The Blog for the Sports Gamer

So I was looking through the IGN NCAA 2007 previews (Old Gen and 360) and I’m not sure what to make of it, but here’s my off-the-cuff reaction, starting the with the Xbox/PS2 version.

On Trick Plays and Momentum

On the first page is a ton of content about trick plays and momentum that I find absoutely terrifying. I’m not sure I’ve seen a sports game yet implement a momentum system that felt realistic. In my experience momentum modeling has a decidedly unbalancing effect on gameplay, in which totally unrealistic things happen, like star playing routinely missing layups, running backs fumbling over and over again in crucial situations (which happened in NCAA 2006), etc. I don’t mind clutch ratings in the final minutes of a game that only affect certain players (say dramatically increasing a QB’s accuracy rating or a running back’s break blocks ratings), but there’s still a line that developers haven’t yet figured out how not to cross.

I also really, really hate the notion of actually showing a momentum meter on screen. It’s no big deal if you can turn it off, but having that sort of meter is just a way to not get creative in creating the feeling of momentum shift in the game; stuff like crowd reaction, player body language etc. Fight Night Round 3 is an exceptional example of this because you can see in the boxer if he’s getting fatigued. No meter required. But then, the IGN piece does speak of rougher tackles, one-handed catches, etc. So maybe this is a case where meter vs. atmosphere isn’t mutually exclusive.

That said, I also like a lot of what I see. I mean it’s about time they put some effort into making it possible to block a kick, abort out of a field goal/punt attempt and add some strategy into onside kicks. I also worry, however, that these additions won’t be implemented very well. Like I said last week, it’s EA. I’ll have my fingers crossed.

On the AI and General Gameplay

The following, if true, is the money quote:

In fact, this might be the biggest overhaul - from playbooks to AI - that you’ve seen in the NCAA series to date.

God, but I hope that’s not just marketing hype. We’ve heard this kind of thing before for virtually every long-running sports franchise on the market so it’s hard not to be skeptical. Also, that’s all the article really says about AI tweaks before launching into more new game mechanics (many of which are being imported from Madden and should be valuable additions to the game). And let’s just be clear about one thing: Formation specific audibles = Hurray!

Much hype is given to the completely revised playbooks. Frankly, the playbooks didn’t bother me nearly as much last year as the AI’s inability to make semi-intelligent use of them. No word on whether that’s part of the AI tweaks.

Big Man on Campus

This is the Race for the Heisman mode, revamped a bit and renamed. I’m glad it’s no longer all about the Heisman, but the goal of being the most popular athlete on campus still strikes me as more than a little silly. How about just wanting to make your player into a firt day draft guy?

Anyway, the whole choose your major and take tests aspect to it (read the IGN piece) comes off silly when you look at the screen shots of a Mid Term test question asking you where Akron plays its home games. But the text indicates your questions are a reflection of your major and that your results do pipe back into applicable attributes for your player. I’m not sure how plausible that is, but at least there’s a cause and effect relationship that makes this mode a bit deeper than last year.

I do like that you actually have to practice after the initial drill sessions, that drills affect your attributes and that practice affects your ability to execute a given formation. Again, balance is everything, but it’s at least a headfake in the right direction.

The Rest

Very few details are given regarding dynasty mode and that’s worrisome. They’re adding a spring game, but I’d like to know more about whether they’re tweaking or throwing out the discipline system or if they’ve done any work on the sim stats engine or top 25 polling. (The only reason the sim stats really bugged me last year is because the inflated QB passing numbers made it too hard for non-QB players to get into the Heisman chase.) Nothing was said about the dropped or deep pass issues. But I guess you can’t read too much into that. It’s an IGN preview and you have to expect they’ll be focused almost entirely on what’s new.

The 360

This is typical EA Sports when it comes to next-gen consoles. IGN is lauding the satellite-driven modeling of weather effects and atmosphere for each stadium. Evidently the crowd is going to be modeled to an unheard of degree with different types of fans in different sections, better fan reaction to what’s happening on the field, etc. That’s all nice. Really it is. But that’s all icing stuff and I’m more concerned if there’s going to be any cake underneath it.

