Godzilla Blitz
08-19-2004, 10:32 AM
Anyone out there play this way?
My Xbox arrived Tuesday, and I picked up ESPN Football and a few other games yesterday. Fired up ESPN last night and played two games. One in third-person view, and one in first-person view.
I thought the first-person view would be gimmicky, but I had a blast. Maybe it comes from having played organized football, but I preferred it to third-person as far as immersion goes. The chatter between players, the views from the field, and the sense of chaos is incredible. And for the most part, it worked well, as far as I could tell from one game.
Random negative and positive impressions...
Peripheral vision is more limited than in real life, and the sense-o-meter, or what ever that thing is called, didn't help me at all. On top of this, they give you a helmet frame that is both too intrusive (cuts down even more on the peripheral vision), and unrealistic (you don't see that much of the helmet from inside the helmet).
Never having played quarterback anywhere except street football, I wondered about the passing perspective. For me, the lack of depth perception on a tv screen made it hard to get a sense of distance on the field, and I couldn't pick out my open receivers well at all. Passing was brutally hard. Much of the confusion came from the fact that I couldn't see a damn thing with all the linemen in the way. I'd catch a quick glimpse of a receiver and think, Hell, he looks open, and then chuck it in his general direction and hope for the best. I suspect this would get easier with time, but I found myself viewing pro quarterbacks in a new light. How the hell do they spot receivers downfield? No wonder they make such stupid throws sometimes. Could anyone who has played quarterback in organized football comment on how realistic the first-person passing mode feels in the game?
Running-wise, things were fun. I loved how I'd catch a glimpse of a hole, burst for the thing, spot open daylight, and then wham, get knocked on my ass by someone coming from the side. Really fun stuff.
Receiving-wise, things were fair. They give you this slow-motion transfer on short passes, but for the most part, when I'd catch the ball I'd get immediately tackled, which probably was about right considering I was randomly chucking the ball to well covered receivers. For long passes, I got transferred immediately to the reciever, but I had no clue where the ball was or what I was supposed to do. Most of the time I'd stand there, spot the ball as it landed fifteen yards away, and think, Oh, that's where I was supposed to go. Oh, well.
Defensively, things felt great. I played Hovan as a DT on the Vikings and managed to get two sacks and a huge tackle on third-and-one to prevent a first down. I can honestly say that the first sack was one of those rare gaming moments that made me shake my head in awe at how a simple video game could give me such an emotional surge. Up until that point in the game, I'd pretty much been held in check: no tackles, some light pressure on the quarterback. This play, however, I did a swim move to get past the guard, the center broke the other way to block someone to my right, and I had an open lane to the quarterback. I got up a full head of steam and drilled the guy right in the numbers before he could get out of the way. My view spun wildly, we both went flying to the ground, and the home crowd went nuts to accent the fact that I absolutely totaled the guy. Wow. What a rush. It was close enough to reality to bring back memories. I'm sure glad my wife didn't see me standing up in the living room in at 1:30 a.m. pumping my fists and jumping up and down. :)
Special teams were fun. I found myself actually getting scared as I looked up and waited for punts to come down. One time, I caught the ball and was barely able to pull my head down when bang, I got blasted backwards to the turf. I thought to myself, I must have gotten that guy killed. The game immediately goes to a cut scene with coaches surrounding the guy on the ground, asking him what day it is, and helping him off the field. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Other things...
I found it hard to move my head around quickly enough to get a useful view of things. In real football, you're constantly shifting your view to get a sense of what's going on around you. This seemed hard to do in the game.
In real football, you get a wide variety of sensory input to tell you what's going on, whereas in ESPN you pretty much get a limited visual perspective, some minimal auditory help, and some useless help from that meter thingie. In real life, you've also got arms, which you can grab and twist and do all kinds of helpful things with. In ESPN, I felt more like a walking block. There were so many times when I wanted to "reach out" and grab something or someone, but there is no way to do that with any sense of realistic feel to it in the game.
Still, all in all, I was amazed at what they have done with this aspect of the game. From reviews, I realize that it hasn't changed much since last year's version, but not having seen first-person mode before, I was stunned by how much fun it was. That one hour playing this game last night made the whole Xbox purchase worthwhile.
