This is why EA sports games frustrate me

[bjackets]

Hi Men,

I, like most of you play a lot of EA sports games. I'm not an EA hater and have enjoyed a lot of what they have had to offer over the years. Hell, they are what made me realize how much fun playing these video sports games can be. I was never a video gaming guy growing up; I would rather play the real thing. EA changed they way I perceived this genre.

Several years ago a friend of mine turned me on to these things (games) pretty much against my will and quite surprisingly to me I loved it. These games were a great way to still enjoy and kind of participate in the thing I love most (sports) while getting older. They really rekindled my interest in a way to certain aspects (of sports) and became a very fun outlet.

At the time EA ( early mid 90's) was the only developer in town that had (sports) games that appealed to me. Their product just got me jazzed because there wasn't anything else like it during this period. EA made all sports fans' fantasies a reality by creating a professional sports arena that everyone could participate in. "Pure Genius" and I will always appreciate and respect EA for launching and making this a viable resource for all of us today.

Well, years have passed and video gaming has progressed. It's become a big business ( AKA money making machine). Games have become a lot more sophisticated. Expectations have grown as technology has progressed. Years ago when EA was putting out their product and had no competition, I felt very fortunate to have access to the games they were offering; I was very entertained and felt fortunate to play their seemingly cutting edge product that catored not only to the athlete and sports fan, but also to the sports fan "want to be in" all of us.

EA was a very small development house at the time. A small group of sports loving teckies with tremendous ceativity that started the push to where we are now. I raise my glass of Seagrams Seven to you because you were and still are the Genius behind EA's meteoric rise to Stardom and most of All PROSPERITY!

I only hope you are all still colllecting. And I mean that sincerely.

This brings me to my point.

I apologize; I know it's been longwinded but you got to say what you're going to say the way you know how to say it.

I recently played all the major current EA ports games (2006)(Major Sports) back to back to back etc., and guess what? You guessed it, I won't keep you waiting. NO surprise: They all still contain and are not loosely but predominately based on the SAME code you pioneers created back in the 1990's.

The more I play EA Sports' games the more I realize how much all of them are exactly the same (in most ways) and are the dirivitives of the SAME GAMING ENGINE. Say what you will but I would bet my left nut that ALL of their sports games spaun from 1 original game engine (All from the same) CREATED in the early 90's. (same suction, player interaction etc. Hockey and BB used to have same man-to-man defense)

Football plays like baketball that plays like hockey that plays like soccer, that plays like etc., etc., etc., in that all AI controlled teams( or ones used by a friend ) no matter how weak are just as good as their opponent (ratings mean nothing) to keep the games close and make for an exiting finish.

It's like the big budget action scene in most movies. It sells tickets. Great job by the game engine originators to see this and capitulize, Unfortunately long time players need some diversity and have grown tired of the "Formula" ending (code). "Deniro" doesn't become "Keanu Reeeves" in the final scene of a movie in hopes of making the overall product better so let's not let pretend that that the Patriots are equal to the Lions for the sake of drama-Nobody is buying this garbage of Kobe "misssing 3 consecutive dunks while "Scott Williams" goes on 3 minute scoring binge 'nuff said.

EA we love you. Please just incorporate some of the ingenuity that made your original games great.

Capitalizing and feeding off the momentum of your 1st generation (games) is honorable, but plagerizing into the 3rd and 4th generation is FLAT OUT PATHETIC!

An original thought once in awhile (15 years later) could be good for the soul.

ohiost

[Sport73]

Get a 360. Madden's engine on the 360 is all new; and while certainly not perfect, a solid start toward a new era of virtual football.

MVP Baseball is not derivative of anything other than the older MVP's; Triple Play used completely different and crappy controls.

So, Football and Baseball are solidly covered by your old friend EA...

NOW, for the rest of the sports world, please allow me to introduce you to Visual Concepts/2k Sports...

NBA 2k6
NHL 2k6

Are superb representations of their respective sports, with real innovation and clear progress from year's past. Sure, some of the buttons still do the same thing, but most of us consider that a good thing since our old brains can't handle learning all new controls every year.

