When I started the Retrospective Overdrive program, it was to break up tedium and see how things have changed. I wanted to go a good period of time without just doing what I’ve done the past few years — nothing but playing Pro Evo Soccer.

But, why? It’s just a game; hell, it’s just a sports game, and I’m sure many who read the site look down on us who kick and throw balls virtually as if we’re some sort of cro-magnon anomaly, cavemen who have miraculously found fire and Xbox Live. It keeps coming back to style, though, for me. Very few other games have allowed me to express creativity as well as Konami’s Pro Evo/Winning Eleven series and, in particular, Pro Evo Soccer 2010.

Freshman year of college I picked up a PlayStation 2 after seeing how white-hot Gran Turismo 4 looked. Of course, I’d also heard about how good Konami’s soccer games were and since that wasn’t great on the Xbox, I bought it. I wasn’t a newcomer to soccer games — strong addictions to FIFA 2004 and 2005 prove otherwise — but Winning Eleven 8 was a good replacement, if a bit ugly at times.

This is where the addiction started in earnest: Winning Eleven 9 ('05-'06 season).

Winning Eleven 9, though, damn near killed me. I had to put my PS2 in the closet during finals because of that nonsense. And a couple years later, well after its sell-by date, WE9 kept me company when my first Xbox 360 succumbed to the inevitable, shuffled off this mortal coil and was sent to Texas to get fixed. WE9 doesn’t have a time-played tracker but I’d guess I put at least 150 hours into that damn thing, probably more. A few up-and-down years later, PES 2010 promised to be good, and FIFA was underwhelming, so the decision was simple. I’ve since put over 200 hours into PES 2010 in 15 months.

This again begs the question, “Why?”

The ball is round, the game is simple, but provides a clean canvas for you to express yourself — so long as you don’t use your hands. What both WE9 and PES 2010 allowed me to do is play a sport with the sort of creativity you see in real life but that is not found in any other sports video games. Basketball and soccer are a bit unique in that creativity, freedom and expression are viable offensive strategies. Football is all about execution, baseball is just one gigantic fucking spreadsheet by now, and hockey is too chaotic and compact with few moments of zen. But basketball and soccer both can be moments of sports art — and its particularly effective in the latter. Soccer inspires effusiveness and poetry, as seen both in the brilliant blog The Run of Play and even in match recaps. American sports are often quantitative, discussing who did how much of what; soccer is entirely qualitative.

Until I became a PES junkie, what I didn’t realize is that FIFA lacked that spark. Playing FIFA is like playing foosball, there’s one good route to take and you can spin the handles around to good effect. PES is more like chess. Attacking and creating a goal in PES is a multiple-choice question with no wrong answer, so long as the ball goes in the back of the net; the “right” way may vary by situation, but it’s in your hands. Want to fire in crosses from the wing? Go ahead. Want to have intricate passing through the middle, leading to a shot? Have at it. Fast or slow, wide or narrow, the choice is yours. The biggest cliche in sports gaming is that “it looks like the real thing,” and while FIFA may look like it in still screenshots, it’s a different story in motion.

This is all the biggest factor behind why I keep playing the game: most every match feels like a new challenge, and when you’re playing other teams that are good, you really have to account for the opponent’s strengths and weaknesses to capitalize on your own. For me, it’s methodical yet utterly addictive. I think I have about 20 goal highlights from PES 2010 saved, and no two are alike. It’s the journey, not the destination, that matters.

Add in other sports game and video game tropes, like players waxing and waning in skills as the years go on and new stars rising, and the variables multiply. As those factors change, so too does your lineup; as somebody who follows soccer I can attest that, in this way, art imitates life. Now that I’ve put so much time into this series of games, I’m not worried about the physics or controls; I understand those implicitly. When I play sports with my friends, I learn what they like to do and where they like to go; in the same way that playing sports with friends presents certain stable factors, playing PES for me is comfort and freedom within a ruleset. I know how the ball bounces, but it’s up to me to capitalize.

