Unfortunately with Acclaim and Iguana entertainment long out
of business and Sports games trying to become more realistic the world of Arcade
Sports seemed to be lost. However when
NBA Jam was brought back in 2010 by EA (yes EA) it gave some hope for the long
lost genre. At first the new NBA Jam was
tough to play due to the AI being so hard and limited online play, but EA
re-released NBA Jam with the On Fire edition in 2011 fixing up the AI and allowing
more features to online play (most notably co-op play) which really brought
back the true essence of NBA Jam. The
new NBA Jam was a major success bringing back the old school gamers who don’t
play realistic sports games, and the new school gamers who got to experience something
brand new.
In 2012 EA took advantage of their exclusive licensing
rights of the NFL and remade Blitz. This
was another major success for the company bringing back the lucrative tackles,
over the top offensive plays and the original NFL Blitz commentator Tim Kitzrow
(he also commentated in NBA Jam). It was
great to see the new players being displayed in a style that only solid 90’s
gameplay could bring to the table.
With the successes of the new NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, it looks
like Arcade Sports are back; the question is will they be here to stay? If they really are then EA should start
treating the games like Madden, NBA Live, NHL, and FIFA because this will only
bring in more profits to the company. There
are two things that EA should do in order to keep the games interesting.
·
Keep
updated rosters: Every game that
EA has put up in the last few years has allowed the players to update their
rosters at anytime throughout the sports’ respective season. By doing this for the Arcade Sports it would
allow players to play with rookies just coming to the league and/or players
that have been traded to another team. For
example Dwight Howard is on the Magic in NBA Jam, in real life he is on the
Houston Rockets and is paired with James Harden who is a rising star in the NBA. By being able to update the rosters you could
play as this duo or with Rockets legends like Hakeem Olajuwon; the same thing
can happen with the other teams in any of the leagues and have combinations of
players that gamers would only dream about.
·
Get
the other sports involved:
Without question NBA Jam and NFL Blitz are the most popular arcade
sports games that were made, but what about the other sports? I believe EA should reach out to the other sports
and put some over the top gameplay in them.
In 2002 NHL Hitz was made and to me was one of the best arcade sports
games ever (I think it’s better than NFL Blitz.) EA can put modern players like Patrick Kane
and Sidney Crosby with legends like Jeremy Roenick and Mario Lemieux along with
others right into a new Hitz game and create the same magic that NBA Jam
does. Another sport they should make an
arcade game for is FIFA since it is by far EA’s biggest selling sports
franchise. With FIFA they should go a
completely different direction; instead of putting the respective teams from
various leagues in the game, they should just take the best players in the
world today and legends of the game and create your own dream teams. This would take away the factor of going
through each league trying to find what team they should play as and make
choosing a team much quicker.
EA is on the right track at the moment by
listening to the fans and bringing back these classic arcade games, but I think
if they stay on top of these franchises and devote time into making them better
and up to date, it will give the gamers who may or may not enjoy sports an
alternative to the norm that EA is putting out every single year.
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