Golf? Try Links, easily the best console golf game ever. We're hoping it will be revived by 2kSports now that they've bought the rights to it.

Tennis? Virtua Tennis (arcade like) or Top Spin.

Racing? Toca 2

Forget about looking to EA for everything and you'll find great alternatives out there...

[bjackets]

Sports73,

I hear what you are saying. I do play NHL 2K6 on a regular basis and have enjoyed some of the other titles you mentioned as well.

I'm not looking to EA for my total fix, but I would like to see them put more effort into their products (since they do have more money than Trump) than they have the last several years. I'm just tired of seeing them put 15 year old code in a new wrapper every year and call it revolutionary.

As far as the 360 goes I haven't tried it yet but I've already read some reviews on the net from some pretty respected gamers that are ALREADY crying foul because of the once again rehashed code from old Madden games when it comes to suction blocking, inside running game, and line blocking in general. These are observations from Madden loyalists a lot more knowledgable than myself. So let's not get so glossed over by the new technology and give in to the "Built from the ground up" musings that are being tossed about for the sake of becoming part of the hype.

ohiost

[Brando70]

MVP 2005 is arguably the finest game they've ever created. I am pretty sure it's Triple Play-free

What I think is interesting about people who clamor for Madden to change is: why would EA change it? It's been the best-selling football game since GameDay 99, I think, certainly the biggest seller on this generation of consoles. It's not that I wouldn't want to see them fix things, I just understand why they don't.

The real issue is of course the license. Madden being Madden wasn't that big of a deal when you could grab another game to play if you didn't like it. I myself have swung over to other games from time to time, like GameDay and 2k. But I think most years, Madden is a very good football game, and I would much rather play Madden 2006 than the bug-ridden ESPN 2k5 (even though that game beats Madden in a number of areas). The exclusive license changed all that. And it's reasonable for gamers to hate EA for it, because even though it makes sense for them, it's a bad move for the gaming hobby.

Personally, I have given up the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth. There are plenty of great games to play each year, and I'm already getting sucked away from Madden by College Hoops. It may just be that football loses time to other genres if I get bored with Madden in the future.

[AJColossal]

Let's not kid ourselves, we live during the creative and commerical peak (up to this point) in video game history. Games have never been as creative, immersive and have as much artistic validity as they do now. We have an embarassment of riches in terms of just about any type of gameplay you can think of.

Without sounding too grandiose, I don't think it's that far-fetched to compare the times we live in now with video games to the explosion of rock music as an artistic force in the late 60's. Like video games, people said rock music was a childish fad that would burn itself out, but it proved what an undeniably powerful medium it was. I think if we are not there yet with video games, we are about to enter that kind of territory.

With that said, we also live in he era of information, through the internet, blogs, podcasts, etc. Everything is under tremendous scrutiny, including video games. You hear people say, "MVP is an OK game, but Baseball Stars was the greatest game of all time!"

Really? Play Baseball Stars today, and get back to me on that.

We have a tendency of looking at things in the past fondly, but do you think any of that stuff would withstand the intensity that we scrutinize every minute detail of this stuff now?

[bjackets]

I don't think most people expect Madden or EA games to change. I just think most of us would like to see them correct ongoing problems in their games that reoccur again and again over several installments. It's not like they don't have big enough teams to get this type of stuff done.

When you look at most of their sequels you have to wonder what all these people are doing through the course of an entire year when teams 1/3 or 1/4 the size with other companies are able to make so many changes in the same timeframe. I guess that's the diffence between "being hungry" and having a full belly.

ohiost

[dbdynsty25]

I don't think most people expect Madden or EA games to change. I just think most of us would like to see them correct ongoing problems in their games that reoccur again and again over several installments. It's not like they don't have big enough teams to get this type of stuff done.

Play Madden '06 on the 360. They really have corrected a lot of your complaints. Ratings REALLY matter...the super DB's and LB's are virtually gone...the running game has been vastly changed and the suction blocking has been toned down. They have a very good foundation for the future of the franchise.

[wco81]

Without sounding too grandiose, I don't think it's that far-fetched to compare the times we live in now with video games to the explosion of rock music as an artistic force in the late 60's. Like video games, people said rock music was a childish fad that would burn itself out, but it proved what an undeniably powerful medium it was. I think if we are not there yet with video games, we are about to enter that kind of territory.

