GameSpot's Sports Gaming Blog

  • The Slow Decline of College Basketball Games

    As a nation, we love college basketball. Once the new year rolls around and the nation's eyes move away from college football and the NFL playoffs, college hoops heats up, leading to perhaps the greatest of all American sporting events: the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. March Madness is undeniably huge: The 2008 championship game between Kansas and Memphis drew a 12.1 rating (about 19.5 million viewers). Last year's game between North Carolina and Michigan State drew a 10.8, down from previous years but still an entirely respectable number.

    Still, despite the sport's popularity with the television viewing audience, there's a very real chance we won't see a college basketball game released in 2010. In its latest fiscal 2010 financial report, EA did not list a new entry in the NCAA Basketball series for its fiscal year 2011 which begins in this April. The series has struggled in sales in the past few years; last yea's game sold just over 155,000 copies on all platforms. These are paltry numbers, especially considering the game has no direct competition after 2K cancelled its NCAA College Hoops series in early 2008.

    GameSpot has contacted EA Sports regarding the NCAA Basketball series but, as of this writing, has not received a response. Regardless of that game's ultimate fate, it's clear that college basketball games just aren't what they used to be. So why can't a tremendously popular sport support a successful videogame franchise? I've got a few theories:

    Scheduling Problems
    Traditionally, college basketball games have been released in the fall. NCAA Basketball 10 was released on November 19, 2009 and the last 2K college hoops game, NCAA College Hoops 2K8, was released on November 19, 2007. That's smack-dab in the middle of the busiest time of the year for videogame releases. In addition to getting lost in the Triple-A title shuffle, college basketball games also feel the pressure of their NBA rivals, which have been traditionally released in the October timeframe. If most NCAA fans are also NBA fans, and you have games like NBA 2K10 and last year's revitalized NBA Live 10 sitting on store shelves a month prior, the "either/or" buying decision becomes an easier choice to make.

    Interestingly, publisher experiments with college hoops delays have met with mixed results. In March of 2006, 2K Sports released the Xbox 360 version of NCAA College Hoops 2K6, nearly four months after the release of the game on the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, which were both released in November, 2005. The move was a mild success, with the 360 version selling nearly 100,000 copies and accounting for more than a third of the total amount of games sold on all systems, despite coming out after the regular season had ended. Last year, EA tried a similar experiment--looking to capitalize on the men's basketball tournament by releasing the download-only NCAA Basketball 09: March Madness Edition for Xbox 360, a slimmed down version of MM 09, with a focus solely on the tourney. Sales numbers weren't released for the online-only title.

    In the end, the release schedule has become a conundrum that publishers have yet to crack. Do you release the game in the fall before most fans are even thinking about college hoops and game fans have plenty of other choices? Or do you release at the end of the season when the season nears March Madness, and most fans will only be thinking about the sport for a month and a half at most?

    The Name Game
    College hoops' greatest bounty--its astounding variety of teams and players--can also be its greatest hindrance. The Cinderella story that everyone loves to talk about in March (think 11-seed George Mason making it all the way to the Final Four in 2006, the first 11-seed to do so since 1986) has a problematic flipside--namely a level of player anonymity that can border on the maddening for the casual fan.

    It seems that only a handful of players in college basketball become the kinds of sporting household names that college football creates in droves on an annual basis. That those upper-echelon players sometimes spend only one or two years at their school before declaring for the draft gives college hoops fans even less time to identify them with their favorite team. Florida fans couldn't wait to get their hands on Tim Tebow in last year's NCAA Football 10 to see how the star quarterback would play after several successful seasons with the Gators. By contrast, fans of NCAA Basketball 10 cover star Blake Griffin saw their college hero leave school early to become a mediocre NBA benchwarmer on a sub-.500 team before ending his inaugural real NBA season with knee problems.

    Quality Isn't Job One
    The NCAA Football series might play second fiddle to Madden in terms of sales but few would say the series is creatively bankrupt. NCAA Football 10 has several important additions like Teambuilder, gameplanning, that made an significant impact on the game. On the other hand, there has been the lingering impression that college basketball games are second-hand imitations of their NBA cousins. Even with 2K's College Hoops series--one of my favorite sports franchises of all time--I rarely felt the on-court play was any better than that found in the NBA 2K series. Instead, I enjoyed the features surrounding gameplay--like legacy mode and, in particular, player recruiting.

