Playing Smart: Why Realism Is Not Always the Answer
 

Many people see video games as a way to unwind after a long day at work or maybe as a way to waste some time on the weekend. With the latest generation of consoles, video games are becoming more in-depth, and at the same time, some games are incorporating steeper learning curves. While a lot of games can be considered arcade-like and simplistic -- attempting to give the player a few minutes of leisure without having to expend much energy when playing the game for a long period of time -- an equal amount of games are attempting to more closely simulate a sport. I believe the developers, even when focusing on simulations, do not want games to become too difficult for the consumer to play.

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I think realism is the key to sports games. It is the only way to LEARN something about the sport. Having to critically think about strategy and actually use your mind is also a benefit of realism in sports.

If a game does not provoke thought then it is not worth playing IMO.

I don't see why realism has to = difficult controls (as the article kind of implies and states repeatedly). For me, the ideal sports game would have simple controls (something like NHL 09), but yet what I see on the screen would be as close to real as possible. I don't think making the controls complicated, or giving the player complete control over ever little nuance, is the ticket to realistic sports games. I don't see why a baseball couldn't produce more realistic results (higher pitch counts, foul balls, less HRs, etc.) with NES-style simple controls, if it was programmed to be more realistic.

I think the mistake some of the developers are making are making the games too complicated. I shouldn't have to practice isomotion moves for hours to pull off a spin move. It should be a simple as a button press, but the key to making it realistic is coding it so only guys that can actually pull it off in real life can pull it off in the game. If you try it with someone who doesn't have those skills, there should be a realistic consequence for it. That's where games get it wrong, I think. There's not enough of a negative consequence for unrealistic play.

Madden is also getting it wrong, I think with all the complicated pre-snap controls all the controls for moves while running (R stick, buttons, shoulder buttons, etc.) Why can't it just be something as simple as I run with the left stick and the game is coded so that guys that are good at breaking tackles will occasionally and realistically break tackles? It would still feel satisfying and rewarding, I believe, without me having to try and manually string together a bunch of commands to do it.

I *hated* MLB2k's game last year. The pitching controls are horrible, IMO, and still don't accomplish what they were going for: making it feel like throwing different pitches. Again, I think pitching should be as simple as a button press, but the game AI determines based on player ratings how accurate, fast, how much movement, the pitch has. You still manually aim, but if you don't have the best pitcher in the world, don't expect the ball to go where you want 100% of the time. To me, that is more "sim" than having to perform all kinds of crazy motions on the R stick to throw a curve ball. I just want to see realistic animations and results on the screen; I don't need to try and emulate what throwing a pitch feels like on the controller somehow for the game to feel "realistic."

So, in summary, I think realism in sports games would be appreciated by "sim" and "casual" fans alike, if they can make the controls simple, yet fun to play, while yielding realistic scenarios, and causing realistic negative consequences for unrealistic play.

I know realism should be in a boxing game.,...

I will gladly pay a premium price for a complex, intricate and realistic representation of football and basketball....maybe even baseball.

To appease realism you have tune files and sliders...simple as that.

Re: Playing Smart: Why Realism Is Not Always the Answer
 

I think sliders are fine for people to adjust so they can get a competitive game for themselves, but I'm not one to mess with them myself. I think a lot of people fall into the trap of endless slider tweaking, in search of that ever elusive "perfect" set of sliders that gets them a realistic game. Yet, things happen in sports all the time that seem out of the norm. I remember a Red Sox game a couple of years ago with 4 back-to-back HRs. If that happened in the videogame, someone would go in and change their HR sliders because it's not "realistic."

I think it would be easier to just have an "arcade" difficulty setting, for people that want the game to be more arcadey and a "sim" difficulty setting, in which the devs set it to what they feel is the most accurate to the sport they could make at the time. Sliders could still be in there to teak difficulty, if you wanted.

Good points, Chris. I prefer a realistic game myself, but I get your point about the balance between making a game realistic, yet having an easy learning curve. A lot of guys raved last year about MLB: The Show and NHL '08. In the MLB game, I thought the base running controls were too difficult when compared to the former MVP series, as was the pitching unless you went to "classic." In NHL '08, I felt you had to be a stick magician to do anything. The guys with stick skillz who wanted a realistic game loved it. My stick skillz are pretty bad, especially in a hockey game, so I put the game away after one very long, very frustrating night trying to score goals and not being able to. It was a very good NHL sim, but too difficult for me to learn.

I'm an idiot. I thought Chris wrote it. I found it through a post of his.