As anyone could’ve predicted, a bunch of stuff is being left out of this version of the game and I’m concerned about that. They claim the momentum modeling is different and more dramatic, which could be code for totally unrealistic. Impact Players are supposed to work a bit differently and change over the course of the season based on who’s playing well and who’s not. The Vision Cone is included in the 360 (it’s off by default), but it’s not in the current gen game. The Big Man on Campus feature is being left out, as is home-field advantage (which I won’t miss since I don’t think it was well-balanced at all). The two that bug me, though is the reduction in total number of teams to 119 (all 1-A) and the fact that this game won’t have the “revolutionized” playbooks of the PS2 and Xbox versions. The reduced number of teams doesn’t surprise me, and I’ll get over it in short order, but the playbooks? I mean really, what the hell? They’re not going to have the new playbooks? That’s not just worrisome, that’s flat out ominous. I mean a well-designed AI should be able to interpret and execute a well-designed play. If these new current-gen plays won’t work on the 360, what does that say about the AI for the 360 version of the game?

At this point, I’d rather not think about it.

Supposedly, the level of commentary has doubled for any given situation, but that could slice a lot of ways given that last year’s revolutionary new pre-game feature where the trio picks the winner was as generic as it could possibly get.

Right now, I’m kind of hoping that NCAA 2007 Xbox is compatible with the 360 (I’m not holding my breath) as I’d like to see how some of the new features for it actually work out. And I still remain mystified at the EA position that somehow less is more when it comes to their next-gen sports titles. They can sell that argument however they want, but I’m not buying.

For years I’ve watched Ben Wallace shoot free throws the same way I watch The Exorcist. With my hands over my face, praying that I won’t need to sleep with the lights on for the next four or five days. (Cue Linda Blair, “What an excellent day for an exorcism.”) This year he shot just 41% from the line. Those kind of numbers make Shaq look Chauncey Billups. I’ve always figured it was a mental thing, and I’m sure some of it still is, but this, from Mitch Albom’s Detroit Free Press column, I did not know:

Don’t try this at home. Ben Wallace takes his left wrist in his right hand and squeezes. The wrist shifts, making a soft cracking noise that sends a shiver down an observer’s spine.

And that’s his good hand.

“That’s what happens when I’m shooting free throws,” he says, flopping the right hand now — the one that has been injured for years. “I can shoot 10 straight good ones. On the 11th, it just slips out. I don’t know when it’s gonna happen.”

“And you have to fix it,” I ask, “right there on the free-throw line?”

“Yeah.”

“You just pop it back in?”

“I just pop it back in.”

He shrugs, the way a mechanic shrugs if he needs a new wrench.

I had no freak’n clue about that whatsoever. I don’t know if that can fully account for a 40% FT percentage, but it sure might explain why it’s under 50%. Anyway, it’s actually a pretty good column from beginning to end, despite Albom’s penchant for adding melodrama to everything he writes and it’s a must read for Pistons fans.

I actually have a lot of work to do this afternoon. This morning I took Ashley to her Kintergarten placement testing. Did anyone else have to do this when they were a kid? We just sorta got thrown into school. The tests were easy, even for a 5 year old, so I think it’s just a test to see if cognitively everything is ok. Which block is blue, repeat these sentences, what steps do you take to brush your teeth? That sorta thing. I was in the room with her during these tests, sitting quietly but wanting to shout out an answer if she paused after a question. It’s a trick Ashley, they’re all blue blocks! Anyway, she had a blast. She ‘passed’ the test and will start school in August.

But that took most of the morning. Well, that and a father/daughter breakfast at the local family restaurant. I love this little town. Pretty much every store/shop and eatery takes cash or check. No debit cards. Even the Subway takes checks and doesn’t take a Visa. I’ll get used to it. I’m even learning to accept the damn rooster. After we ate breakfast I saw that the guy we bought our PT Cruiser from was sitting at the counter drinking coffee. He said hi and asked about the Cruiser, then asked the waitress, whom he addressed by her first name, for more coffee.