By coincidence, Roger Ebert apparently said the other day that games will never provide the kind of profound artistic experiences that film and literature do.

His reasoning was that film and literature has authorial control (although film is a collaborative medium) while interactive media is too haphazard or random.

But with tens or hundreds of millions of people consuming gaming media, it certainly is a pop cultural force on par with popular music. Hell there was a story the other day about a grandmother who beats her grandchildren in games of all kinds.

[AJColossal]

Without sounding too grandiose, I don't think it's that far-fetched to compare the times we live in now with video games to the explosion of rock music as an artistic force in the late 60's. Like video games, people said rock music was a childish fad that would burn itself out, but it proved what an undeniably powerful medium it was. I think if we are not there yet with video games, we are about to enter that kind of territory.

By coincidence, Roger Ebert apparently said the other day that games will never provide the kind of profound artistic experiences that film and literature do.

His reasoning was that film and literature has authorial control (although film is a collaborative medium) while interactive media is too haphazard or random.

But with tens or hundreds of millions of people consuming gaming media, it certainly is a pop cultural force on par with popular music. Hell there was a story the other day about a grandmother who beats her grandchildren in games of all kinds.

Interesting that Ebert brought up games recently. I've seen him make really condescending remarks about games and gamers in some of his reviews.

Why is it that some third-party having authorial control is the only way that you or I can experience a profound artistic moment? If anything, you would think that being more involved and more in control in the experience as a gamer would result in more emotional investment into what is being played out.

[Jared]

I haven't played Madden on the 360, but apart from MVP bjackets is right on. Nearly all of these games use the same basic concepts with regards to momentum, basic AI, ball/puck physics, that's been around since the Genesis/PS1. There are a lot of unnecessary gameplay similarities between PS2 and before Madden, FIFA, March Madness, Rugby, etc. 2K games has broken from a lot of that mold and has made some really interesting games.

I think that for EA to succeed in the future, they need to scrap some of the "old" concepts for ball physics and player control that they used to have. For example, ball physics and player positioning AI needs to be completely redone from the ground up in soccer games. Player collision/interaction in basketball games needs to be redone. Madden/NCAA needs work on it's AI (esp. w/zone defenses and the running game). I hope that a lot of the resources towards making next gen games will go to stuff like this....but who knows if this'll happen or not.

[bkrich83]

I don't think most people expect Madden or EA games to change. I just think most of us would like to see them correct ongoing problems in their games that reoccur again and again over several installments. It's not like they don't have big enough teams to get this type of stuff done.

Play Madden '06 on the 360. They really have corrected a lot of your complaints. Ratings REALLY matter...the super DB's and LB's are virtually gone...the running game has been vastly changed and the suction blocking has been toned down. They have a very good foundation for the future of the franchise.

]


Completely agree.

[wco81]

I think that for EA to succeed in the future, they need to scrap some of the "old" concepts for ball physics and player control that they used to have. For example, ball physics and player positioning AI needs to be completely redone from the ground up in soccer games. Player collision/interaction in basketball games needs to be redone. Madden/NCAA needs work on it's AI (esp. w/zone defenses and the running game). I hope that a lot of the resources towards making next gen games will go to stuff like this....but who knows if this'll happen or not.

EA probably looks at this as reinventing the wheel. Or a car manufacturer looking at a well-selling platform (chassis, engine, drive train). That old code solves problems of rendering player interactions and depicting them. They may recognize that their code doesn't get the most realistic results but they may not know of a way to get better results. At least not easily.

As long as their products are selling, there's inertia against starting from scratch.

Of course, a company like GM may have reacted too late to rising gas prices. Well they did react too late in the '70s.

But there may not be a Toyota in the sports games market to threaten the dominant player.

[seanmac31]

Without sounding too grandiose, I don't think it's that far-fetched to compare the times we live in now with video games to the explosion of rock music as an artistic force in the late 60's. Like video games, people said rock music was a childish fad that would burn itself out, but it proved what an undeniably powerful medium it was. I think if we are not there yet with video games, we are about to enter that kind of territory.

