Update from Editor Land
Well, this is weird.
I have nothing to review.
Actually I am waiting on UFO from Matrix Games but for the past several days I have literally had no assignments to work on and it has been about six years since I had this much time “off” from reviewing something — anything. Of course I have been just as busy, doing GameShark-y things.
I am in the process of playing out all 162 games in my OOTP 2007 fictional league. I ran a fantasy draft, picked a team that sent me stunningly over-budget and better win it all THIS year because my owner cannot afford them next year. I’m nearing the end of April — and I still love this game. I have my own personal wishlist for future versions, but I am very happy.
I’d love for the game to do something like the old APBA Broadcast Blast (or whatever it was called) that used Harwell to actually call play by play of games. Sound is such an important hook that OOTP lacks. The tech is there to do more than just basic sound effects, too. So, take the ABPA sound slant and toss in basic 2D players that move in real time, like MicroLeague did back in the mid 1980s and poof — you have added even more immersion to the games themselves and I’d bet anything — attracted more customers.
I guess I am still a bit surprised that so few “text games” add real time basic graphics, especially baseball games. Mogul adds that picther view, but (at least last year’s version) stops short of showing the real game. PureSim adds nice effects, showing where the ball is hit, but still — it’s not the same.
I remember as a 12 year old kid playing with these old time teams in MicroLeague. The ‘27 Yanks Vs. the ‘82 Cards, and the play by play would read at the top but you’d actually see the game being played out in one-pitch mode. I miss that. Text is fine, but don’t underappreciate the benefit of even basic 2D sprite-based visuals in a stat heavy game like OOTP, or Mogul, or PureSim or even football games like FoF.
OK, work stuff.
I’m working on getting several columns off the ground as well as expanding the staff. I brought on a couple of fine writers from Gamers with Jobs who will help solidfy things. GWJ really is a great website.
As Dan alluded to, he’s doing a downloads column where he gets to live out his 1980s fantasy life. This Week in Downloads or: TWID Notes. That cracks me up.
James Fudge (my boss) is doing an Indie Dev. column which should be really nifty; I saw an early look at what he’s doing and we are all missing out on a lot of cool games. This should be a fun read.
I’d like to bring in an MMO columnist as well as a PC Mods column if possible.
Finally, there’s me. I am toying with the idea of doing a spin on an old column idea from the GamePen days. I used to do a column at GamePen called Sports Therapy. It was basically a satiric look at the PC Sports Newsgroup, back when people actually posted there. This was the mid to late 90s. I’m considering doing something similar, but with forums.
I read a lot of game forums and they’re all pretty fascinating places and they are ripe for something like this.
Take Operation Sports, which, say what you will about that place, it’s a great spot for sports gaming talk if you can navigate through the muck. There’s a thread over there at the moment by a guy who says he’s played the early demo build of 2K’s football game. Fair enough.
The thread has lines like, “The button pressing actually makes you put real EFFORT into running. Just holding it down is the way of the spoiled couch potato.”
That’s gold.
And, “The demo only had 2 teams to play ( RHinos and I swear I cannot remember the other team…I was too busy having my mind blown I guess)”
This stuff just plain writes itself.
This purpose of this would never be to slam the forum as a whole (be it OS, Quarter to Three, whatever) because I truly do feel that popular forums can be a boon to anyone willing to spend time there. But forum culture is worth poking with a stick. A sharp one.
I’m thinking of calling it Forum Droppings.
May 1st, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Bill,
I’ve wondered about the graphical immersion as well when it comes to text games. In a perfect world, you’d marry FOF with Madden and get a statistically accurate eye-candy love-fest. The problem is, most of the these design teams for text sims are severely short-staffed and just don’t have the budget to be able to do this stuff right (though I do see you mentioned 2-d sprites, so that wouldn’t be too hard, I guess).
You’d also suffer a backlash from statistically-oriented people (I’d probably be in this camp) worried that the game engine will begin to take a backseat to “waka-waka” graphics.
Again, a combination between the two extremes would be awesome. Imagine being able to “watch” your OOTP fictional team play on the field like MLB:The Show? Or your FOF team play on Madden? Good grief - I’d probably buy a PC dedicated solely for this and immerse myself in this alternate sports world. It’s like crack for sports gamers.