Daddy’s in Mayberry. I have to get Todd out here. Some fresh air will do him some good.

Anyway, that was my morning and like I said I do have a lot of work to do. GameSpy sent me a beta of Heroes of Might and Magic V which I really want to see, being a fan of the series since the original back in the days of DOS. I also need to edit this TP Golf interview (which is pretty good) and start on a dreadfully late review of BFME2.

But I keep thinking about MLB 06: The Show.

A week or so ago my buddy Bill Harris blogged that The Show was a significantly better game than High Heat Baseball, a game that he knows damn well I hold near and dear to my heart. (I come to find out later that he was specifically talking about the PSP version). I recently had a chance to play the old HH on the PC again because my dad installed it on an old Win98SE machine just so he could play it. (High Heat hates XP.) A few mods were installed, a tune file tweaked, and the high-res stadiums added. High Heat 2002 PC still, to this day, plays a very good game of baseball. It’s fast, simple, and addcitive with an interface to die for.

But like so many things in life, some things are better the way we remember them rather than how they actually were in reality. The ball physics in HH are very simple — you never see a high chopper or a very slow roller and pitched balls move at a snail’s pace compared to today’s games. One of my problems with the HH PBI was that it was tough for the CPU to strike me out, even with everything tweaked. Still, for a 5 year old game High Heat 2002 PC holds up remarkably well.

But The Show, on the field, just might be better. It still cannot compare to High Heat’s game interface, which no console game can do. It’s taken me about 20 games to warm up to it but right now I’m red hot lovin’ this game. I’m playing a Reds franchise, playing one game of each series and simming the rest (my usual MO in baseball games) and it’s uncanny how authentic the game feels at times. With Dunn I either walk, whiff, or hit a 500 foot homer. I miss a lot of pitches with Dunn that I can drill with Felipe Lopez. My starters are decent enough but I have lost about 10 leads due to the tradegy that is the Reds bullpen. When it’s time to bring in a relief pitcher, I feel like I’m walking to the gallows. Rarely do I see something that makes me think to myself, ‘Well that was just stupid.’

I strikeout, I walk, I hit doubles now thanks to lowering arm accuracy and stregnth a bit, and am genrerally having the most fun playing arcade baseball since, well, High Heat 2002 PC. And it feels really good.

I love lists. I also love baseball. I love the numbers of baseball. This is a really good read, albeit just some opinions. Check out the blurb on A-Rod.

After the total disappointment that was Bethesda’s Breeders’ Cup game, Tecmo is back with another installment of its Gallop Racer series (PS2 only). I still think GR 2003 was a great, great game and that future versions went way too kiddie for my taste, but we’ll see what this one has in store. It’s due out May 2nd, just in time for the Derby.

I’ve made a point of not chatting up Detroit sports too much during the NBA and NHL seasons, but that changes today. Playoff time is here and the Pistons and Red Wings enter the post-season with the best records in their respective leagues; this is the first time the top seeds in the NBA and NHL have come from the same city.

The Red Wings kick it off against Edmonton on Friday night. I’m a bit more worried about the Wings than the Pistons because the NHL playoffs have always been a touch unpredictable. One of the top seeds routinely will fall to a #8 seed and it’s not all that uncommon for the Stanley Cup Finals to consist #3 seeds and lower. Plus, Edmonton is scrappy. In the old NHL they never went down easy and there’s no reason to expect that they will in the new NHL. I also haven’t watched much hockey this year (having not signed up for OLN), and I don’t really know what to expect.

What I do know is that this Wings team is not the same squad that’s as famous for it’s first and second round exits as it is for its Stanley Cups. The most famous playoff Red Wing no-shows (Hull, Robitaille, Federov, etc.) are no longer here. This is a team that’s carried by equal parts veteran savvy (Yzerman, Lang, Shanahan, Lidstrom), explosive youth (Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Samuellson, Williams) and underrated goaltending in Manny Legace and Chris Osgood. I can’t make any real predictions until I watch a few games (I’m signing up for OLN tomorrow), but I do think this is a team that at least makes it to the conference finals.

