2010: A Sports Gaming Odyssey

[Armor and Sword]

Quote: Originally Posted by fcabanski

2010 is the year when "we'll patch it later" has hit the wall. Sports gamers in particular are fed up with games released with bugs in basic game play. The devs figure they'll fix it in a patch that comes out in a month or two. NBA 2K11, for example, is touted as a great sports title yet has basic bugs such as players not leaving the game when they foul out of the game. Issues like that don't belong in released games.

Thanks for being the buzz kill here. While I can't disagere and not say you bring up something that is evident on this gen of titles....we are having a love fest in here and raising our glasses/mugs to the great things about this years crop of sports titles.

Have another drink and chill.

[Game4fun]

I love madden 11. It has a lot of issues. The glitchers are hard to deal with, specialy if your a guy that just likes playing online oponents with your favorite football team. I only use 1 team, always been like that. There doing bad right now and I don't even wanna play. It's been a week. I'm in my mid 20's and the best thing about sports games and video games IMO is the fact that I can play online against real people. Most of my friends wont play me at any sports game because they know I take it serious and will blow them out. They didint have online play in the mid 90's and the graphics were a joke compared to these titles. I'm playing NBA 2k11 right now and am developing a 6'0 (thats me) pass first point guard and I want to get online and challenge myself and other people with a guy thats shorter then everybody else. It has to be hard or I wont like it. ( This game is almost perfect) Anyways, besides sports games the only game I love besides these is BATTLEFIELD BAD COMPANY 2 FTW ALL DAYYYYY AND NIGHTTTTT. lol, I agree with this article, I love sports games.

[T3AMGEIST]

Totally agree, best year for sport gaming ever. Have many other games like F1, RDR, MLB the show 10, Batman... that i didn't play anymore because of NBA 2k11 and FIFA, even NHL wasnt in my 360 drive since this 2 games came out!

[SkillzNCutbacks]

I have to disagree with the idea that this is the year of sports gaming, at least as far as college sports goes. There are no college basketball games which is pretty detrimental. And NCAA Football 11 is just terrible. It's got rid of too many of the things that made it great back in 05/06 (most especially in franchise mode): dreadlocks, stadium pulse, composure, dynasty statistical representation, discipline, progression... and it goes on and on. And no EA NBA title? Football and basketball is what (at least in America) dominate the sports scene and if these games are inadequate than that doesn't say a whole lot about the sports gaming industry. The other games might be good, but basketball/football developers
need to LOVE the creative process of their sports as well. I hope it gets better, but at least it's good to hear other gamers are happy.
Nice read!

[cepwin]

Well said! I agree I'm so focused on NHL 11, FIFA 11 and racing sims/games (iRacing, F1 2010) my games of other genres just sit. NBA2k 11 is extremely tempting but I honesty don't have time to learn another sim. I have Madden 11, and I don't think it's a bad game but with NHL and FIFA it sits too.

[slickdtc]

Let me be straight: I'm not as nutty about my sports video games as I once was (circa early to mid 2000's). But make no mistake about it, I still am crazy for them. When I finally upgraded my console from original XBOX to PS3 in Jan. of 09, it was time to slowly but surely catch up on the "next gen" of sports gaming. Now my collection consists of 2 NHL titles (NHL 2k10, NHL 11), two football titles (Madden 10, APF 2k8), a soccer title (FIFA 10... first soccer title since FIFA '96 on Genesis and a GREAT purchase), and a baseball title (MLB 09).

So while all are not this year's titles, I can say I'm 100% satisfied with each. Well, except NHL 2k10 once I discovered the greatness of NHL 11. In fact, each one is so good I've vowed to not purchase another game in their respective sports for another 2-3 years. In that time, I can really get deep into my franchises and fully enjoy the gameplay all these games have to offer before it's time to retire them for what hopefully is a huge upgrade after a 2-3 year layoff.

[slickdtc]

Also, I've heard mostly good things about NBA 2k11 and NCAA FB 11. So while I'm not a fan of the NBA really (I'm a Hornets fan but I hardly follow them or the league) and only dabble in NCAA FB, I'm finding it tough to hold back from dropping ~60$ for those two titles just because they're quality representations of their sports. Heck, just the ESPN overlays for NCAA FB and general look of the game got me when I played the demo. And the things thrown around about NBA 2k11 have shown me that maybe it's time to complete the 4 sport collection and get a basketball game.

I think sports gaming has hit its stride. It's a shame some series had to be scrapped, and it's a shame some series are released with bugs that some just cannot stand, but I think overall, the majority of people, even the fanatics at OS, can enjoy this crop of sports games. Most of them have finally outdone timeless classics from their respective sports, like MVP Baseball and NHL 2k3/2k5 (depending on who you ask).