-
-
-
-
-
- CBB Front Page
- Scores
- Teams
-
Conferences
- Players
- Stats
- Standings
- Rankings
- Schedules
- Women's Hoops
-
-
-
-
- Soccer Front Page
-
Leagues
- MLS
- England
- Champions
UEFA Cup- English Champ
Germany- Italy
Spain- France
Netherlands- Scotland
Belgium- Mexico
Copa Lib- Copa Sud
Copa Oro- Copa America
World Cup- FIFA U-20
Who says you have to grow up? Here at SI.com's Game Room, our staffers review the latest sports video game titles to hit the market and welcome your feedback.11/17/2006 12:32:00 PM Hands On: PlayStation3
By Paul Ulane First there was the wheel. Then sliced bread. Now there's the Playstation3. Judging by the amount of hype the PS3 has generated in the weeks leading up to its release, you'd think the newest next-generation gaming system from Sony could do everything from play games and movies to rub your feet and make you dinner. (And judging by the machine's Foreman grill-like design, maybe that's coming next Christmas.) 
SONY
SONY11/17/2006 12:09:00 PM Where's the Lax Love?
By Spencer Wise
Why on God's green earth is there no lacrosse video game?
You won't find a lacrosse video, but you can play Hackey Sack.Photo by EA Sports
For years I've been trying to wrap my head around this. Take a look at some of the dubious titles that have wormed their way into the sports-sim pantheon over the years: pool, rugby, archery, track and field, bobsledding. But we need to look no further than Nintendo's 1987 California Games, which featured frisbee-throwing, hackey-sack, roller-skating, BMX -- everything short of devil-sticks and bong-hits. At this rate, I won't be surprised if lawn bocce has its day in the sun before my beloved lacrosse.
Can't we glean anything from Sports Illustrated's 2005 feature ("Get on the Stick," April 25), which declared lacrosse the fastest growing sport in America? The NFHS (high school) and NCAA reported that lacrosse grew 206 percent and 51.3 percent, respectively, in the past year. So it's popular, right?
Well, not according David Tinson, Senior P.R. Manager for EA Sports. "EA does not currently have a lacrosse game in the works," Tinson told me over the phone from his office in Vancouver, Canada. "There isn't a large enough market for it." He wouldn't let me talk to his marketing team but I told him it was hard to believe that Arena Football, Cricket, and Rugby -- all recent EA titles -- are setting the world on fire. "I suppose," Tinson responded, "it all depends on your definition of 'selling well.'"
In response to the "no market" argument, it's worth mentioning that ESPN does comprehensive coverage of both the men's and women's NCAA championships; OLN does a MLL game of the week. Last July, Canada won its first lacrosse title in 28-years, defeating the U.S. in the 2006 World Lacrosse Championships (www.2006worldlacrosse.com) on four goals by the venerable Gary Gait, a former Syracuse All-American.
Twenty-one countries participated in the tournament, which featured teams from lacrosse hot-beds like Latvia, Bermuda, and Hong Kong. And EA says there's no market! Lacrosse has arrived everywhere, it seems; everywhere except my poor little PS2.
For the uninitiated, lacrosse is a dynamite game -- sort of a hybrid of basketball and hockey -- replete with bone-breaking hits, 90-mph crank shots, fast-breaks, goals aplenty, and classic rivalries, played outdoors at break-neck speeds across a soccer pitch.
Developers who blanch at the thought of developing a lax sim need to realize, for better or worse, that lacrosse plays exactly like hockey with more scoring. There are already a glut of hockey video games that would require only minor tweaking -- make the shiny ice green, change the sticks, raise the goals, for example. Leave the one-timers and the fat-guy cherry-picking in the crease, and leave the quick-pace, power-plays, and savage checks.
Assuming that hockey sims aren't exactly raking in the dough (Tinson, however, claims Hockey is a Top-25 game. "It's huge in Canada!" he says.), what's the real risk of developing a lacrosse game? Think of lacrosse as a speculator's dream, California during the Gold Rush.
Meanwhile, hockey isn't growing. The players become less recognizable and the tickets easier to come by. It's fair to say that a sport that reached its zenith, console-wise, with Blades Of Steel, isn't exactly the fertile crescent of video games.
The first lacrosse game is coming; it's only a matter of time. Frankly, I can't believe I've had to wait this long. Lacrosse is just too great a sport to be ignored forever by the consoles. Sure, it will never be one of the Big Four (which is really three) and it won't pretend to be. The major obstacle preventing a game from getting off the ground is the lack of recognizable players. Even without the surnames, everybody knows that the No. 5 tailback for USC in NCAA 06 is Reggie Bush. A precious few can actually name a star lacrosse player. A major obstacle, yes, but people won't care who the starting left midfielder for Johns Hopkins is. The success of a lacrosse game rests on outstanding rivalries and taking advantage of lacrosse's BCS-like top-25 rankings.