In that way, PES is like playing sports in real life — rewarding practice, persistence, and presenting subtle twists with every game.

Americans love football. ESPN finds new and creative ways to talk about the NFL every single offseason, and EA Sports’ long-running Madden NFL series is routinely one of the best-selling games of the year. EA Tiburon, the long-time developer of Madden, has been able to make the series more and more realistic through the last and current console generations, to the point where understanding the Madden games helps you understand football better.

The problem there, though, is the learning curve involved with football strategy. Unlike basketball, soccer, or hockey, there’s more to a football game than just learning how to control a player. Football is more like a game of chess — to succeed against the AI or a real player, you need to understand how offenses and defenses are run, and what plays to call at what times and how to execute them. As a website like Smart Football proves, there is plenty of depth and strategy to football play-calling.

This is why, in my Beginner’s Guide to Sports Games in June 2009, I suggested avoiding NFL or college football games as your first experience. Even as a diehard football fan, I was struggling three and four years ago to become better at the NCAA Football series of games because I hadn’t learned enough about the sport. Thankfully, the new GameFlow system in Madden 11 helps to rectify that problem.

EA Sports’ football games have had “suggest-a-play” options for a long time — offered up as Ask Madden in the Madden series and Ask Corso in the NCAA Football games. However, GameFlow takes this a few steps further by essentially offering the player an AI offensive and defensive coordinator to help manage the game for them — just as a quarterback would have in a real football game.

Pre-snap, GameFlow provides what to look for from the play.

As the first image of the article shows, after every play you can choose GameFlow or to go into the full playbook (which provides the traditional play-calling options). If you choose GameFlow, the above image shows what you will see and hear from the offensive coordinator. The play’s design is overlaid on the field, the receiver the play is designed for is shown in red, and the coordinator provides a quick explanation for what to look for. Suddenly, calling plays goes from reading and deciphering a foreign language to following instructions and using terms that even casual football fans understand; more people know and understand having the quarterback in the shotgun, but fewer people know mesh plays, drive routes, or stick routes. The same is true on defense: select GameFlow, receive instructions, look at the play art, and follow your orders. In Madden and NCAA Football 11, you’re now given the option to hold down one button (A on 360, X on PS3) to have your player perform the route or coverage they were assigned in the play, which is great for learning where to go on defense.

The intermediary step between relying on GameFlow and calling your own plays is customizing your own GameFlow playbook, tailored to your preferences.

It’s also possible for beginners to move up from learning the basics and relying on GameFlow entirely to adjusting calls. With GameFlow on, you can still choose to go into the full playbook — an option I would use when I know, in a certain situation, exactly the play I want to call. Outside of the gridiron in the options menus for Madden 11 is the ability to manage your offensive and defensive GameFlow gameplans. The secret to GameFlow is it’s broken down the game of football into numerous scenarios — 1st and 10, 3rd and long, passing on the goal line, etc. Again, casual football fans understand this terminology and these situations. In GameFlow, there are 10-15 plays per scenario, and how often they’re used is weighted; moreover, this is all customizable in the game. Players can tweak how often plays come up, add new ones that they know would work in certain scenarios, and remove plays that just aren’t working. For beginners who’ve learned on GameFlow and veterans alike, this is a powerful tool.

With a little help from GameFlow, you too can run like Chris Johnson.

Soccer and basketball may be games of individual brilliance and skill, but football is all about execution. Teams in the NFL are stacked with amazing athletes; it’s the teams that execute the plays well that win. Learning what plays to call and how to execute them has been the biggest barrier to new players in the Madden and NCAA Football series for years, but GameFlow helps rectify that. Moreover, because you’re not spending 20-30 seconds calling plays, it helps cut game lengths — EA Sports claims games can be done in half the time now.

I’ve been playing football games since the Genesis, and only recently started to learn how to play these games well — and the difference has been in play-calling. However, if I’m playing against the AI on a single-player career, I don’t always want to invest my time in calling every play. Even just playing the Madden demo, I can tell GameFlow is something I would use a lot of the time — especially on defense, because I hate having to mix up my defenses. This is a great way to make football games accessible to more people who want to play them and, incredibly, a great way to learn about football.

