Are we at the pinnacle?

Let’s talk sports games. Sports games are a huge part of the video game industry and yet we hardly talk about them on the podcast. There are reasons for that. It’s a hard genre to keep reinvigorated. A lot of the titles are just the same game with a different roaster. Oh yeah, also Mike and Jeff aren’t sports fans. And perhaps a reason for that lack of interest of theirs is that with a few exceptions (NBA Jam and the like), sports games want to be as close to the “real” thing as possible. Especially, in the case of professional teams sports, i.e. Football, Basketball, Soccer, etc.

But what is a realistic sports game? In what way is it realistic? Should a realistic game be from the players’ perspective or the coach’s perspective, or a fan’s perspective? We have actually had games from the coach’s POV, such as “Let’s manage a baseball team” in Japan. I know Europe has a popular coach simulation for soccer. Lots of popular games even offer these modes in most of the current games, as well. And not just coaching, but front office, personnel duties and scouting as well. You trade, draft and develop players. However, the coaching/GM perspective is really for die hard fans of the game and not what most game players want.

You would think, we want the game from the players’ point of view. Who wouldn’t want to kick a goal, or shoot a basketball, or hit a home run? Yet, most sports games don’t really take the perspective of the player. You don’t have practice, team meetings, an agent, road trips with your teammates or even your locker room experience.

The tendency has been to make playing a professional sports game as close to the television experience as possible. It seems as though the goal of the companies creating the games was to make it as difficult as possible to distinguish between a TV broadcast and a video game experience. I suppose the thinking behind this is that if you can fool some one, even for a second, that they are watching a game on TV as opposed to playing a game, you have created a realistic experience.

The first innovation in this direction is the commentary track added to games. This was a MAJOR selling point back in the 16-bit generation. Sega’s Joe Montana Sports Talk football was a major step in this direction. They didn’t just say the score, they discussed the game. Not only was there commentary, but Sega had the default camera angle from the side of the field, as it is in TV broadcast, despite the inherit impracticality this view provided. A view so flawed for gameplay that almost all football games abandoned it and stuck with the over the head view, despite it not being the typical camera view of TV broadcasts. But if developers could get that view without hindering basic game play, Madden games would switch to it in a heartbeat.

The problem of camera angles is also limiting to baseball games, although a few have tried the TV perspective, most stick with a behind the batter POV. I do remember that commentary in baseball games simulating the TV experience was a major selling point. EA Sports with their Triple Play series, boasted about having the first game with a 2 man broadcast. I believe that was also the game that added (often fake) advertising to the commentary (“Not quite chicken, not quite pork, it’s chork!”). This is probably one of the most annoying things about the TV experience, yet despite its annoyance it’s added for realism. And because it adds realism, we love it!

But how about a sport where the TV angle is the most advantageous angle for gameplay. Enter basketball and soccer games. I’m going to talk mostly about basketball here, but pretty much everything will also apply to soccer (and a lot of it to sports games in general). Excluding the more “fantasy” oriented games, such as NBA Jam or Street, basketball lends itself extremely well to the TV experience. The TV camera angle also lets you see an entire half court and usually, all of the players are on the screen at the same time. Virtually, every NBA game has a “half time report” and “player of the game” intermission. Actual TV commentators are the norm. And of course, instant replay has been around since the 16-bit era.

I bought NBA2K9 the other day. A series I have always held as the standard since its first Dreamcast appearance. I was amazed at how eerily similar it looked to a TV broadcast. I could have easily have been watching a TNT game. In fact, after viewing me playing for a good 15 seconds, my housemate had to ask, “Are you watching a game on TV or is this the videogame?”

This is of course what the developers have always wanted. And it’s not just the realistic graphics and their fluidity or the quality of the commentary. It’s the entire presentation. It’s the way the score is graphically presented on the screen. It’s how certain stats appear on screen and then comments accompanying those stats. It’s the way that Gatorade advertises itself at the beginning of each half with a graphic on the corner of the screen. Is it even possible to make it look more like a TV broadcast than it already does? Have we achieved the pinnacle of this style? And what’s next? Perhaps, now we float away from the TV style and to a more player oriented perspective as if we are really on the field. Nah, they can hardly keep NBA2K9 on the shelves. It’s all about the TV ratings!