How fun would it be to take a small program, develop them over the course of a season, and topple the heavyweights come tournament-time, like UMass did last year against Maryland? Build your own player. Give him bad facial hair and bright red cleats, run a top-flight college program, scout high school talent, play the all-star game. Or take those feisty Latvians to the finals of the World Championship.
It's all there; lacrosse is the perfect amalgamation of basketball, football, and hockey. By combining the best elements of extant sports video games, you could easily wind up with a quality game. I'll give it another year of waiting patiently; then I'm marching over to Tinson's office at EA Sports and demanding justice.11/13/2006 11:20:00 AM Review: FIFA 07
Posted by Lang Whitaker
We're not going to kid anyone here: Soccer in America still has a long way to go. The MLS Cup was played Sunday, and while it was shown on national TV and, egads!, even rated a highlight package on SportsCenter, I'm pretty sure 9 out of 10 people -- maybe even 9.9 out of 10 -- couldn't tell you who won the match (that would be Houston), or even name one player on Houston.
MLS is growing, and soccer in the States is burgeoning, but something needs to push it along and over the edge into the mass consciousness. Some people believed Freddy Adu would be that "thing," a marketing shove in the right direction. Three seasons after his MLS debut, Adu hasn't been the long-term answer.
Electronic Arts
This brings us to EA's new FIFA 07 for the Xbox 360, which probably won't cause a run on MLS stock anytime soon. But if you enjoy The Beautiful Game, this game is beautiful. Well, in some ways. Its beauty lies almost completely in the look of it: shadows dance dramatically across fields, rain splashes down and pools up, players clatter into one another and stumble backwards. Visually, the game is Pamela Anderson.
Intellectually, unfortunately, it's closer to CJ Parker; While the game looks terrific, it doesn't always make a lot of sense. For some reason, players who are off the ball mostly stand around like statues, watching the action as if they'd bought a ticket. Kick a slow pass to a player, and he stands there waiting for the ball to arrive, even if the ball nearly rolls to a stop a few feet in front of him. And don't get me started about the runs some of my midfielders were making. I'm not sure why the game's AI isn't up to par, but it isn't and there's no way around this.
But after playing it for a while, you learn how to accept what the game can and can't do. If you're able to adjust, it's still a fun game to play. For instance, in older versions of FIFA, one of the best ways to score was by working the ball down a sideline and then curling in a centering kick to set up a header, much like in real soccer. In FIFA 07, this almost never works. Instead, for some reason, your best bet seems to be making a series of short passes directly up the center of the field and then passing it to a forward, even one who's marked closely by a defender, who can then generally spin and shoot before the defense can close on him. In general, there seems to be less offense in FIFA 07 than in any other version of the game. And in some ways, I guess that's a good thing, as in many real soccer games, a team may have only five or six genuine scoring chances over the course of a game.
EA has made a big deal out of the new ball physics in the game, saying they've completely reworked the way the ball bounces. Honestly, I couldn't tell a huge difference, other than it seemed that I couldn't make any long lead passes to my guys, particularly through the air.
The best part of FIFA 07 is the manager mode, which has always been a strong point of FIFA. Like in other years, you pick a franchise and then go about acquiring players, cutting players, loaning guys out and negotiating deals with talented young players from other leagues. The trick is to find a sponsor that pays you a high enough weekly sum that you can turn a small profit each week, allowing you to accumulate cash and invest in your coaching staff and your stadium. You also receive e-mails through the season, asking you to attend to various issues (from disgruntled fans to a team bus that's fallen into disrepair). These might seem rote, and many of the questions are recycled from previous games, but I love this aspect of the game, pretending that I'm getting to put my stamp on a club.
The online aspect worked great when I gave it a shot, and the action was flawless. There's also a game mode where you and a friend can go online and take on other groups of two, although if you're sitting on your couch playing games with a buddy, I'm not sure why you wouldn't just play against each other.
Ratings System (1 to 10) Game Play: 7 The decision you have to face is whether or not you're able to sublimate your view of what soccer should be and subscribe to the way FIFA 07 presents the game. If you can, you'll probably like the game just fine. Otherwise -- maybe not. Graphics: 9 The high point of the game. Once the AI catches up to the graphics, this will be a game to reckon with. Replayability: 8 I found the manager mode addictive, even if there are about 300 fewer teams on the 360 version than on the PS2 and regular Xbox versions. There's also a vast series of challenges that can be fun to try and beat. Recent PostsArchives
Copyright © 2008 Time Inc.A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved.Terms under which this service is provided to you.Read our privacy guidelines.
