Sports/driving Games

[ninja_sauce]

Looking at the gaming charts for the christmas period, i note that they are representative of the years top purchases and this has always confused me - inasmuch as usually half of the titles in there are sports or driving games.

Each to their own of course, but to see two football games at the top here is deeply worrying as to the lack of imagination people are putting into their leisure time here. You know, if you are going to spend the time and money on a little escapism, why not be a space captin, or a monster, or a pirate, or an elf, or an alien warlord, army commando, big ol' monkey, little fella in a big mech, bio-scientist turned saviour of the world or just something fun?

Or alternativly, why not be some goon kicking a ball about, just like what happens every night on the television and is splashed all over the newspapers all the time. Why not go and *actually* play football?! Or whatever sport it is....if we are talking shark fishing here, then I can understand it...but if not then find a club...look in the papers...go to google...whatever it takes...

And then driving - look out the window, there are cars. You probably own one yourself. Get in it and drive around for a bit. I suppose that a game at least helps to cut back on carbon pollution and all of that - but still....it bugs me. And no, you can't drive quite so fast...but you'll be going considerably faster than you would if you remain sat on the couch.

Anyway, just getting it off my chest is all.

 

[WhizzBang]

I think the main reason why football games have always been popular is everyone understands what you have to do and they are always multi-player (and do not require split-screening). Playing games against friends is always more of a laugh than playing an RPG or FPS on your own.

 

[Magus 86]

That depends on which RPG or FPS you're talking about... it also depends on which multiplayer game you're talking about.

NinjaSauce, I know exactly what you're talking about, and I don't like it either.

 

[WhizzBang]

I know what NinjaSauce was talking about too, I was just playing devils advocate really. I haven't managed to get into a football game since Actua Soccer 2 on the PS1 (it was simple and was great fun with my mates at the time), and the last driving game I really cared for was MSR on the Dreamcast.

 

[ninja_sauce]

well, im glad im not alone at least....i feel a little the same about the sims games, whereby its bad to let your little fella sit and play video games, so you make them go out and make friends and do stuff to increase their social standing and make them better characters....there is a clever irony there i think, that can't have passed the developers by...

 

[declaration]

I play football but I also play pro evolution soccer. Its great and allows me to do things I could never do in real life. Just as your adventure and RPG games allow you to do things too.
Also, sports games and fps are immense in multi-player mode.

A lot of the geek snobbishness of such games is probably because such people have no friends to play with whilst they sit at home reaching level 9999 on disgaea (I love disgaea btw).

People shouldn't be so closed minded- I love every genre - sports, RPGs, platformers, racing games, S-RPGs- and am better for it.

 

[Magus 86]

I play sports and racing games too, just not anything recent. I don't understand the appeal of the super realistic driving games we have today. it's like "omg, you can drive real cars that actually exist!" Yeah... I can also walk about 20 feet and get in a real car, why do I need to pay 50 bucks for a game that lets me do that? So maybe I won't be driving any ferraris, corvettes, or Mercedes, but so what? I like my Honda Accord just fine, and cars don't really interest me in the first place. They're vehicles for going from one place to another. And I don't like sports games because I don't really like sports in the first place. It's a bitch keeping track of the changing rosters every year. Plus, for the most part, they don't change anything in sports games(at least they didn't last time I checked, but I haven't touched a new sports title since... 1998 or 99, maybe) except the rosters.

But like I said, I do like some older stuff like Baseball Stars and Tecmo Super Bowl for NES. The only driving games I really like are Jet Moto 1 and 2 and Twisted Metal 2.