The Blog for the Sports Gamer

So I’m finishing up both Live and 2K8 and I wanted to mention a few things today about the franchise modes. BUT — before I do that, I’m curious about something. I have always been a big franchise guy, going back to my FPS Football days. When I saw that game’s franchise mode, a light when on. Wow…multiple seasons…an easy interface…player progression! WOW!

That fiery joy, first experienced in oh…around 1992-ish, is now a small burnt piece of smoldering coal. I am of the opinion that today’s franchise modes, at least the console stuff, TOTALLY misses the point.  Utterly. Completely. Entirely. Um…immensely! 

Part of it is feature bloat. Part of it is free agency. Part of it is just lack of giving a shit. Prioritizing is what they call it, actually. I wonder how many people actually play the franchise modes in these games because if they did, you would think they’d be better than what they are now.

I think they miss the point by making it way too complicated, way too finicky and full of busy work. Yes, you can automate a lot of it but it’s all just a time consuming mess. Training players? Really? That’s fun…how exactly? Hiring STAFF? WOW! Thrillsville!

All of this outside noise should be scrapped and replaced with stuff that actually, you know, matters. Like player progression, realistic ratings, an age model that makes sense. Sharp trade AI.

Even the $$ part I dislike. I know it’s part of today’s sports world but I’ll tell you this: I never had more fun with a franchise mode than I did with FPS Football and High Heat Baseball — neither of which dealt with money– AT ALL. Now, I did use a utility for High Heat that simulated free agency, but it worked just fine, kept the rosters dynamic and took almost NO TIME to get through. See, a TEXT game Like OOTP can get away with all the numbers, deals, and minutiae of sports. IN games like that you need it.  Consoles games can’t get away with it. The interfaces don’t support it and it ends up being a whole lotta busy work.  

Example: Madden (and Live 08). Free agency consists of you offering a player and they either say yes or no. No bid wars, nothing like that just “take it or leave it buddy.” That’s just 5 ways of stupid. I would much rather play a franchise mode on a console before the days of free agency all together. Let me draft and trade my way to the top. Money just screws it up because the AI can’t deal with it. So why bother?

These modes need stripped down so you can get through an off season in less than 10 minutes. No staff nonsense. No player training sillyness.

Anyway, on to Live and 2K8. Clearly, 2K8 is the better game. Lots better. By no means perfect and I think should not win any post season Sports Game of the Year awards because it’s just too flaky. But it’s a whole lot better than Live even though that game is much better than Live 07.

2K could learn a few things from the Live team, though. I simmed several years in each game (which takes too long but anyway..) 2K’s is deeper, and better in a lot of ways but tell me this. Which looks more realistic and more importantly less game breaking to you?

After the first season (2007) the number of players rated 90+:

NBA 2K8:  41
NBA Live 08: 12

Year Two:

NBA 2K8: 53
NBA Live 08: 13

Yes, after a few seasons 2K8 is LITTERED with stars. Not the fictional players, they mature VERY slowly, but established players keep zooming up the charts. Now yes, age starts to take its toll but that too happens too slow. It doesn’t keep pace with the progression of the younger players. What you get then is a league full of studs and one where a lot of rookies and 2nd year players manage to get 5 minutes per game, stunting their growth.

Live 08’s franchise mode is pretty crappy too, don’t get me wrong but they did nail this part down. A 90 rated player is bad ass. In 2K8 after year five there were SEVEN 99 rated players. That’s INSANE.

As for 2K’s rookies. I grabbed six rooks at random and watched their progression over five seasons. Here’s the breakdown:

#1 overall 76er . Started out a 72 OVR and progressed:
76/79/83 — so that’s 72/76/79/83/83

#2 pick Hornet
77/85/84/89/88

#3 Pacer
68/73/73/73/74

#4 Clipper
79/84/86/86/86

#5 Blazer:
75/79/84/83/84

#19 Heat
66/73/75/76/77

#24 Celtic
72/75/76/74/76

The best rookie in this class was the Hornets #2 OVR player who topped at 89 (when I stopped). This would be GREAT…if the rest of the league were not loaded with 90+ players. Development starts to slow down after year five it seems.  You usually know if the guy is going to pan out or not and I didn’t see any HUGE busts. That Pacer pick wasn’t the best, though. Actually, yeah, that’s a bust. a 74 OVR is a backup at best in this game. In fact the #1 OVR pick to Philly isn’t too great either considering he gets about 8 minutes per game.

I’ll have more on this stuff later, but it’s just frustrating to want to play these games in their franchise mode inly to see them half developed. But I wonder — is it that big of a deal? Do enough people even play them to worry about it? If they don’t…why are they even there in the first place?

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.