As for the Pistons, what can you really say? It’s a team that - for more than half the season - was on pace to hit 70 wins, they had four all-stars, and they have a leading MVP candidate in Chauncey Billups. True they slowed down in Feb/March, but then turned it right back on again in keeping the Spurs and Mavericks in their rearview mirror for the league’s best record and when you look at their losses, precious few were to teams in contention. (True they lost three to the Wizards, but doesn anyone think the Wiz will beat them in the playoffs should they meet?)

These guys are better than the Bad Boy era Pistons and they’re better than any team in the East. Barring injuries, I don’t see any way they don’t reach the NBA Finals. Will they win it? I really think they will. The Spurs needed seven games, home court, and a broken final play in Game 5 last year to bring the Pistons down and this team is better than last year, with a deeper bench to boot. I like the Mavericks, but I don’t think they’ve got the full game necessary to outlast Detroit in a seven game series. I’d really like to see a matchup with the Suns, because I think that would be exciting basketball, but I think it’s a tough haul for them to reach the Finals. No matter how you look at it, this Pistons squad is ready for another championship ring.

Red Wings and Pistons. Pistons and Red Wings. For a Detroit sports fan it doesn’t get any better than this. (Now watch both these teams bow out before the conference finals.)

Thanks to Nate for sending this via email. IGN has a fact sheet style preview and some vids up for NCAA 07 (not the 360 stuff, that’s tomorrow) Some pretty important upgrades, I think, particularly the playbooks and in the kicking game.

I got an email today from a reader asking if I had tried the PSP version of MLB 2K6. I have not.

Well, neither had he but he pointed me in the direction of a PSP thread over at the 2K forums. Now, I never read the 2K forums so I dunno who is who or what is what over there, but the general consensus seems to be that the PSP version is head and shoulders better than what we got on the box and the 360.

It’s an interesting read.

Has anyone played the PSP version? I’m not a huge handheld gamer but I’d like to play this on the flight to E3 if it’s this good.

Bill Harris (my evil twin) is a total freakazoid about MLB The Show on the PSP, so hopefully he can guinea pig this one for us. Bill? Come on. Take one for the team.

If anyone else has any thoughts about the PSP version please share.

I mentioned this game a while back and I really think it’s a cool idea. I’m doing a quick interview with the developer that should be online soon. Hopefully we can get an understanding of some of the game mechanics on this sucker. I’m really curious how it will work.

For those of you that are Orioles fans, you’re probably wondering what happened to Jeff Meier. Luckily the Boston Globe is there.

Wow, poor Jeff. He feels for Steve Bartman. Only difference is that Jeff interfered with a live ball in play while Steve caught a ball out of play. Oh yeah, the the ball Jeff “caught” meant 2 runs for the Yankees. Not that I’m still bitter.

…to play MLB 2K6..

1. You know what game is still fun? Crimson Skies for the Xbox. While at Chuck E. Cheese they had a new arcade game that was a simulator of MechAssault and Crimson Skies. It made me go back and play it again. They also had Arctic Thunder, so i played that on my original Xbox too. My son loves that stuff.

2. I really need to play Guitar Hero. I hear so much about it, and I have yet to do it. How come dropping $60 for a game like MLB 2K6 isn’t a problem but dropping $70 for the best guitar game ever is a big deal? I don’t know.

3. Ever play the Rub Rabbits? Talk about Bizarre!

4. GameSpot just posted the NPD Charts..interesting that MLB 06 The Show is #5 on the list of all videogames sold in March 2006.

Okay, I think all 3 Xbox games have been loaded, I can now enjoy an inning of MLB 2K6. Just kidding, I really don’t feel like playing it now. Time for bed.

Hey in other news, do you think that the people posting about how “MLB 2K6″ is a good game that needs some sliders tweaked also said the same thing about FPS Football Pro ‘99? You know the one that Sierra actually recalled because it was so broken? I can only imagine the posts about that game. Feel free to add some on this thread.

