[GSW]

Quote: Originally Posted by born_bad

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 apologize to everyone for not reading the rest of the posts in this thread but after reading this I don't really feel the need too. (I will anyway though)