Madden, NBA Live, MVP Baseball, NHL, FIFA, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, NASCAR, Fight Night, Grand Slam Tennis, SSX and the list goes on and on and on. Since 1982 EA Sports has been pumping out the sports games like a well oiled machine. Every year there’s a new batch of titles and a new batch of features to make you want to pick them up.
Personally I don’t pick up an EA Sports title but maybe once every two to three years. Don’t see the point in it - why am I going to shell out $60 for basically an update on rosters, graphics boost and maybe a new bubblegum feature? I say bubblegum because, let’s face it, the novelty factor really wears off fast with most of them. For instance, the NHL 10 fighting system; the game was as good as always but the fighting (which was 90% of their marketing) didn’t make the game (or give it 9/10 in reviews). And honestly, if you just wait a year, sometimes even less, you can get the “last year’s version” for under $30! NHL09 was just $20 the week after NHL10 dropped!
But back to the point here, EA Sports has announced that yet another sports title is going to be added to its franchise. We got hockey, baseball, football, boxing, soccer, cricket, golf, racing, rugby, arena football, tennis, snowboarding, a personal trainer and even sports trivia (even an MMA game if UFC doesn’t sue all their fighters for being in the game*)! It really makes you wonder what they will jump on now. My guess would be the Olympics. With the Winter Olympics video game rendition spoken for by SEGA and a few years until the London 2012 Games, now would be the time to start talking about doing a game.
SEGA has really dropped the ball with the Olympic video games…kinda. Their kids versions featuring Sonic and Mario did okay, scoring 7/10 on both Wii and DS versions. But the big brother Games, both Summer and Winter, scored low 3/10s. Plus they had two years (being Turin 2006 was made by 2k) to develop a system for the Summer games and four years for the Winter. I have heard that the Olympic Committee that offers their likeness to video game developers is flakey but even if that’s the case who signs a contract without a game plan? (No pun intended)
I see EA taking something that first off looks like an EA Sports game, ‘cause face it, they’re on the ball (yes, pun intended) when it comes to graphics. And second, they offer them something that plays well too. SEGA was mocked for its use of “button mashing” and the new games were even compared to the old Track & Field game, just not in a good, nostalgic way. So EA can basically say “you can only go up with us” and I see that being the case. Plus, as much as you can mock EA Sports for “pumping out a game” every year, even I have to admit, for what it’s worth, every year the games do get better on some level, so when you have 4 years to make something up when your nomral time frame is just a few months it should be cool!
*EA Sports had announced a Mixed Marshal Arts game but it’s still in the air because The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s president Dana White had threatened to blacklist any fighter who signs on to appear in the game. The only exception was Randy Couture because of pre-existing contractual arrangements. This is all rooted from Dana White trying to sell his brand of MMA to different video game publishers. Apparently he approached EA Sports and they told him MMA isn’t “a real sport” and that after the huge success that THQ had with UFC 2009 Undisputed, EA just jumped on to make a quick buck. (Dana said it a little harsher saying “EA doesn’t give a ____ about Mixed Martial arts. They made that very clear.”)
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