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss

The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Right before tearing the shrink wrap off NCAA Football 10, I had a thought: “Why do I do this every year?” This is the third year in a row I’ve bought EA Sports’ NCAA Football game, and on previous console generations I purchased multiple copies as well. The problem is I’m getting strict visions of déjà vu. It is, clearly, an annual thing for me — all within the same repetitive cycle of pre-release excitement, post-release honeymoon, and over-analysis of missing features that need to be in next year’s version. Rinse, wash, repeat.

So let’s take a look at how NCAA 10 fits into this cycle — because, despite tweaks and improvements that fans have clamored for, there are a few minor steps backwards and features that have been given little more than a fresh coat of paint.

The tackling technology in NCAA 10 has been rebuilt, allowing strong runners (like Florida's esteemed starting quarterback) to drag defenders for extra yardage, or even break free.

To preface: I’ve played far too much NCAA 09, sinking probably 120 hours into last year’s edition. With college football season rapidly approaching (just over two weeks now!) I’ve picked NCAA 09 up again and poured more hours into a couple of offline, single-player dynasties. I get killed by a few of my friends but they’re also insanely good at football games.

That said, the basic on-the-field impressions after play of NCAA 10 are very, very positive compared to its predecessor. The graphics and on-field presentation have improved, and the speed of play in the game is slowed down and feels much better balanced. Speed has been nerfed a lot — it still pays to have super-fast wide receivers for deep home-run passes, but breakaway speed is handled much more realistically. Wide receivers find passes more realistically, and good quarterbacks can thread the ball through the eye of a needle just like in real life. It’s subtle compared to NCAA 08 and 09, but important.

The running game has been improved to feel a lot more hard-hitting — powerful running backs who run over defenders can be just as successful as quick quarkbacks who avoid defenders altogether. That goes for powerful quarterbacks, too — Tim Tebow feels like a killdozer, but even lesser QBs can successfully pull off designed QB keeper runs. It’s now possible for power runners to really push a defender away with a stiff-arm, truck right through a cornerback, or shrug through contact at the line, and it’s all the more satisfying for it.

Defense is a bit looser than last year — I’ve been whiffing open-field tackles left and right. New for this year is the capability pre-snap to guess what type of play the offense is going to call, and sell-out for that — so if you think they’re running up the middle, defenders will crash in on the line of scrimmage. It’s a cool risk/reward setup, but DEFINITELY can burn you if you’re not careful. Actually playing a game of football with NCAA 10 feels much, much better than NCAA 09 — in that way, it does what a yearly franchise update should.

New risk-reward defensive play guessing adjustments allowed skilled players to gamble pre-play. Guess right and you'll stop the offense dead in its tracks; guess wrong…and you'll be hearing the band play.

A quick moment on the graphics: NCAA 09 animated well and had good textures, but Madden 09 was clearly a step ahead. Now, though, it looks like NCAA 10 is sporting that technology — the uniforms are insanely detailed, players look great, and the animation has been improved. The only creepy thing is all the player faces in the recruiting and roster screens — it works better in a game where the art team puts effort into making the players’ faces look realistic, but is just weird in NCAA 10.

Unfortunately, off the field, NCAA 10 feels like it has just a fresh coat of paint as opposed to major revolutionary changes. Okay, so there is one huge addition: The ability to create your own team has been added in (for the first time in HD-generation NCAA games), and is now available through EA Sports’ easportsworld.com Web site. This is an anticipated return because the creation tool is incredibly powerful, and being able to play with it through a Web browser instead of clunky console menus is welcomed.

However, everything from the single-player Dynasty mode to the Road to Glory RPG-style experience feels identical. The menus have changed (and Road to Glory gets a new dorm room-style interface and some more ESPN college football talent to flesh out the mode — namely sideline reporter Erin Andrews), but almost nothing beneath that has — or, at least, it doesn’t feel like anything has changed.

