OS Roundtable: Looking at the Best Sports Game Tourney

[BlyGilmore]

Quote: Originally Posted by Briankingsfan

I don't refute your point about my being an unabashed 2k5 fan. What I was trying to make the point of is this. Wasn't Chris Madden Mania? That would seem to me to lend itself to him having a bias, maybe. And there are guys on both sides of the fence of bias. And I really feel you about comparing games that were singular titles vs. yearly updates. I wonder which approach was better? But that's a whole 'nother discussion.....Peace! P.S. I still can't agree about any game from yesteryear being relevant now. The Beatles analogy doesn't hold because the Beatles wrote songs that were timeless, as well as driving forward recording tech. To say that TSB has set a bar yet to be surpassed is straight feel good nostalgia. 2d sprite based characters that played dumb unrealistic (but fun) football have been far surpassed by the worst Madden.Like you said, the only way to make this a fair comparison is to put an * on the whole thing and judge each game in it's own timeframe. But the whole tourney thing was entertaining.....

See to me you're comparing the art of the Beatles to the technical aspects of video games, instead of the ART of those video games. There's a reason people around the country today still play TSB, a reason why folks have taken the time to update rosters to current versions, and a reason why Nintendo and Microsoft are making a ton of money releasing old video games for download.

[BlyGilmore]

Quote: Originally Posted by mugginns

I think I've met 2 people in my life who ever played a Tecmo football game after TSB. edit: And I heard from both of them that they were pretty awful

that might be the case, but the point being made is those three games have versions that came out after, so folks aren't just nostaligic because they had their game taken away from them.

[muggins]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlyGilmore

that might be the case, but the point being made is those three games have versions that came out after, so folks aren't just nostaligic because they had their game taken away from them.

Could be nostalgic for other reasons then

[CMH]

A lot of the round table discussion is very similar to the Tournament votes. Everyone has their own opinion.

I can only speak for myself but my comments were not meant to belittle CHoops 2K8 or other current titles.

I made sure to note that a lot of people on the forums always make sure to mention an older game having done something that they wish current titles did now. If not that, they mention how much fun they had with the older titles.

That doesn't mean I personally believe that the older titles were better. I never said NHL 94 was better than NHL 08. I only said I was surprised it didn't get more support.

And that's pretty much what most of us said. We were mostly surprised at the picks considering that lots of fans love giving the nod to the old classics that remind them of the good old times.

Most of the older gamers that love NFL 2K or Madden remember a time when they played Tecmo Football every minute of their gaming lives. I thought that more people would vote on nostalgia then on the features they get today compared to the past.

I thought wrong. That's all I meant by my statements.

[BrianFifaFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by BlyGilmore

See to me you're comparing the art of the Beatles to the technical aspects of video games, instead of the ART of those video games. There's a reason people around the country today still play TSB, a reason why folks have taken the time to update rosters to current versions, and a reason why Nintendo and Microsoft are making a ton of money releasing old video games for download.

No, not so much. I'm saying that 2k5 was art and tech married as good as it ever has been. And that, while TSB was also art, it can't compete due to the technical restraints placed upon it by the timeframe in which it was released. I'm not trying demean TSB in any way. It's just that, while high in art and tech for it's time, it is as dated as Pong now. As really any game when judged by a standard that takes out nostalgia. And hopefully 2k5 will be surpassed by Madden looking and playing like the infamous "next-gen" trailor one day. I have no problem not listening to Chris Berman saying "Welcome to Opening Day Weekend 2004"for the eighth year in a row.

[yamabushi]

Quote: Originally Posted by DCAllAmerican

A term that my friends and I use when discussing games over different eras is "Time for Time." Like my man before said; You can't just look at the technological superiority as the reason why something is BETTER. You have to judge it for when it came out. How groundbreaking was it? How did it fair against it's competition from that year? How EAGER were you to play it? Time for Time (to me) NBA 2K2 is the best 2K of all time. No it is not graphically better than 2K8 NOR does it have MORE features. But for WHEN the game came out, I was more impressed with THAT than I was with NBA 2K8. But this will ALWAYS be an issue when comparing ANYTHING over two different time spans.

Under those stipulations your not really determining whats Best then. None of those questions are relevant.

Lets say your going to the store to buy a new TV (or anything). Would you ask the salesman ANY of those questions above? Of course not.

[BrianFifaFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by DCAllAmerican

A term that my friends and I use when discussing games over different eras is "Time for Time." Like my man before said; You can't just look at the technological superiority as the reason why something is BETTER. You have to judge it for when it came out. How groundbreaking was it? How did it fair against it's competition from that year? How EAGER were you to play it? Time for Time (to me) NBA 2K2 is the best 2K of all time. No it is not graphically better than 2K8 NOR does it have MORE features. But for WHEN the game came out, I was more impressed with THAT than I was with NBA 2K8. But this will ALWAYS be an issue when comparing ANYTHING over two different time spans.

Excellent points. But you still have to factor in the tech side as a large component. Once upon a time 3 little men moving in unison was the best representation of football. Now we have stubble on faces and AI making 1000 decisions a cycle, as well as real-time commentary. And that's just our chosen genre. Let's not get into Bioshock, GTA or Mass Effect. But those games have something that Sport Games in general have been lacking for a while now. Emotional Attachment. They have first rate storyline writers that create stories and characters that make you involved and drawn into their virtual lives. I haven't ever played it but I've heard that The Show's RTTS has that type of involvement/engagement. Where are those type of experiences in most sports games? I will say that one of the main reasons I was so into 2k5 was Chris Berman and the highlight show. Even the Suzy Kolber postgame interviews with Carson Palmer bad lip-syncing with a black mans voice turned me on and made me feel into it. I'll grant that 2k5 was far from perfect, but for mine, it was a game that broke all kinds of ground. As both a showcase of what tech could do as well as well as artisically. For the entirety of sports gaming history , it wins.....

[BrianFifaFan]

Oh yeah, one other point. As to the arguement that there are still a great many fans who still actively play STB, there's also a community of guys who still play Atari religiously and develop games for that console. Does that make those games and that system any less antiquated or nostalgic?