The OS Year-End Awards: Best New Feature of 2014 (Reader's Vote)

[RaychelSnr]

There were several very notable new features this year in sports gaming, with some titles trying to arrive back at something that resembles feature parity with the old generation of games and others simply adding to an already full arsenal.

We asked OS readers to vote on their favorite new features of 2014, and here are the award winners.

Gold - MLB 14 The Show: Year to Year Saves

OS’ers were quite pleased with the year to year saves feature, which allows you to take your saves from this year’s edition of MLB The Show into next years. No longer will your virtual player suffer from a short lifespan, you’ll be able to take your progress from this year and move it into next year without any issue. Amazingly, this is something no sports game has really tried before — and its something which was long overdue.

Silver - NBA 2K15 MyLeague

To say that OS’ers simply wanted a regular multi-season mode back in NBA 2K15 was an understatement. When the announcement was made last year that association mode was meeting its demise on next-gen, I’m pretty sure we all ran for the nearest bomb shelter anticipating a massive storm of complaints — which certainly materialized. Fortunately, the highly customizable MyLEAGUE mode in NBA 2K15 made its appearance this year to great fanfare, getting it the Silver Medal from OS readers.

Bronze - MLB 14 The Show: Quick Counts

Games in MLB The Show were long, drawn out affairs — sometimes taking over an hour on even the fastest settings to fully complete a nine-inning game. Thanks to quick counts, you can now move through a game fairly quickly, with some games taking less than 15 minutes to complete. Sports gaming has always had a Call of Duty problem in the sense that playing a full game always meant dedicating a lot of time for a singular result — whereas games in other genres can generate results and progress in factors of 10 minutes, not hours. For that reason, OS’ers saw fit to award Quick Counts the bronze medal in our readers vote.


What do you think? Do you agree with your peers or do you think OS’ers got it wrong? Sound off in the comments!

[Eyeman79]

Can't ague with those picks. I would have put "Quick Counts" first as it actually makes playing most of a season possible. I might be wrong but didn't High Heat Baseball have season to season saves? Maybe that was just on PC. When you think about it innovation seems to be lacking especially with the jump to next gen.

[Blitzburgh]

I would've put the defensive controls in Madden as #1 and Quick counts #2 and on the fly camera changes in Madden #3. I just basically play a few games here and there so those were great additions for me.

[redsox4evur]

Re: The OS Year-End Awards: Best New Feature of 2014 (Reader's Vote)

I would have to put MyLeague first, highly customizable 80 year league, can't go wrong with that.

Quick counts 2 because it makes playing games go by so much quicker.

And Year to Year saves 3 because we don't know yet if there are going to be any huge problems with it. And I also I am seriously disappointed we can't carry over rosters. So if I was just choosing from the 3 listed here that is my list.

[kingdavidtaylor1989]

I would have to put MyLeague first, highly customizable 80 year league, can't go wrong with that.

Quick counts 2 because it makes playing games go by so much quicker.

And Year to Year saves 3 because we don't know yet if there are going to be any huge problems with it. And I also I am seriously disappointed we can't carry over rosters. So if I was just choosing from the 3 listed here that is my list.

You can play more than 80 years in Myleague???? It only lets me play 1 year.

[jeremym480]

Re: The OS Year-End Awards: Best New Feature of 2014 (Reader's Vote)

You can play more than 80 years in Myleague???? It only lets me play 1 year.

You're playing a season... which it is set to by default when you're setting up a MyLeague. You have to change it from season to franchise in order to have more than one year.

[kingdavidtaylor1989]

You're playing a season... which it is set to by default when you're setting up a MyLeague. You have to change it from season to franchise in order to have more than one year.

Thanks a ton