More fun with Nintendo Power
Further in the magazine (it makes for good bathroom reading), they interview people associated with the “STREET” series of EA games. I found it interesting that the FIFA and NBA games have a similar interface — it looks like there’s a sort of Combo meter in it…interesting. The NBA game is definitely the best one of the franchise that I’ve played (I have yet to play FIFA Street), and I think it’s safe to say the NFL one is the worst.
All these street games remind me of the old Epyx Street Sports games on the C64. They weren’t nearly as polished as the EA games, but had thinks like potholes or obstacles on the courts and various items used as bases in the baseball games. I always thought they were kinda funny–they definitely weren’t the best sports games of their time, but they were fun. You know, thinking about it, by far basketball is the best one for this type of genre. I guess I will declare this genre “Street Sports.”
Hey maybe we can have an Apprentice like game — “Street Sports” vs “Real Sports”…oh wait, Atari has the trademake on RealSports. Does anyone else get a big laugh that the 2600 baseball game was called “Real Sports Baseball”….well at least they had 9 guys on the field and extra innings…..
Mindless trivia: What’s the first football game with stastics that I know of. LOL I had to qualify that because i’m sure someone will rip me one. Hint: It’s a console game.
January 28th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Well, since you said “that you know of”, I’m guessing that you are thinking of Tecmo Super Bowl. It was the first console game to feature season stat tracking. Someone is sure to come of the wordwork to say that one of those xor challenge games featured stat tracking too though.
January 28th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
I believe FIFA and NBA Street are developed out of EA Canada while NFL Street comes out of Tiburon.
The thing about NBA Street is that it’s better than the simulation NBA Live game. Sure it’s not going to yield realistic stats (but then I’m not sure Live does either) and its moves are over the top (but then I’m not sure Live’s moves aren’t over the top either).
But it’s fun and has much better control. Responsive, more fluid. And it doesn’t have that stupid force field in the sim basketball games to artificially keep scoring down. Yes NBA Street cheats when the AI is losing and you’ve had a good run of wins going. But at least on the first game, you could blow out a human opponent, which is something to appreciate when you think of how the other popular NBA arcade game, NBA Jam, had notorious catch-up logic.
BTW, one big disappointment for NBA Street 3. They were apparently going to support 3 vs. 3 multiplayer online games. That means up to 6 consoles hooked up online so that you could have both cooperative and competitive games.
But EA pulled the description of this feature from their site and the unofficial rumor is that they’ve pulled it just before shipping.