There are so many opportunities to improve on the game. Road to Glory could be much more of an RPG and have a true storyline to it, as opposed to staying stagnant. Season Showdown could be a cool addition…if it weren’t for the fact that most players taking advantage of it are using the best team in the game, the Florida Gators.

A minor but useful addition is the ability to choose helmets, jerseys, and pants independently before each game. It's definitely useful for Oregon Duck fans.

Most importantly — and related to what I wrote about in the Beginner’s Guide to Sports Games a month or so ago — they could have added in a tutorial to teach newcomers and interested parties both how to play the game and how to watch the sport. Even somebody like me, who has watched football as long as I can remember, has struggled at playing football video games not because it’s hard to run the ball or pass it, but because it’s incredibly hard to decide what plays to call when — especially against a human opponent. Tutorials to instruct about basic and advanced offensive and defensive schemes, strategies and techniques would both teach players not just the difference between a Cover 1 and a Zone Blitz defensive play, but also how to make use of the convoluted control schemes football games are known for. Teaching piece by piece would allow new players to eventually put it all together in the form of playing a full game on offense and defense, and then go from there.

Imagine: if the game could teach players new and old to the degree where they could decide “you know, I’m tired of this West Coast offense, I’ll switch to an Air Raid playbook on offense, and try out the 3-4 on defense this game,” and it all makes sense….the game will be worth the platitudes it currently receives.

This sense of sameness I’m getting from NCAA 10 must be what it feels like to be a Japanese RPG fan. Japanese RPGs fall into very set formats as a matter of course — the gamers want very specific things from those games, and get frustrated with deviations. Combat systems are all very familiar, the narrative structure is very familiar, the mixing of story-driven areas and finding places to grind is very, very familiar. Sports gamers crave that amount of familiarity from year-to-year, too — there were revolts when EA Sports tried to change up how you passed the ball in Madden a couple of years ago.

Instead of just relying on a receiver with a speed rating of 95 or higher (out of 100), the deep pass in NCAA 10 requires strategy — making it a satisfying prospect.

Yet here I am, eagerly anticipating free time to tear through the game some more. Despite that feeling of same-ness, it’s still incredibly fun. Is it the buzz of months of build-up to the new product, combined with “new car smell” from working the fanbase (including my friends) into a lather? Is it that the new features are enough to satiate my want and need for the year, $60 price tag be damned? Are EA Sports the bad guys for not adding more, or are sports gamers (kind of like JRPG fans) not too hard to please — more of the usual, please and thank you.

What it comes down to is more of the same…but in a good way. Yes, there is new material here for experienced armchair quarterbacks, but nothing revolutionary off the field of play. This is easily the best of the current-gen NCAA Football games, but that applied to NCAA 09 this time last year. Some issues were addressed in NCAA 10, but still more remain. It may not be a case of “two steps forward, one step back,” but more “two steps forward when three were needed.”

That said, I tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution, pick up my controller and play…just like yesterday. Then I pray I don’t get fooled again next year.

NCAA 10 is available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable. The reviewer played games in Dynasty, Road to Glory, and Quick Play modes, as well as online games both ranked and unranked, with a variety of teams.

Recommended for:

• Diehard football game fans, who will find plenty of positive tweaks in this year’s edition.
• Motivated newcomers to the NCAA 10 series — this year’s version is appreciably better than NCAA 09 for non-fans.

Not Recommended for:

• Non-football fans who aren’t terribly interested — unlike games like FIFA 09 or NHL 09, this isn’t friendly enough to make non-believers into fans of either the series or the sport.
• Football fans expecting more than a fresh coat of paint for the Dynasty or Road to Glory modes, or any other true feature innovations for the series.