Edit: Corrected spelling in line with Samdari's post.
My Xbox arrived Tuesday, and I picked up ESPN Football and a few other games yesterday. Fired up ESPN last night and played two games. One in third-person view, and one in first-person view.
I thought the first-person view would be gimmicky, but I had a blast. Maybe it comes from having played organized football, but I preferred it to third-person as far as immersion goes. The chatter between players, the views from the field, and the sense of chaos is incredible. And for the most part, it worked well, as far as I could tell from one game.
Random negative and positive impressions...
Peripheral vision is more limited than in real life, and the sense-o-meter, or what ever that thing is called, didn't help me at all. On top of this, they give you a helmet frame that is both too intrusive (cuts down even more on the peripheral vision), and unrealistic (you don't see that much of the helmet from inside the helmet).
Never having played quarterback anywhere except street football, I wondered about the passing perspective. For me, the lack of depth perception on a tv screen made it hard to get a sense of distance on the field, and I couldn't pick out my open receivers well at all. Passing was brutally hard. Much of the confusion came from the fact that I couldn't see a damn thing with all the linemen in the way. I'd catch a quick glimpse of a receiver and think, Hell, he looks open, and then chuck it in his general direction and hope for the best. I suspect this would get easier with time, but I found myself viewing pro quarterbacks in a new light. How the hell do they spot receivers downfield? No wonder they make such stupid throws sometimes. Could anyone who has played quarterback in organized football comment on how realistic the first-person passing mode feels in the game?
Running-wise, things were fun. I loved how I'd catch a glimpse of a hole, burst for the thing, spot open daylight, and then wham, get knocked on my ass by someone coming from the side. Really fun stuff.
Receiving-wise, things were fair. They give you this slow-motion transfer on short passes, but for the most part, when I'd catch the ball I'd get immediately tackled, which probably was about right considering I was randomly chucking the ball to well covered receivers. For long passes, I got transferred immediately to the reciever, but I had no clue where the ball was or what I was supposed to do. Most of the time I'd stand there, spot the ball as it landed fifteen yards away, and think, Oh, that's where I was supposed to go. Oh, well.
Defensively, things felt great. I played Hovan as a DT on the Vikings and managed to get two sacks and a huge tackle on third-and-one to prevent a first down. I can honestly say that the first sack was one of those rare gaming moments that made me shake my head in awe at how a simple video game could give me such an emotional surge. Up until that point in the game, I'd pretty much been held in check: no tackles, some light pressure on the quarterback. This play, however, I did a swim move to get past the guard, the center broke the other way to block someone to my right, and I had an open lane to the quarterback. I got up a full head of steam and drilled the guy right in the numbers before he could get out of the way. My view spun wildly, we both went flying to the ground, and the home crowd went nuts to accent the fact that I absolutely totaled the guy. Wow. What a rush. It was close enough to reality to bring back memories. I'm sure glad my wife didn't see me standing up in the living room in at 1:30 a.m. pumping my fists and jumping up and down. :)
Special teams were fun. I found myself actually getting scared as I looked up and waited for punts to come down. One time, I caught the ball and was barely able to pull my head down when bang, I got blasted backwards to the turf. I thought to myself, I must have gotten that guy killed. The game immediately goes to a cut scene with coaches surrounding the guy on the ground, asking him what day it is, and helping him off the field. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.
Other things...
I found it hard to move my head around quickly enough to get a useful view of things. In real football, you're constantly shifting your view to get a sense of what's going on around you. This seemed hard to do in the game.
In real football, you get a wide variety of sensory input to tell you what's going on, whereas in ESPN you pretty much get a limited visual perspective, some minimal auditory help, and some useless help from that meter thingie. In real life, you've also got arms, which you can grab and twist and do all kinds of helpful things with. In ESPN, I felt more like a walking block. There were so many times when I wanted to "reach out" and grab something or someone, but there is no way to do that with any sense of realistic feel to it in the game.
Still, all in all, I was amazed at what they have done with this aspect of the game. From reviews, I realize that it hasn't changed much since last year's version, but not having seen first-person mode before, I was stunned by how much fun it was. That one hour playing this game last night made the whole Xbox purchase worthwhile.
Edit: Corrected spelling in line with Samdari's post.