    While it isn't fair to say that EA Sports has ignored the NCAA Basketball series, it's obvious the publisher's focus has been on the NBA Live series for the past several years. Last year's NCAA Basketball 10 is perhaps most emblematic of that. Whereas the NBA Live team was actively engaged in showing the gameplay improvements that looked to turn around last year's NBA Live 10, one of the most talked-about features with NCAA 10 was the integration of CBS graphics packages to the games. Naturally this presentation tweak wasn't the whole story with NCAA 10--the motion offenses that were introduced in that game were a great addition, one that could be built on in future iterations--but it spoke to NCAA's emphasis on veneer over substance.

    There's more to the story of college basketball's slow decline over the years--the weakened economy has certainly played its part, as has the NCAA's ongoing ban on the use of player names and likenesses in sports games. But while college football continues to thrive in the real and virtual worlds, college basketball hasn't been able to overcome its shortcomings. Perhaps it will take a new platform or a new technology (like Microsoft's Natal or Sony's Arc) to revitalize the sport in virtual form. Perhaps a couple years' break will give developers time to focus on innovating again and give fans of the sport enough of a break to start missing it in videogame form.

    Perhaps.

    It's hard to believe that this could be the last we've seen of college basketball games. Should the sport continue this year--or rise from the dead a few seasons from now--here's hoping it returns in a form that will be as inspirational and exciting as the real thing is for four weeks every March.

  • UFC 2010: THQ Lifts the Curtain

    Earlier tonight, THQ officially unveiled UFC 2010 Undisputed here at Mandalay Bay, just one day before UFC 109. Most of the details that were released were covered yesterday in our exclusive Q&A with THQ's Omar Kendall. However, there were still some interesting odds and ends on display during the presentation by THQ producer Nevin Dravinski. Here's a rundown of the things I noticed during tonight's unveiling:

    UFC boss Dana White introduces the game.

    -- The gameplay demo featured fighters Mike Swick and Paulo Thiago and covered a lot of ground specifically designed to show off a bunch of the game's new features, including fighting against the cage, a revamped submission system, and a tweaked control scheme. In terms of the cage, the main point discussed revolved around how the cage will affect striking power. In the demo, Thiago was shoved against the cage by Swick and tried some leg kicks while pinned against the cage; the angle of his body against the cage, however, didn't allow him to get full extension, and as a result, his kicks were much weaker than normal. On the other hand, using the additional leverage available to him, Swick was able to land much harder punches on Thiago. You'll also be able to do takedowns off the cage--during the demo, Dravinski performed a single-leg takedown on Thiago, ending up on the ground on top of Thiago in half guard.

    -- For UFC 2010, the developers have essentially doubled the number of available submissions in the game--including more esoteric finishers like BJ Penn's arm trap to rear naked choke. When attempting a submission, the camera has been revamped--if you're winning a submission, the camera will pull in to give a closer view of the action. If you begin to lose it, the camera will pull back, adding a new level of immediacy to this crucial moment of the fight. Another addition is the introduction of submission transitions, which will let you move from one submission hold to the next by holding the left bumper and then pressing the right trigger (on the Xbox 360 controller). Depending on your position, you might move to a more advantageous position, or you might end up in a worse position than before.

    -- There are multiple control tweaks to go along with all the other changes. For instance, the quarter- and half-circle transitions that were such a big part of the ground game are now used in the clinch. In fact, the clinch has been completely reanimated, which should make it a bit more exciting than in the first game. There's a new sway system in play as well that can help you avoid punches and kicks. Sway can also be effective offensively; if timed correctly, you can add additional power to a blow by leaning into it.

    -- Posture will play a big role in fights. Each position on the ground will have several sub-positions. It wasn't entirely clear how this will work in the game, but from the sound of it, these sub-positions will determine your proximity to your opponent on the ground, making it easier to deliver hard shots from certain positions. The result, it seems, will be more opportunities to knock out an opponent from various positions. In fact, as Dravinski put it, in UFC 2009, you could knock out an opponent from only a couple of positions, but in 2010, you'll be able to do it from any position.

    -- Another small change to the ground game involves the mount position. In UFC 2009, when in full mount, you could throw only one or two punches before having to try to block a transition attempt from an opponent. This time around, the game has more of a sense of an "inherent" transition block, one you won't have to manually control. As Dravinski told me, the idea here is to let people punch each other in the face more. Sounds good to me.

    -- Lots of little UFC details abounded. During the post-fight decision announcement, the fighters were wearing T-shirts and caps, and you'll be able to unlock all of this gear and more as you go through the game. Bruce Buffer's patented "Buffer 180"--where the veteran ring announcer dramatically points to each fighter--is in the game. There are even new refs on the roster, including UFC vet Yves Lavigne.

    -- Arianny Celeste is still in the game. This makes me smile.

