The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Glen’s sports games of the year

Just in the nick of time, but here are my 2010 sports games of the year.

Baseball

I was only able to play two of the contenders this year, as I didn't import PYS 2010... and have been sad about that for quite some time.

So, we have MLB10: The Show and MLB2K10.

There is a part of me when I look at these type of awards where I wonder if I should pick the game that more people will like, or what title I liked most.  In the case of baseball games this year, I enjoyed playing MLB2K10 more than MLB10: The Show.

The Show is a great game, no doubt about it, but it just isn't as much fun to play.   MLB2K10 was one of the most fun baseball titles that I've played in years and I still enjoy playing it to this day.   I tried out The Show again recently and it held my interest for a few hours before going back into my game case.  A good game, but I just don't enjoy it as much.

Glen's 2010 baseball game of the year - MLB2K10

Basketball

When you only have one game in the category, it's hard to spend much time talking about it, but 2K did a tremendous job with NBA2K10.  The addition of Michael Jordan to the game, the Jordan Challenges, and the terrific gameplay make this an easy title to recommend to anyone who likes basketball games.

Glen's 2010 basketball game of the year - NBA2K10

Soccer

I'm very curious to hear Dan's thoughts in this category, because of the fact that we had 3 soccer titles (Pro Evolution Soccer 2011, 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, and FIFA 11) this year released.  What's more surprising is that I had a chance to play quite a bit of all three of them.

Dan and I discussed our feelings about Pro Evolution Soccer versus FIFA a few podcasts ago, but if you missed that, we both felt that PES was a more challenging and technical game, but FIFA was a better game for the casual soccer fan.

Having said that, the game that I enjoyed the most was FIFA World Cup 2010.  The ability to replay key moments from the World Cup after they happened via the Story of the Finals mode was an awesome addition.  If you're a fan of the Madden challenges, this took that same concept, but allowed you get the replay the best moments of the World Cup and try to change the events after they had happened.  Plus... they were free (unlike the Madden challenges.)  A great game and a lot of fun to play.

Glen's 2010 soccer game of the year: 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa

Football

Since All Pro Football 2K8, there hasn't been anyone to challenge Madden for best football game of the year.  This year, things changed when Backbreaker was released.  Sadly, it's just not as good of a football game as Madden is.

Is Madden great?  Not really.  My feelings on Madden haven't really changed a ton in the past few months.  It's still fun to play against people, but there are enough little issues in the game that keep me from wanting to play the game on a consistent basis.

Backbreaker on the other hand is a mixed bag.  The gameplay can be a lot of fun, but the running game is almost impossible to use on a regular basis and the gameplay just feels too slow for me to enjoy most times.  The giant patch that they put in place for the game repaired a lot of the issues that the game had, but it's still not as much fun to play as Madden.

Glen's 2010 football game of the year - Madden NFL 11

Hockey

The title that Dan seemed to enjoy the most out of the 3 hockey titles this year, NHL Slapshot, I never got to play.  I do find it funny that there were more hockey titles made for the Wii (2) than for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

NHL2K11 for the Wii was a very solid title and a great update to what they have created on the Wii last year.  The NHL series that EA Sports has created seems to go through waves of greatness... and years where they seem to struggle with where they are going with the title.  I think this year is one of the latter.

Again, when I have a hard time deciding between titles, I'll go with the one that I enjoy playing the most.

Glen's 2010 Hockey game of the year - NHL2K11 for the Wii

Racing

This is actually a difficult category to revisit this year due to the fact that there are so many strong candidates.

Here are the titles that I had to choose between for racing game of the year. Blur, Split/Second, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Gran Turismo 5.

Blur was an interesting title that took the Mario Kart approach with real cars.  Split/Second added massive course destruction to a high speed racing title.  Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit gives you the ability to play a game from two different vantage points, high speed racers avoiding the police and police trying to track down those lawbreakers.  Gran Turismo 5 is one of the most complete driving simulations ever made, filled with all kinds of different modes of gameplay.

This is actually probably one of the closest categories this year as all four of these titles are well worth your time to play, but only one can be the winner.

Glen's 2010 racing game of the year - Gran Turismo 5

Sports game of the year

As far as my game of the year?  It's tough... but I have to go with the game that I keep going back to.

Glen's 2010 sports game of the year - Gran Turismo 5

Have a happy new year everyone.  Hopefully next year's sports games will be as good to us as this years have been.