The Penny Arcade Expo, the show by and for hardcore gamers, loves games of all kinds…except sports games. The "hardcore" seem to shy away from licensed sports sims, but should they reconsider? Photo by Doug Bonham

Sports games: They come out yearly, they’re some of the top selling video games on a yearly basis (the Madden NFL and FIFA soccer series each sold more than five million copies worldwide last year), yet they’re almost entirely shunned by most “hardcore” gamers. As somebody who has gone to the Penny Arcade Expo three times, I can tell you with certainty that you’re far more likely to find an obscure Japanese fighting game or pen-and-paper RPG than a copy of Madden.

Which is a bit of a shame, because from a pure gaming experience standpoint, non-sports gamers may well stand to gain a bit from trying out one of the many sports games out on the market today. Besides being one of the last bastions of single-console multiplayer out there, sports games – much like fighting games – allow for creativity in how you manage to play a game. While the great stereotype is that nerds and jocks don’t get along, truthfully it doesn’t matter when it comes to playing games — you don’t need to be athletically gifted behind the joystick.

Rooted in desires shown by my Silicon Sasquatch comrades to give these games a try, here’s an introductory guide to unlocking the joy to be found playing sports games.

1. If you have a favorite sport/team/athlete, feel free to pick that game up.

If you’re not much of a sports fan but happen to randomly LOVE, say, baseball, then feel free to give that a shot. Same goes for most any sports out there right now — however, in all honesty, there’s one exclusion to make…

EA Sports' Madden series is awesome, but NOT a suggested starting point for rookie sports gamers with Xbox 360s or PS3s.

2. For the love of all that’s holy, don’t start out with an American football game.

When it comes to either EA Sports’ Madden NFL or NCAA Football games, unless you’re opting for a Nintendo Wii version, do NOT start out with one of these games. Not only do football games require you to play the game, but the tactics-heavy nature of football requires you to know what plays to call on both offense and defense.

In layman’s terms, it’d be like taking somebody interested in getting started with RTS games and throwing them onto a Starcraft server full of hungry South Koreans, or taking a fighting game newbie to a top Virtua Fighter arcade in Tokyo. Football is a complex sport, and football video games have incredibly complex control schemes — simply, they provide an incredibly tough learning curve to climb. Believe me, a good game of Madden is as satisfying as a tough game of chess, but it’s not for the faint of heart. The Nintendo Wii versions of NCAA Football and Madden both offer an easier play style, but if you don’t have a Wii, you’re out of luck.

FIFA 09 and NHL 09 by EA Sports have great Be A Pro modes that are engaging and allow you to do crazy things like this (yes, that's very hard to do in real life soccer, believe me).

3. Starting out with soccer or hockey is the best idea.

Don’t know much about sports? That’s perfectly fine; most people in the U.S. don’t know a ton about either soccer or hockey either. However, luckily for you, EA Sports’ NHL 09 and FIFA 09 are two of the finest games of 2008, period, never mind within the sports genre alone.

Much of the recommendation comes because both games have incredibly good, easy to pick up control schemes. The EA Sports NHL series reinvented itself for its 08 iteration based around a new set of simple controls, and the 09 version even includes simple three-button controls that hearken back to the classic 16-bit NHL games. FIFA underwent a similar re-invigoration in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 generation, with 09 packing lots of features in with a game that can be picked up and learned very quickly.

Plus, most importantly, both games are fast and easy to learn. Hockey might have some penalties to learn and soccer may be a bit foreign, but both are fast and active sports that keep you engaged. You don’t have to learn a playbook like with football, or grapple with the tougher control schemes that basketball games can have, or memorize the intricacies of baseball. Just knocking the ball or puck around and playing a fluid game — it’s a great way to learn.

4. Don’t be afraid to play on easy mode.

Seriously — if you’re new to sports games, learning the sport and the controls at the same time can be overwhelming. Feel free to knock it down and take it a bit easy when you’re learning the game. If you were to, say, start a franchise mode in a game, you can always turn the difficulty up as you go without re-starting — unlike some story-driven games (and the hunt for their achievements or trophies), there’s no penalty in increasing the difficulty as you go.