    -- While THQ wasn't talking career mode tonight, one detail caught my eye as it flashed by on the main menu screen as a hint of what to expect from career mode. It seems that disrespecting a fighter before a fight "will gain you more popularity and will also negatively affect relationships." Just what this means and how this will work in the game is unclear, but it seems that career mode will be significantly more robust than in 2009.

    UFC 2010 Undisputed is due for release on May 25 on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and later in the year on PSP.

  • One Week of MLB 10: The Show -- Odds and Ends

    All this week we're taking a look at Sony's upcoming baseball game, MLB 10: The Show. Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Today, we're finishing up the series with a look at some odds and ends I noticed after playing the game and speaking with the game's developers.

    - I'm a Generic Pitch 38 kind of guy. I spent most of my time with last year's MLB 09 using my created Road to the Show pitcher, so I've learned the tricks to keep things moving. After all, even when you're playing as a starting pitcher and getting on the mound once every four or five days, the baseball season is a long slog. You take your shortcuts where you can get them, and in the case of a pitcher, that means shortening your windup as much as possible. Forget the seemingly eternal delivery of a guy like Chan Ho Park--when time is at a premium, I'm looking for the fastest delivery possible.

    Bobby Abreu would never let a ball bounce off the top of his dome.

    Having spent some hands-on time with MLB 10 earlier this week, one of my first goals was to find a pitch delivery that fit my schedule. That's not necessarily a simple task--MLB 10 has a full 310 deliveries to choose from, including pitching motions modeled after real-life pitchers and a bunch of generic models as well. It took me a while, but after some experimentation, I came to love the quick and to-the-point release of Generic Pitch 38. Now, here's hoping they don't mix the numbers up in the final version of the game, or else it's back to the drawing board…

    - At the top of my list of questions for MLB 10 producers was when RTTS fans would be able to carry over their created ball players from one version of the game to the next year's game. As an ardent fan of career modes in sports games, I think that continuing your career from one game to the next seems like the next big step forward for the genre, one that would add a huge amount of stickiness and value from one game to the next. After all, continuing the career of your created star while still taking advantage of all the cool stuff that's added in each new version of a sports game seems like the best of both worlds. The developers agree, but there continue to be enough technical hurdles to cross that the feature was not included in this year's game. That said, it is on their radar for MLB 11, so I'm hoping it gets done next year. If you're reading this, guys: pretty, pretty please?

    - One aspect of online play that I didn't mention in Wednesday's preview is the Scout Now feature--an extension of the game's online scout service that lets you filter through a bunch of different criteria like player skill and game speed when looking for a game to play online. With Scout Now you save those filter settings and then can instantly find a game with your preferences (assuming one is out there, of course). I tend to avoid MLB online as I swing at everything that's even remotely near the strike zone. With Scout Now, maybe I can find someone online who is as swing-happy as I am and actually have a shot at winning a game.

    - Accurate ball deflections seems to me like perhaps the most underrated addition to MLB 10's gameplay. With the ball bouncing off of batters, umpires, fielders, and even pitchers (and, yes, injuries can happen on comebackers), it seems that a player's reaction time and fielding ability will count more than ever. In fact, now that the ball is acting more realistically, the burden on fielding animation was that much heavier. One of my favorite examples came while watching as a shortstop fielded a shallow fly ball that bounced on the ground just in front of him. As the ball leaped in the air, the shortstop had to make a similar quick hop to snag it and make the play at first. It was a tidy little animation that probably wasn't needed last year but made an impression this time around.

    - Speaking of realistic ball physics, here's a feature that Jose Canseco won't appreciate. With the addition of new home-run-robbing wall catches, there are more defensive options for snagging a ball before it leaves the yard, including forehand, backhand, and straight-at-the-wall catches. That's good news for skilled outfielders. For the rest of us, couple delicate timing, necessary fielding ratings, and the improved ball physics, and it's entirely possible to re-create Canseco's famous "ball off the noggin'" outfield gaffe from 1993, when Jose was playing outfield for the Texas Rangers and a ball hit by the Indians' Carlos Martinez bounded off Canseco's head and into the stands for a home run. If it happens to you, I expect to see the video.

    That wraps up our look at MLB 10: The Show, but we'll be bringing you more coverage in the coming weeks ahead of its release on March 2.

GameSpot Most Popular Sports Games

Rankings based on user activity from yesterday, limited to upcoming games and games released in the last year.

  1. Today's #1 Game MLB 10: The Show
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  2. 2. Backbreaker
  3. 3. NBA 2K10
  4. 4. Wii Sports Resort
  5. 5. Madden NFL 10
  6. 6. Backbreaker
  7. 7. Madden NFL 10
  8. 8. Pro Evolution Soccer 2010
  9. 9. NHL 10
  10. 10. FIFA Soccer 10
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