By coincidence, Roger Ebert apparently said the other day that games will never provide the kind of profound artistic experiences that film and literature do.

His reasoning was that film and literature has authorial control (although film is a collaborative medium) while interactive media is too haphazard or random.

But with tens or hundreds of millions of people consuming gaming media, it certainly is a pop cultural force on par with popular music. Hell there was a story the other day about a grandmother who beats her grandchildren in games of all kinds.

Ebert is absolutely right about that.

[Bill_Abner]

we live during the creative and commerical peak (up to this point) in video game history.

Commercial? Yes. Creative? I strongly disagree with that. Developers are not allowed to be creative these days. Publishers want sequels, games based off movies, or games based off a licensed characters or another game involving the shooting of Nazis. Today there is too much risk involved to allow for high creativity. And, creative games usually tank. (Psychonauts, etc.)

Games may be better today than they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, but on a purely creative level it is not even close.

[Murph]

If for someone reason you haven't played it yet, the Madden 360 demo is now available for dowload on Xbox Live Marketplace.

[reeche]

I haven't played Madden on the 360, but apart from MVP bjackets is right on. Nearly all of these games use the same basic concepts with regards to momentum, basic AI, ball/puck physics, that's been around since the Genesis/PS1. There are a lot of unnecessary gameplay similarities between PS2 and before Madden, FIFA, March Madness, Rugby, etc. 2K games has broken from a lot of that mold and has made some really interesting games.

I think that for EA to succeed in the future, they need to scrap some of the "old" concepts for ball physics and player control that they used to have. For example, ball physics and player positioning AI needs to be completely redone from the ground up in soccer games. Player collision/interaction in basketball games needs to be redone. Madden/NCAA needs work on it's AI (esp. w/zone defenses and the running game). I hope that a lot of the resources towards making next gen games will go to stuff like this....but who knows if this'll happen or not.

What he said. What dissapoints me most about EA in general is they have the most opportunity and resources out of anybody in the industry by a wide margin yet they never apply these on the game design or philosphy side. Madden still feels like it did to me on the 2001 ps2 version essentially. Yes I know it's different of course and all series improve over time but the core annoyances that bug be in certain EA titles never go away or get worked on. Live stopped trying to be a basketball simulation quite a while back....

It has nothing to do with being a "hater". The games aren't bad and in certain cases they are quite good, but they are about the slowest company in the industry to fix flaws in their games on a year to year basis. It goes for both their sports games and their non-sports titles. I could give a crap about how successful they are which is what people tend to immediately bring up. I'm not a stockholder so I don't really care. I just want games that attempt to fix their issues and improve. EA imo is not the best I that. I'm not saying the competitors are leaps and bounds better than EA or whatever but after playing EA games since time began, I'm quite settled on this opinion of them as a game making corporation.

[anchester]

i agree to much of what the original poster said. EA will keep the same engine forever unless they see a huge sales slump (ala triple play).

I believe the madden engine does have the same primitive basic code from 10 years ago. The movement, blocking, player interaction and feel have never changed. IMO, they never will, b/c i don't forsee a triple play sales slump to get them off their lazy asses.

[anchester]

we live during the creative and commerical peak (up to this point) in video game history.

Commercial? Yes. Creative? I strongly disagree with that. Developers are not allowed to be creative these days. Publishers want sequels, games based off movies, or games based off a licensed characters or another game involving the shooting of Nazis. Today there is too much risk involved to allow for high creativity. And, creative games usually tank. (Psychonauts, etc.)

Games may be better today than they were 10, 15, 20 years ago, but on a purely creative level it is not even close.

excellent assessment. The public is to blame b/c if you look at the sales charts, it is old IP that dominates that sales by huge numbers. Psychonauts, ICO, Beyond good and evil were all innovative games that did not sell squat.

Basically innovation means adventure, exploration, puzzles, new forms of gameplay. The average consumer doesn't seem to have patience for these kind of things any more in this hyperkenetic TIVO, Internet world. They want pretty shooters or beat em ups w/ lots of explosions and blood and shallow gameplay