[tsp120]

For me, reviews of sports games are almost pointless.

Every sports "simulation" game has about a hundred different audiences. I'll discuss Madden to make my points. I love football, I love the NFL and I want a video game that let's me simulate the sports as close as possible. Reading reviews I always see that the game did quite well. But I don't think I've gotten my hands on a Madden game since the early 2000's that I actually thought played well. NFL2K5 is still the best football game ever made in my opinion, and it's 6 years old.

But there is an audience that loves Madden. It's the guys who want to sit on the couch and play a game against their friend. They want to drop back 20 yards, through a pin-point accurate strike to their receiver in triple coverage 50 yards down the field, and then jump off the couch and brag to their friend that he just owned him. Those people flock to this game and buy it every year if for no other reason than the updated roster.

What no Madden review ever touches on is the horrible franchise mode simulation stats, or the fact that no matter what I do to the sliders I can't have a game where certain stats will feel right, such as passing yards or turnovers. I remember and NCAA game a few years ago where even with the interception slider set to 0 I was intercepting the ball 4 or 5 times a game consistently, even on a relatively difficult level. Reviews don't mention that, and while you're playing the game it drives you insane.

Personally, I'm glad I don't work on sports video games. Technology has them in a very tight spot in terms of pleasing someone like me. It's amazing how far games have come visually, but in terms of AI it's just not increasing at the same rate. Back in the Genesis and Super Ninteno days, the newest Madden always seemed "realistic". I mean, we all knew it wasn't, but we didn't have expectations of realism with the 16-bit characters. But back then, being able to call audibles and play multiple seasons was like, wow! But now that the games look so good, I think we all expect it to play as good too and I don't think the man-power exists to do this.

So in terms of reviews, I think they're pointless. What is not pointless is the impression and bug threads on this site. That is how I get my reviews of games. Sometimes I see people complain about things that seem ridiculous to me. That's fine, they're a different audience and I ignore those complaints. But other times people complain about things and I realize that would bother me too. I know no game is going to be perfect but the impression threads let me weigh whether or not the issues the game has are something I can ignore and/or deal with.