Where Are They Now? Features That Are MIA

[RaychelSnr]

Hey! Where is Create-a-Team this year? Where did my decibel meter go? These questions are probably some you have asked if you are a long-time sports gamer who has played a series for more than 5 years. Operation Sports' Patrick Williams takes us through the phenomenon of developers adding and subtracting features as they please and he also tries to offer up some answers for us poor souls.

"Time and time again I read our forums here at Operation Sports and MaddenMania and I hear complaints or questions regarding the whereabouts of features or functions from past games in a series.

These are things that for seemingly no reason, disappear into thin air. Then sometimes, they magically return a few years later in our favorite sports games."

[fistofrage]

I am one that thinks that the 360 version of NCAA is about 4 years away from having all the features that we had on the PS2 in 2004. At this rate when the Xbox 720 comes out or the PS4, we won't even have commentary or stadiums. It will be back to intellivision football, you'll just see the field and the players, but the players will probably look real nice until you realize how out of proportion they are. The linemen on the 360 look like fancy refrigerator boxes with bowling balls on top of their heads. Its sad.

[bhurst99]

Great article. This is part of the reason why I am doing a NHL 2004 dynasty. After a goal is scored you get a close-up of the goal scorer that indicates how many goals, assists and points he has on the year. You get broken glass and hats for hat-tricks. You get various franchise options like setting ticket prices for regular season and playoffs. You get GM points for trades that you can use to improve a gym or transportation that affects player attributes. Why they take all this stuff out is mindboggling.

[NEWYORICAN]

I couldn't said it any better.! Great article. I hope EA and others read this. But I know they could care less of what we think.

[Cardot]

Yep, great points. There certainly is a sinking feeling when you have a new game, you are excited checking out all the new stuff, and then all of a sudden you realize..."Uh-oh, they don't have xyz anymore?"

On related note, when NFL 2K4 came out with weekly and end of game hightlights, I figured "This will now be a staple of all sports games"....guess I was wrong about that.

[Scoop 24]

great article. sums it all up imo.

[ty5oke]

Great read! This is why I haven't touched Madden in a long time.

[Scott]

Re: Where Are They Now? Features That Are MIA

Great article.

[CeltBhoy33]

Great read with some very good points.

[Briman123]

Re: Where Are They Now? Features That Are MIA

NBA 2k series has alot of 'where did they go features'.

[theaub]

The one thing I really miss about NHL '94, is that during the intermission of the playoff games they'd have an out of town scoreboard and take you to another game, where they'd either show a highlight, or the final two minutes of a close game, or something like that. It boggles my mind how the Sega Genesis could support in-game highlights from games around the league, but we can't get them in any games today.

[Foddzy]

The author missed some of the most basic things missing from Madden like the timeouts remaining indicator and multiple/adjustable camera angles...

[A.M. Son]

Re: Where Are They Now? Features That Are MIA

The author missed some of the most basic things missing from Madden like the timeouts remaining indicator and multiple/adjustable camera angles...

Yeah there's a lot of features that could be mentioned, especially about Madden- but about all sports games. I think we get the point of the article however, but it's nice to see all the other ideas being thrown out here. There's so much more missing than we realized... not good at all.

Anyone think some of the reasoning for this is the 1year dev cycle? Is there just not enough time to get it all in? Or has the licensing gone overboard and the respective leagues dictate too much of what can and cannot be in the games?

[K_GUN]

great read

PLEASE find a way to get this article to Peter Moore's desk

[bsb13]

Re: Where Are They Now? Features That Are MIA

I love how madden had the pass/run commit one year, took it out the next, brought it back later and labeled it as "new".