EA Sports Could Take Some Notes From The 2K In Terms Of Commentary

[Sammidysam]

Quote: Originally Posted by Pielet

FIFA has this the best. English commentary gets old, switch to Spanish or French and it's a whole new game.

Yeah, that's totally correct, even though you have no clue what is going on.

[boritter]

I recently bought an NBA game for the first time in 4 years. I was blown away by how much better the commentary (& overall presentation) is in NBA2K11 than in all of EA's football, hockey, soccer, and boxing games. EA has some serious ground to make up.

Sadly, NCAA has the weakest commentary of all the EA games. I turn it off when I play NCAA but I keep it on in Fifa, NHL, FNC, and of course NBA 2K11.

[4solo]

I couldn't even imagine playing a game without commentary. Every since I heard it on the old Joe Montana Sports Talk Football, I was hooked. And we all know how horrible that commentary was. It was horrible, even when no other game at the time had commentary. LOL



Dude its complete cheese by the way

[sparkdawg777]

When are they going to come up with a computer that can take the voice of someone and actually CREATE the commentary. Of course with approval from the people themselves we would have endless commentary, shoot we could even download upgrades during the year (Nessler, Herb, Musburger, and more)

I mean I have no idea if this exists but computers are getting very advanced how close are we? If not is there a program that can take anyone's voice and mask it?

I know this might sound crazy but if we are able to imagine Nessler's voice in our heads say anything even if we've never heard him say it, why can't a computer not do that?

[SlickRick11]

FIFA does have amazing commentary.....the commentary is getting so old on NCAA it makes me hate kirk herbstreets voice even when he's on espn talking lol

[radiohead]

I hate to constantly indict EA Tiburon, but the truth is that they know their presentation is subpar at best. and they know that the community has been asking for a major overhaul for years.

One of the dirty little secrets that has resulted from the devs posting on this and other sites is that if you read carefully, they've told on themselves over time.

A few years ago, Ian (I'm pretty sure it was him) in essence said that 2k has always excelled in the areas that they were weak in and vice versa - meaning that 2k had better bells and whistles while EA placed a greater emphasis on meat and potatoes.

So, if they know that a competitor has been blowing them away in presentation for years, why not address it? Why not catch up and ultimately surpass what the competition is doing presentation wise? Or better still, why not take the lead and INNOVATE?

Where is the innovation?

The hardcore community has supported this this series year in and year out. Many have bought all of the mediocre offerings that EA has trotted out. If it was not for them, the NCAA series would have gone the way of the March Madness Series.

If EA were half as loyal to its base as its base has been to it, I shudder to think where NCAA would be. Yet, despite this consumer loyalty, the makers are content to trot out a mediocre product year in and year out.

Commentary/Presentation is a shining example of this.

And to think, people ask me why did I abandon the NCAA series? My answer is always the same. I didn't abandon NCAA, NCAA abandoned me.

[etmccreary]

Quote: Originally Posted by mattbooty

Although it would detract from the realism somewhat, I think the best thing they could do would be eliminate Herbstreet and Nessler and have 2 voice actors do commentary as imagined play-by-play guys (like the old 2k series did). The big problem is guys like Herbstreet and Nessler cost too much and have little time to come in and record all new commentary year after year so the additions are limited. If you got professional voice actors who would cost significantly less and since its their profession they'd be more apt to sit in a room and read lines day in / day out for a long period each year. This would give you a ton more lines for the game to pull from and also make it easier for them to add new additional lines each year. As long as its Nessler/Herbstreet (who I love, but are just not going to be able to put in the time or are too expensive for EA to bring in for extended sessions each year) you are just going to get the same commentary each year with a handful of additions.

+1 This is a great idea.

[radiohead]

A simple search will show that since at least 2008, which iirc was the first year the devs began overtly posting, people have been asking for a commentary overhaul.

However, they're not going to overhaul it and they don't even have the desire to convert to a more dynamic style of commentary.

Quote: Originally Posted by Adam_Thompson_EA

...Commentary is built on the previous year's project. We remove bad lines, fix bugs, and add more lines.

That's from 2009 btw.

It shows their entire approach to commentary (imo it also shows their entire approach to the series.)

Clean up a little here, fix a few bugs there, add a little here.

Although I'm with you guys in spirit, it's safe to say that a commentary and overall presentation overhaul is definitely not on the horizon.