Sports Video Games

[James Gryphon]

I've played a lot of hockey video games over the last 5+ years (it's what really got me informed about that sport). I've been looking at trying to learn some others, but with mixed results.

Specifically, NBA 2K (which, from my understanding, is considered the best basketball series you can get into). I looked at its list of controls (in 2K11)... and there is no way I'm ever going to be able to learn all those. I think you can fairly say a sports game is too complicated when it's harder to learn its controls than it is to actually go out and play that sport.

It strikes me as a little surprising how simple the hockey games to play in comparison. I guess it makes some sense, since basketball adds a three-dimensional element, jumping, in addition to moving and deking, but it doesn't seem like it should be that much deeper. I mean, it seems to me there's only so much nuance you can add to a move before it's basically all the same thing.

I'm not even touching football without starting with a simple game to give me a crash course on that sport. I might try another baseball game, though; I have MLB 2K9 now, but I've heard "The Show" is good. Soccer is (in some ways) similar to hockey, and I've heard FIFA is the gold standard, so I might look into that sometime as well.

Any of y'all have any experience with this?

[Ashleg]

I've played a few soccar games and they were fun, but not good enough to keep me coming back.