All-Pro Football 2K8 - Playstation 3 review

This is a big weekend in football, wouldn't you say? I already had my Madden review a few months back though, so I had to dig around for something else. I'm stretching here, but what the heck: All-Pro Football 2K8 was staring me down this week. I have played it before - even commented on it about nine months ago as part of my cheap sports game article. I touched on each game briefly, talked about their scores and moved on to the next. Now? I'm going to talk about this one real quick.

What is it? It's 2K Sports' answer to the Madden NFL license. No longer able to use the players actively participating in the NFL, 2K Sports set out to do something a bit different - the ultimate pickup game if you will. It was an inspired idea really: get some of the greats players of all time - like their cover stars: Barry Sanders, Jerry Rice and John Elway. Three of my all-time favorite players - including my absolute favorite in Barry Sanders. The game's emphasis is on offense, at least that's how I felt in playing it - so it's interesting that none of the three cover athletes were defenders. I was hanging up some pretty substantial point totals while playing. Some of the names are kind of odd - The Boz and Andre Ware? Really? Guess they had to designate someone for the bronze roles.

So, next up - what are the teams? Well, they don't have an NFL license so these are fictional teams and you 'draft' players. Barry was my first pick - shocking no? They group the players by Gold, Silver and Bronze ranking. I had a handful of Lions on my team - like Herman Moore (another old but favorite player of mine as I glance up at the autographed football card of his I have on my sports memorabilia shelf). So you get to fill so many positions with gold, silver and bronze players and it autofills the rest of your team for you.

The customization options are decent - you can pick cities, design uniforms, name your team, and so on. I think setting up a team is probably my favorite part of the game. It's a lot of fun putting together a team of legends. I loaded up on the defensive side of the ball one time, created a team of mostly Detroit Lions another and even set up a third team just to help me establish Barry Sanders as the greatest of all time, spending my top picks on linemen, a quality tight end and fullback. My offense was a tad bit predictable. Still, the actual play modes feel a bit lacking. Part of it is probably due to the fact that the game feels a great deal like it's spiritual predecessor - NFL 2K5. The season modes are okay, but lack the punch of Madden's more established franchise modes. That said, I think this game aged better than the older Madden entries - perhaps because it has not seen the updated versions that help improve upon the formula each year?

Graphics - 6:

I feel like I'm being a bit hard here. For when it was released, it was pretty solid. Compared to the pretty visuals of Madden last year or this year? It suffers. The engine is very similar to what NFL 2K5 ran, which is both good and bad. NFL 2K5 was a great game, but by now it's an old game too. Animations aren't too bad though - juking and tackling is fun. The crowd is nothing special, though - and the stadiums just felt sort of lifeless to me compared to their real counterparts found in Madden games. It's tough not to compare the two, even if they're not trying to be the same thing.

Sound and Music - 6:

The music was nothing special, but the sound wasn't too bad at all. One of the areas I sort of nitpick at sporting games is the commentary. Here's the thing, the commentary found in this game isn't that much worse than what you would find in this year's Madden. With all of the advancements made with video games in general and sports games in particular, this seems like perhaps one of the most outdated aspects in sports games. The sound effects from the game itself are pretty solid as well. Some of the hits look and sound appropriately violent.

Gameplay - 7:

This is a pretty solid element of the game Running is good - though I like it better in this year's Madden. Offense is easier than defense in my opinion. Gang tackling was a bit ahead of its time back three years ago. The menus are easy enough to navigate and the game of football itself is solid. Unfortunately the modes are a bit lackluster. It was more fun to play a game against another person than the computer. Something deeper and more involving than the season mode would have been nice as well.

Intangibles - 5:

There's not a lot of depth here. Even 2K5 had a franchise mode with progression. There's just not a lot to invest in here. The season mode feels a bit throwaway after going through it once. It seems unlikely you can even find someone to play this game with either. There are a lot of different players - 200+ I believe. That helps because setting up teams is fun, like I mentioned earlier. But the game feels more like a glorified version of fantasy football than the real deal, and that hurts the package quite a bit. The idea of a dream team is great - who doesn't want to see Elway throw to Rice? But once you've played for a bit, there's not much reason to pick it up again. Now, for the primary reason to pick it up in the first place - this game was $4 used at my Gamestop.

Overall - 6:

Obviously this game does not compare to people who want a Madden game with fully fleshed out franchise modes, with real rosters and NFL teams, but you can spend more on five candy bars, which actually makes it worthwhile to take a flyer on this game if you have any interest in it at all. I got it last summer, played it pretty heavily for a weekend and did not pick it up again until this week. I gave it a few more days, and doubt I will pick it up again for awhile. It's a decidedly average, dated game - but at $4 I got a couple of weekends' worth of play out of it, and really that's not such a bad deal I suppose.