5. Don’t play online with pubbies!

It’s a terrible way to learn how to play the game. Much like with other video game genres, public sports game servers have done that one thing the Internet is great at: destruction. People often play sports games with only the best teams and have found the most game-y ways to play the game imaginable. The recently-released Tiger Woods 10 has good players currently sandbagging to dominate more newbie-centric online tournaments; I also found out about a bug people are using in FIFA 09 to create godly teams in quickplay modes.

If you are a forum member or otherwise have a group of friends to play these games online with, though, by all means go ahead. One of my favorite gaming experiences was playing online leagues in NCAA Football 09, and that was organized through an Internet forum. But avoid public games, unless you want the sports game equivalent of a Zerg rush.

When this happens to you in an NCAA 09 online dynasty, do you: A. Swear loudly? B. Mute the mic and swear quietly? C. Hurl the controller to the wall? or D. All of the above?

6. Do play with friends in person.

That old gaming standby of sitting down on a couch and burning hours playing a video game is now as archaic a notion as 8-bit systems, or Sega being a console manufacturer. Most every game has an online play mode, and very few games are geared towards a local multiplayer experience anymore. Hell, some games have multiplayer as online only.

However, this is where sports games shine. Much like fighting games, the trash talking, competitive nature of playing a sport against a friend just works so much better when you’re in person with your opponent. Even with beginners or new players, the in-person experience is great. Also, it provides a great drinking game!

So that’s where it’s at. Sports games aren’t just for jocks looking to recreate their favorite sports fantasies — give some Xbox Live or PlayStation Network demos a try, and take a dive into the world of sports.

With E3 2009 just around the corner, it seems like an appropriate time to outline the known games we’re excited to see released over the rest of the year. Though our staff hasn’t had access to these games in a professional, hands-on manner, our comments are based on scouring sources for factual elements with pieces of speculation and analysis tossed in. Enjoy.

The Sasquatch Trinity: The three most wickedly awesomest games to watch this year

Brutal Legend: [Double Fine Productions, Electronic Arts, Q3 2009]

Another Tim Schafer game, another memorable experience.

Double Fine’s latest has EA’s publishing power to hopefully encourage sales success instead of repeating Psychonauts’ commercial stagnation under Majesco. The ridiculous concept of the world’s greatest roadie, Eddie Riggs (brought to life by Jack Black), being transported to a heavy metal fantasy land by his belt buckle works because Schafer and his team have created a world that thrives on that very ridiculousness. But this metal homage wouldn’t work without legitimacy: Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead and Rob Halford from Judas Priest are playing major roles in both the game’s creative development and in voicing major characters. However, the undisclosed soundtrack is keeping legions of metalheads with perfect set lists swirling around their cerebrums waiting with bated breath. Will Double Fine’s licensing pull through?

While the gameplay at this stage sounds typical (think third-person portions similar to 3D Zelda titles, Crackdown and GTA), the polish visible in screenshots and trailers is already cranking this game up to “11″ in the wit department. Brütal Legend also expands on Psychonauts’ third-person action-adventure formula with a reported 64 square-kilometer open world littered with metal album cover imagery and over-the-top characters.

Most of all, it looks fun.

Assassin’s Creed 2: [Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft, Q4 2009]

We here at the Silicon Sasquatch enjoyed the first Assassin’s Creed. It was a slow-burn title that offered more than the nagging comments of the Internet claimed it did thanks to its wonderful setting and interesting, if not average, plot. In fact, in the coming weeks we’ll post a Retrospective of the title with our team’s compiled commentary.

Generally, the investigation portions suffered the most flak from various reviews and message boards. Which brings us to Assassin’s Creed 2, the recently revealed , Renaissance-era sequel. Desmond’s next assassin ancestor probed by the Animus is one Ezio Auditore de Firenze, an (obviously) Italian nobleman. Details from the next Game Informer posted on a since-removed Ubisoft forum page mention that AC2 will do away with the more disliked investigation options (pickpocketing and eavesdropping) while adding variety to the mission mix. Taking place in Europe will be a great change of pace as well, though it’s worrisome to hear of “flying machine” elements and an apparent emphasis on more action–two hidden blades are, apparently, better than one.