1. “The game has great graphics, and with the right .ini file fix, the RB will actually run towards the line of scrimmage”
2. So what if the game crashes every time you select a play, you should just ENJOY it!

(Morrissey reference there, btw). After watching American Idol tonight, I was wondering when will we see Morrissey night or The Smiths night or Depeche Mode night? The idea of Rod Stewart night was interesting, but it was “recent Rod Stewart” night so I wasn’t all that thrilled. Most did a nice job, but I still didn’t really care so much. Let’s hear Taylor perform “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.”

So, getting back to ‘interesting blog,’ my post from earlier in the day has drawn a record number of comments. Make sure you jump into the hot and heavy action if you haven’t already.

I haven’t listened to this yet but I really like what the people at Gamers With Jobs do so I figured I’d pass this along. This comes from a GWJ forum member, not a staffer, FYI.

The Gameshark review is up (see sidebar). I can finally put this game to rest. No hard feelings and all, but I need to move on.

I played and tested the bejeebers out of this game but I have to admit — I totally missed this. A buddy of mine pointed me to this thread at OS about franchise play. It’s pretty crazy.

I started a Franchise and simmed it to check out the off season. When I went to start the new season it lowered the schedual to 10 freaking games…. Can anyone help me with this?

Turns out the poster is right.

So, to recap, we have a game with:

• A lot of seemingly random (put highly annoying and sometimes hilarious) on the field and boxscore bugs
• A franchise mode with piss poor player development (as in they don’t develop)
• Poor CPU manager AI
• Shitty animation
• A poor stat engine
• And now the franchise mode drops games after a new season starts

Well done 2K Sports. You have made EA Sports look like the most well oiled and professional sports publisher on the planet. (I just had a cold chill, sorry)

Don’t worry though. I’m sure 2K will issue a patch in the next few weeks to finish and tighten up the game’s development. Oh, wait…

As you saw, Todd posted a mind blowing workaround by 2K Sports for MLB 2K6. Remove the fucking hard drive? Are you fucking nuts? I have a workaround: don’t play or buy this garbage!

Now, this brings me to a rant — videogame sites and reviews. They are now officially on my pissed off list.

1. Many of you might have heard/read about the discussion about the Official Xbox Magazine’s “Perfect” review of Fight Night Round 3 for the Xbox 360. While that line is pretty funny in itself, what’s even worse is the Starforce-like defense of the review. To which the EIC says “Is the game perfect? No.” Well then, it definitely deserves a perfect score. In the words of George Bush, “Francesca Reyes, you’re doing a heckuva job.” The EIC of OXM is someone who’s been in the industry for a long time, albeit part of the Imagine (*ie PC Gamer, Official Dreamcast Mag, etc) family.

Folks this is why videogame reviewers and the industry are treated like shit in the world of journalism. I wonder why Entertainment Weekly dropped all coverage of videogame reviews (actually relegating it to a Listen2This insert for subscribers who request it)? There really aren’t any David Browns or Owen Glibermans when it comes to videogame reviews. I’m sure they take their lumps too but you can mount a passionate defense of a videogame the way you can mount a passionate defense of a movie. A replay of “deal with it” really manages to destroy what little integrity this business had in the first place.

Recently Bill Abner had the gall to criticize a game (MLB2K6) at Operation Sports…the thread was pretty hysterical with people just telling him to get over it. I’m so sorry that people like Bill have the audacity to play a game through 15 seasons and think that someone leading the league at the end of the season with 12 HR’s is a problem!

Then I have another bone to pick. Did you notice that all the first day reviews of MLB2K6 neglect to mention the crashing problem on the Xbox 360? That’s because reviewers for the big sites DON’T PLAY THE RETAIL COPY OF THE GAME! They play “golds” which are supposed to be the retail but for play on a debug console. The only problem is that they aren’t a retail console and shit like this happens. Although many people will say “well, that’s rare”, I’ve seen it enough to know you shouldn’t review a gold master. Seriously, you give a game a 7, but there’s a critical failure of the game? Is that still a 7? I think not.

Okay, I’m done ranting. Back to normal programming.