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NBA 2K11 Review for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3

I’ve already detailed in length about my interest in sports games, with the Madden series being a long-standing favorite of mine. NBA games however, have always come in at something of a close second for me. It started with the old Tecmo Basketball, which to my knowledge was the first time an NBA game had full seasons, stat keeping and playoffs. Later there were NBA games by EA Sports that captured more unique aspects of the players and their likenesses, and eventually they introduced franchise modes complete with the kind of player progressions that really hooked me into most sports games. EA’s brand was the strongest for years, but then the 2k series started to show up strong around 2k5 (back when my Pistons were on top of the league), and the sales and reviews began to swing in favor of the 2K series. This year, EA was going to scrape its prior recipe for the NBA games and release a new series called “Elite” – that unfortunately got derailed for reasons of timeliness and – according to some sources – quality. So with NBA 2k11 the only contender in the space, did they put forth an All-Star effort or mail it in?

Graphics – 9:

The animations are generally very smooth. NBA games are some of the trickiest of any sport to model. In football or hockey, you tend to be a bit further from the action, so face and hair models don’t generally have to be as precise. They also tend to be covered with bulky gear. Baseball games still show less of the players’ physiques and the number of animations really are not as varied either. People have a tendency to play in space by themselves. This makes what the 2K series’ graphics so impressive –they have to account for facial models, physical accuracy (and things like tattoos), as well as varying playing styles and work it all into the context of a game where these already difficult to manager characters are jostling around and interacting with each other constantly. Sure, it’s not perfect, sometimes slightly canned animations do odd things like have you step out of bounds when you shouldn’t be, and some faces really give you pause.

The arenas look great overall. Crowds don’t do much, but they fill space and look convincing enough. Lighting, floors – all of it just feels very authentic. I also need to give a nod to the replay features. The Sprite Slam Cams, Gatorade Moment of the Game, and Jordan Brand Player of the Game replays all look very slick (I love the player of the game one, which shows various cuts of action from the game, played out against various filters. Rodney’s Stuckey’s whirlwind layup in my last game looked amazing).

Sound and Music – 9:

There is a very good mix of songs that make up the music in this game. In what my wife and her friend once called the greatest invention in a sports game, years ago many games started adding actual songs to the tracklists (apparently my buddy’s wife and mine got tired of the same old music playing over and over and over for hours on end when we were tweaking our Madden or hoops rosters. Who knew?) Hearing The Alan Parsons Project's "Sirius" play when you first fire up the game and take control of Jordan as he enters the court was an amazing video game moment.

The announcing is quite good as well. Of course these games do tend to get a bit redundant. I wish they could work in more variety, and while the contexts are usually quite good, I could only stand to hear the same thing said about my team so many times. If you play as the Wizards, you’ll hear about John Wall a lot – which makes sense, but they have 2 or 3 canned dialogs about him, and odds are, you will hear them each and every game of his rookie season. I haven’t gotten through enough seasons yet to be sure, but I’m curious if they’ll still be talking about him as some hot prospect in 8 years on there or not. Still, overall, the graphics, sound and music bits work wonderfully to create a live TV game environment.

Gameplay 8:

Overall, it handles really well. The movements are pretty good, and it’s easy to navigate around the various menus. There are some quirks though that can get annoying. You take too many shots down low that tend to hit the sides or backside of the backboard, and some of the canned animations can have you stepping out of bounds even if you’re pushing away from the baseline the entire time. Also, there are way too many steals and blocks. I don’t mind tight defense, but using the Pistons I’m getting at least 8-10 blocks a game, and while my steals are only around 5 a game, my opponents pick off at least a dozen a game. If anyone but a guard is dribbling, or you try to throw an outlet pass or a cross court pass regularly, you will be lucky to complete 2 or 3 a game, which is a bit frustrating as I prefer up-tempo (as do most players, which is probably why they’ve added this artificial layer of defense). The post game however is solid – probably the best I’ve seen it in awhile.

In the create a player mode, there’s a lot to do, but the game judges your actions oddly. If my opponent scores a bucket, I can lose an entire bar of ‘grade’ – but if I score one I barely see an increase. And it encourages you to play somewhat selfishly. For example it comes up with 3 challenges for you each game, and when my 7-3 center is asked to take 4 jump shots in the game? That’s hurting my team because it’s not my style, but if I want those 100 skill points, I’ll go ahead and force a few up anyway.

Intangibles – 10:

The integration of Michael Jordan is amazing. I grew up a Pistons fan. As such, I grew up disliking the Bulls a lot. But over the years I’ve come to really appreciate what Jordan did for the game and just how amazing he was, and the Jordan challenges are very cool. The additional Jordan sneakers for completing certain things in game, and then being able to apply them to your create a person is cool too.

There’s a ton of drills and practice modes, and the online is solid too, though it can get a bit laggy at times, and I’ve always felt like it hurts the NBA games more than NFL, NHL and MLB titles just due to the constant action and motion. With timing on jumpers being so critical, any lag can really mess with you – especially if you happen to be playing a perimeter based team.