Let’s just hope Desmond does something proactive this time around. Maybe this?

The Beatles: Rock Band: [Harmonix, Electronic Arts/MTV Games, see above]

It’s The Beatles. It’s Rock Band. Despite the currently scant details, we can definitively say this will be the game for music fans. Still, many questions need to be answered before the game’s September release. Will the graphical style be more realistic? Do players only take on the personas of the world’s most acclaimed band? If true, does that mean no one will pass up the bass anymore? E3 is only a couple of months away.

The title, which has been worked on by the music game masters at Harmonix for over a year, benefits from the creative input of the two living Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Even Yoko Ono and George Harrison’s family are lending their support to make the game as authentic as possible. Considering this experience focuses on celebrating the entire career of The Beatles and isn’t a one-shot Guitar Hero: Insert Band title, The Beatles: Rock Band can’t affort to slack off in the “feel” department at all.

In addition, George Harrison’s son, Dhani Harrison, has confirmed that unreleased Beatles audio content will make it into the game, almost making this Rock Band offshoot another Beatles Anthology project. This ties into the announcement that 14 of The Beatles’ albums, completely remastered in stereo and with other goodies, are dropping the same date as The Beatles: Rock Band. Will these new master tracks make it into the game? Without a doubt.

Fun fact: Two of our writers are confessed rhythm game fanatics and Rock Band addicts, while the other just wants to play “Revolution” on his plastic guitar.

Individual Picks

Aaron Thayer:

Champions Online: [Cryptic Studios, Atari, Q3 2009]
Based on details alone, Champions Online could be the redemption of the superhero MMO concept. Cryptic’s team seems to have learned from their mistakes in City of Heroes by providing character itemization (costume pieces = loot!), more robust hero and villain customization and realtime, cooldown-free fighting.

Mafia II: [2K Czech, Take-Two Interactive, Q4 2009]
The first Mafia in 2002 was the original open-world attempt at a realistic setting long before Niko Bellic came around. Mafia II changes the time period to the classic mobster era of the 1940s and 50s, but looks to keep the in-depth plot and cast while giving players a plethora of gameplay additions like faster cars with working trunks to store bodies and boomsticks. Nice.

Nick Cummings:

Modern Warfare 2: [Infinity Ward, Activision, Fall 2009]

It might be a bit audacious to put this at the top of my list. There hasn’t been any concrete information released about the game, unless poring over cryptic trailers is your thing, but as the company’s last game was the genre-revitalizing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, I’m expecting nothing but brilliance. Infinity Ward is going to great lengths to make this the definitive sequel fans have been waiting for (although Call of Duty: World at War was nothing to scoff at) by asking fans to submit suggestions for MW2 via a special Twitter site and hash tag.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: [Naughty Dog, Sony Computer Entertainment, Fall 2009]

I bought a PlayStation 3 for Metal Gear Solid 4, but I didn’t fall in love with the platform until I played Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I’d had reservations after playing a pre-release demo at the Penny Arcade Expo in 2007 — the controls felt too loose, the environments too constricting — but just a few minutes with the retail release quelled all my fears. Uncharted was a beautiful, rich game of high adventure and sarcasm with just a dash of cheesiness. It was everything the new Indiana Jones film should have been, and the sequel, Among Thieves, aims to improve upon its predecessor in just about every way. It’s a tall order, but Naughty Dog is dead-set on delivering.

Doug Bonham:

Every EA Sports Title Released This Year: [EA Sports, Electronic Arts, various releases]
Being a sports game fan, there’s always a new season’s worth of games to look forward to each year. This is of course true for the lineup from sports-gaming juggernaut EA Sports. Titles worth looking forward to include Tiger Woods 10 in June, NCAA Football 10 in July, and NHL 10 and FIFA 10 in the fall. Of course, seeing how Madden 10 turns out when that launches in August is a necessity as well.

