takes to kill an enemy, not how smart the enemy actually is. 

But those trends are changing as people get tired of pumping a zombie with 10 rounds of lead or getting tackled by Warren Sapp from behind in the open field. In reality, games are now going to other methods to make the computer better, methods which are 'smarter'. 

How can the current formula and the current direction be improved upon? How can we, the users, ensure that we can get a game that is both realistically challenging but not feel we ever get cheated? I think I've come up with a few key areas of improvement:

• Better Computer AI - There...it had to be said. Just make the people you are playing more realistically intelligent. I think this takes a lot of the guesswork out of difficulty levels because the computer would just be better at what it does across the board. The games will probably be harder at the lower levels but easier at the higher levels if the AI wasn't using any unfair advantages -- but really, how can AI be fair?
  
  My point is, we as humans cannot process the same amount of information as a processing chip can. So as long as you are playing against the computer you are potentially playing against a machine that has the potential to make you look like an infant compared to its ability. However we do have the ability to improvise in ways that a logical machine might not be able to. So you can take your pick.
  

• More Sliders - More customization options are needed in order for a user to achieve the most perfect game possible. And frankly it's a a no-brainer to give the control to the user. In my opinion, good game design means you are giving the end users a functional product that can be customized to their liking. In that instance, everyone wins. So why not give users a way to do whatever they want to the game?
  
  If someone wants to make the running game very difficult but make the passing game a cake..why stop them? He or she payed $60 or more for your product...so give the user what he or she wants. I think by adding more sliders to customize the games we play, we can only win. FIFA didn't even ship with ANY sliders, that is a farce, a sham and an absolute disgrace.
  

• Be Up Front About the Advantages You Give - I want any gaming companies to be up front and honest about the advantages you give the computer team when you up the difficulty level. Is it really so bad to have a line like this in any sports game when picking difficulty:
  
  “The computer will be smarter, stronger, and faster than you. You will need to be a superior field general to beat these guys.”
  
  Would that really be that bad? Just admit you have made the computer more physically able than the Human team. If users know that going in it would relieve a lot of issues users have with AI cheating. Honesty is one thing that I think is overlooked in sports games. If developers/producers can't cook up great AI but instead can only make the computer more physically able to beat you, just admit it. If people know that's how the game will be harder, we will tend to understand what we already know. Otherwise you leave people guessing and confused...and
  you give them reasons to gripe on message boards across the world wide web.

So in reality, would these three things be all that hard to do for gaming companies? I'm talking simple, bottom of the barrel groundwork changes that would just add so much to sports games in general that it's really laughable no one is trying it. Hopefully someone from 2k or EA reads my list of ideas and finds a way to get these ideas into the games. Otherwise, we will be left with another year of the 4.3 Warren Sapp chasing down 4.7 Devin Hesters of the world.