State of Sports Games: The Scores, Part 2

Last time, I posted the scores for most of the sports games released over the year. Let’s take a look at what they mean.

Read State of Sports Games: The Scores, Part 1.

Next week, I’ll put All-Pro Football and Madden in the ringer.

Overall
As we get deeper in the next gen fight, I think we are seeing more games that don’t suck. Hey that’s a huge improvement if you’ve been around long enough. There was a time where really bad games outnumbered good games. And we are seeing good choices in genres where there is competition. The reverse can be said where exclusive contracts have left us with average games (I’m being kind by using the word average).

Here are my key headlines for 2007.

Exclusive Licenses: We All Saw This Coming
Where are we seeing the best games come out? Its in genres where there are more than one company releasing games. Soccer, Hockey, and to a degree Basketball give you, the consumer, options on how to plunk down $60. There is no doubt that competition between games are making these genres better. Even Live is pressured into doing more because NBA 2k8 is superb.

If you are a fan of football, you have to pleased 2k Sports is making a go at it. I will talk about this in greater detail next week but this war isn’t about the x’s and o’s battle, its a war about the NFL. Would you rather play a great game with the Patriots, Packers and Cowboys? Or a great game about football?

EA Releases a Patch
When the hard drive accompanied the console, both gamers and the game companies were uneasy with the role of the patch. Before, if a game had a bug, you played with that bug. Gamers were concerned that if a company could patch a game, they could release a game whether it was finished or not, take your money and maybe fix it later.

Madden’s patch is a benchmark of sorts in sports gaming. Why? Its EA Sports and when they announce a patch to fix gameplay issues — they might be setting a precedent. (The NHL roster “fix” is not really a patch). You hope the trend doesn’t mean a patch for most games to solve gameplay, AI or franchise issues. With seemingly shorter production cycles, the patch could be fixture in console gaming.

A Hockey Game Beat the Major Sports Games
NHL 08 was the best sports game released, if you were to go strictly by the reviewers. Both the PS3 and 360 versions received respectable numbers from the reviews. You have to give EA Sports credit for the control scheme in NHL 08. It accomplishes something not offered in any sports game so far, and revolutionizes hockey gaming.

2k Sports has Become Stale, while EA makes Gains
All three main sports from 2k Sports have become more of the same and the reviews show it. NHL 2k8, NBA 2k8 and MLB 2k7 were knocked for a lack of innovation. The games didn’t offer much of a leap from last year. It wasn’t as if NHL 2k and NBA 2k were bad — both were considered to be good simulations but didn’t see any outstanding improvements.

There was a time when FIFA, Tiger and NHL were coaster material. FIFA and NHL probably made the biggest strides on next-gens. FIFA saw the biggest gain in 8 points. While that might not seem like much but when you consider 8 points over the average of 40 reviews, that’s a considerable gain.

Madden’s Quality…Who Cares?
If you’ve read the latest Madden news, EA Sports, to its credit, has acknowledged gameplay issues along with bugs and intend to release a patch. Even with that startling admission from EA Sports, the reviews still gave Madden a free pass. Madden illustrates the worst of game reviews. Initial reviews, which might hurt sales, are far too shallow to dig into franchise problems, bugs and hidden gameplay issues. By the time the lesser sites spend time the game, Madden, EA Sports has already sold a million copies.

Awful year for the PS3
Before NCAA 08 was released, I thought PS3 games would be better looking, faster loading and have better control than on the 360. The next-gen war is not like the PS2-XBox war. In the old-gen war, Xbox games were hamstrung because they were merely ports from the PS2. You would think that it would exactly in reverse for the next-gen releases. From NCAA to Madden to NHL, PS3 games suffered from framerate issues, lack of rumble support and looked worse. Throw in the PS3 piss-poor online set-up and lack of PS3 sales, and Sony might as well call this fight over.

Wii is not a sports game console
The Wii is about a year old and its still impossible to find on a store shelf. All the analysts are gushing over Wii sales and projected earnings. Well folks, if you are a sports gamer, the Wii is nothing more than a complimentary system. Not one sports game excelled on the Wii. Not one! I can’t see the landscape changing unless they release Super Mario Gridiron Soccer Homerun Shootout.

After Wii Sports was released the gaming world was set alight with potential for the Wii controller. The potential for Tiger, Madden and FIFA was through the roof. A year later and we have zero games that offer a completely different experience on the Wii that force you get a Wii. The generic launch title, Wii Sports is still the best sports game on the Wii, not to mention the best selling sports title even if you do get it free with the Wii.