The Bigs 2: [Blue Castle Games, 2K Sports, July 2009]
Of particular note for sports games this year is 2K Sports’ The Bigs 2. The first one two years ago was a great piece of arcade sports gaming, right in the same genre as NBA Street as part of the second wave of arcade-style sports games. The sequel promises to pitch up more wicked yakkers when it launches in June, and is probably an Xbox 360 gamer’s best bet for baseball this year.

The Most Worrisome Games of 2009: Not all games are made equal.

Dragon Age: Origins: [BioWare, Electronic Arts, Late 2009]

BioWare’s announcement of Dragon Age: Origins heralded a return to its roots of high-fantasy roleplaying games like Baldur’s Gate. It’s cause for celebration for any hardcore RPG fan…on paper, at least. Sticking to strict old-school mechanics, like playing a mute protagonist, gives the impression that BioWare is developing a game around the rigid Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset without even possessing the license anymore. After 2007′s stellar Mass Effect became a critical and commercial hit, it’s a little worrisome that BioWare seems to be throwing that game’s innovations out the window.

BioShock 2: [2K Marin, 2k Games, Late 2009]

One man does not a classic make, but there’s no dismissing the invaluable role Ken Levine played in the development of cult horror classic System Shock 2 and its spiritual successor, BioShock. His lack of involvement in BioShock 2 is a little disconcerting, but even more troubling is how uninspired the sequel looks in comparison to the stunning impression the first game had on all who played it. A return to Rapture isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but when the interface, enemies, Plasmids and weapons look nearly identical to the first game, why even bother making a sequel?

Hey, it’s Peter Moore! He’s that guy who did the thing at the place and now it’s kind of a gaming humor mainstay. But I’m not here to talk about Rock Band, which I’ll do for hours on end if I’m not careful; I’m here to talk about what Peter would want me to discuss: sports games.

I always hated sports games growing up for the same reasons I hated playing sports: I was painfully unaware of my surroundings and, put bluntly, I totally sucked. Despite my parents’ best efforts to instill virtues of hard work, fellowship and teamwork through various sports in my youth, I quickly realized I couldn’t kick a soccer ball without tripping over myself. I whiffed more swings than anyone else on my baseball team in second grade — even when you count the practice swings on a tee. But as I’ve grown older and arguably wiser, I’ve learned to appreciate the intricate strategy and thrill of action in a lot of popular sports. However, that doesn’t change the fact that games like Madden just aren’t made for me. Without an innate knowledge of football strategy, discerning one type of rushing play from another is like asking a chimpanzee to transcribe Mozart by ear. If you’re lucky, the specimen might pick up on a few appealing shapes and try to recreate them, but more often than not you’re basically taking a shot in the dark.

Peter Moore understands what it’s like to be an inept, awkward mess like me. Maybe he wasn’t picked last for the football team, but he’s got to be painfully aware just how undesirable a bass player he’s become. So since he left Microsoft for Electronic Arts, publishers of sports games like Madden NFL, he’s sought to expand the market for sports games to include gamers like me — you know, the sort of person who remembers exactly how to breed a gold chocobo in Final Fantasy VII but can’t remember when the hell the next Super Bowl is going to take place.

Moore laid out his scheme across five pillars, detailed here at Gamasutra. Basically, he’s hoping that EA will be able to hold onto their core audience while reaching out to atypical sports game players who — like me — might be swayed by the right feature set, or an easier entry point. It’s a great approach, and I think it’s only going to help the games industry if such a major genre can expand its player base as significantly as Moore hopes to.

I want to like sports games, but I definitely need a little extra help here and there. And I can’t be the only one, either. Moore proved he could have used a little easier starting point before performing Rock Band on-stage with the game’s developers. Similarly, I’d love to get my feet wet in a variety of sports games as well. Just don’t toss me into the fray and shut the door behind me! The sooner sports games broaden their audience appeal and begin to cater to the casual and hardcore, the better.

But hey, Peter? Please promise me one thing.

Don’t release weekly song downloads for Madden, okay? I’m already perpetually broke thanks to Rock Band.