I really enjoyed the crate a player mode. I sunk a ton of time into last year’s version doing that, and I’m at it again this year. It’s addicting getting those few points to spend where you want them, and telling yourself you’ll get even more on your next outing. The various goals and achievements you can earn by hitting milestones can be cool too.

Most people will spend the majority of their time in The Association/Franchise mode. It’s a solid game of hoops there, with lots to do as both the coach and manager. And the computer seems a lot smarter this year too. I remember last year’s game when the Bucks wound up with something like 5 point guards and 3 shooting guards and were just unable to field a proper team. The trades from what I have seen so far in 2k11 are made with better overall team awareness – from both a positional standpoint and respecting a player’s potential to improve. The trade finder is a cool new innovation too, that can be a real time-saver when you’re trying to tweak your roster or draft picks.

In case this isn’t enough game for your buck, there’s also the blacktop mode with 3-point shootouts and dunk contests too. There’s also quite a few classic teams out there. You won’t run out of things to do any time soon.

Overall – 9:

There’s still a few glitches here and there, and when they happen they can become very frustrating. Overall though, they don’t happen very often and what you do get is a great game of hoops that is brought to you a lot of different ways that help to keep the proceedings fresh and entertaining. At first I was worried that the Jordan stuff would be minimal or gimmicky – just an excuse to slap him on the cover and get a few extra sales, but it really looks like they put the work in this year. If EA’s Elite is hoping to come to market next year, they better bring their best playoff game, because right now 2K looks like the reigning champ for the foreseeable future.

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Cheap gaming - older sports games

My dad was recently visiting from Florida and he was considering getting a gaming system and an HD tv for himself and family members who came to visit (like my son). So, after some discussion, he decided that the PS3 was probably the best bet since he had an interest in building up a Bluray collection to boot. Of course, the system and the TV promised to be pretty expensive themselves. So what was he to do for games? Well, he found several that were a pretty good price – mostly sports related titles. So how did we do? Not bad for starting out with no games at all.

First acquisition: Bad Company. IGN score of 8.6. Good graphics, entertaining game. It was $17 used at Gamestop. Definitely not a game for little kids though between the crude humor and the violent settings and gameplay.

Next up was Little Big Planet (Game of the Year Edition) for $25 used. Quality game that’s perfect for kids. On top of that, there is a ton of content out there that combined with the level building system provides a ridiculous amount of extra value to the purchase, though having internet access is really key to take full advantage of these features.

Next up was a bevy of sports games. We’ll start with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08 which got an 8.5 from IGN and ran us $16 at Gamestop. Good game, but the EA servers do not seem to support it, so you can’t hop online or import the face graphic if you don’t have a webcam hooked up to the PS3.

All-Pro 2k8 was one of the best values at just $5 used at Gamestop. It landed a solid 7.6 from IGN, though I thought the engine did not age particularly well (I’m a big fan of the Madden games) and it lacks the really deep franchise modes you might get from a Madden game as well. However, the game itself is fun and did I mention it was only $5?

Speaking of football and Madden games - we snagged the 7.7 rated version of Madden 08 for $4. Sure, the series has progressed since then, but you can buy some foamy flavored coffee for the same price that'll last you 7 minutes. This game? Much longer than that.

We snagged NBA ’08 which landed an 8.4 on IGN for $12 at Gamestop. This was admittedly probably my least favorite of the sports acquisitions personally. There was no online connectivity available either.

MLB ’08: The Show really surprised me. I’m not really a big fan of baseball itself, but I really enjoyed this game. It landed an 8.7 from IGN and ran us $8 I think? I’ve sunk a lot of time into this one myself. I didn’t try every one of these games online, but this one also lacked online play currently.

The last one we picked up with my dad was College Hoops 2k7. I think we were out like $8 on that one, and it scored an 8.3 at IGN. I liked this one quite a bit as well – better than the NBA game we snagged.

After all of these purchases, I decided to beef up my game collection slightly, getting Tiger Woods 08 and then also picking up EA’s fine NHL 08 game. It was $17 and scored an 8.6 from IGN. It’s been several years since I last played an NHL game – 06 I believe was my last one. This one surprised me – for the heck of it I tried to hop online and found an opponent almost immediately. Deep, entertaining game to boot.

Lastly, I really liked the Fight Night games but had never gotten around to the most recent iteration – Fight Night Round 4. This scored a solid 8.8 from IGN and ran me $17 was all. I’ve been playing this one quite a bit as well – the career mode is quite entertaining.

Obviously peoples’ mileage will vary here, and I have a Gamestop card so I shaved 10% off of all of this. But it was a fairly inexpensive way for my dad to create a collection of games. It seems like the sports series depreciates faster than any other genre – likely because the majority of sports titles have a 1 year lifecycle before the latest and greatest comes out. But if you’re not interested in the absolute latest tweaks, rosters and online play, this is a really good way to build up your game library at a fraction of the cost compared to purchasing this year’s sports titles.

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