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PlayStation (Games) XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Sega Sports' Secret - First-Person Football 40

Posted by simoniker from the defensive-tackles-really-in-your-face dept.
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to IGN Xbox's coverage of the newly revealed 'secret mode' in Sega's ESPN NFL Football for PS2 and Xbox - a full first-person mode. According to the article, "In first-person mode, you take the snap as the quarterback.. once the ball is thrown, you can either watch the ball sail toward your wideout from the QB's perspective, or quickly switch to control the receiver and attempt to catch the ball while looking through the point of view from players like Moss and T.O." There are also 'Bullet Time'-styled slow motion effects for receivers, as well as a threat meter that shows how close would-be tacklers are to your position. So, not content with just a name change from NFL 2K4, looks like Sega's football franchise is going all-out with new features to overwhelm EA's Madden series after last year's disappointing performance.
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Sega Sports' Secret - First-Person Football More

Sega Sports' Secret - First-Person Football

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  • Bullet Time (Score:4, Funny)

    by suineg ( 647189 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @12:44AM (#6388804)
    I think I might die a happy man if some games never had "bullet time". This is getting old people come up with something new. Pretty soon kids are going to be hanging around in circles talking about the new Tiger Woods golf game and they are going to say "This one will be so much better you can go 'bullet time' and ease the ball into the hole." Why?

    • The march of progress (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @12:58AM (#6388854) Homepage
      We need something like this every year, don't we?

      2000 - Lens flare
      2001 - Motion blur
      2002 - Cel shading
      2003 - bullet time
      2004 - ?
      • 2003 - bullet time
        2004 - ?
        2005 - profit!

      • We need something like this every year, don't we?

        2000 - Lens flare
        2001 - Motion blur
        2002 - Cel shading
        2003 - bullet time
        2004 - ?

        Well, lens flare was in at least NFS:HS which was... 1999? and bullet time was in Max Payne from... 2001? But yeah, your point is still valid. There certainly appears to be trends and fads within the gaming industry.

      • Bullet time was done first and best in 2001 by Max Payne.
        • ...and I went through the rest of the game without using it once I realized it gained no advantage the first time I used it (OTOH, Enter the Matrix makes it worthwhile, but isn't really worth spending the same 8 hours (it took me to beat Max Payne) playing).

          GTA:VC has both Motion Blur and Lens Flare, and both irritate me to no end. Maybe some day they'll learn that these things are mostly caused by deficincies in camera technology and stop wasting graphics chip cycles on them, or not.

          Bullet Time in a foot
          • I'm impressed. You *did* beat *all* the modes, including the ones that you unlock once you beat the game, all without bullet time?
            • Bullet time in Max Payne allowed the computer opponents to take more time to aim at you just as well as it allowed you to aim at them, which is why I chose not to use it.

              As for beating 'all the modes', as I said, I played the game for ~8 hours, which implied that I played through it once. After that, regardless of what they put in the game to make you play it again, it wasn't worth it. I'm glad I only payed $20 for it, and I don't see why some people were obsessive enough about the game to play it any long
              • Bullet time in Max Payne allowed the computer opponents to take more time to aim at you just as well as it allowed you to aim at them, which is why I chose not to use it.

                Wait, you're claiming that it makes them more accurate? The AI doesn't need time to calculate aim...or do you mean that it actually deliberately reduces the inserted error?
                • It's simply a statement that the game doesn't give any advantage to the player by utilizing bullet time, assuming that the player can aim in real time. Bullet time in Max Payne slows down everything, so the only advantage a player gets is more time to aim, but the player has no more time to get away from opponents, because the player can't move any faster or adjust based on stimulus that were not already there.

                  On the other hand, if the player has trouble keeping up with the positions of everything in the g
      • im playing jetgrind radio for the dreamcast as we type this that game invented cel shading and did it right. it came out in 2000 your time line is WAY off

  • First Person Issues (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Arkaein ( 264614 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @01:13AM (#6388899) Homepage
    I'm not too sure how well a first-person perspective will work in a football game. There are a few fundamental differences between first-person on a monitor and a fully immersive virtual reality or real life situation:
    • In real life you have two directions you control: your body and your head. While you may be running in a straight line in real life, it is trivial to turn your head and shift your eyes to make a quick assessment of the world around you. This would be very difficult in a football game, even with a dual analog controller. Things just happen too fast (probably why the bullet time feature is necessary, ugh).
    • You lack peripheral vision. Besides no being able to shift viewpoints easily, its like having tunnel vision, being restricted to typically 60 to 90 degrees field-of-vision.
    • When I play defense in Madden, I usually start as a defensive back to give me the greatest range and attack the ball carrier rather than the QB. However I almost always switch to a closer player when the play moves towards a different area. It's hard enough to tell which player I'm getting control of with an overhead view; I've completely blown plays because I took a player beneath the ball carrier and moved him down (away from the play) instead of up, because I thought I would get control of a different player. This problem must be 10 time worse in first-person, where I can't even see most of my teammates at any one time.
    In short, I think this looks like a very cool demo feature, and might be great if I had 10 real human teammates to play with, so I wouldn't worry about switching players. However, that doesn't seem to be the goal, and I bet this mode will not be used much in practice. I've experimented with most every standard camera view possible, and have concluded that while close-up views look cool, it's just not practical if you can't see every player. This may not be quite as realistic, but as indicated above first-person video games have their own realism issues, and are harder to play to boot.

    • Re:First Person Issues (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb@NoSPaM.gmail.com> on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:34AM (#6389479) Homepage
      When I play defense in Madden, I usually start as a defensive back to give me the greatest range and attack the ball carrier rather than the QB. However I almost always switch to a closer player..."

      Things work the same way in normal NFL 2kx (now ESPN) but better [IMO]. I would note, though that real players on a football field don't get to switch between bodies on a play so that they can be involved, and if a football fan were interested in such a first-person mode it would be because they would want to immerse themselves even more in the game, seeing what the players see.

      It's worth noting (in response to some of your other points) that wearing a football helmet restricts one's peripheral vision pretty severely in any case, so not having that in the game wouldn't be too far off from reality. Also, as a wide receiver (in the example given) you're not going to turn your head to look for the ball until you have to do so - a fundamental at which any good wide receiver will be proficient.

      The first-person view isn't going to replace third-person for most video game football players (even in the Sega game where it's only being offered as an option) anytime soon, but I think it's an interesting addition to the genre and could prove to be a lot of fun. In fact, it should be even more fun since most of the people who enjoy football don't imagine themselves as football coaches, making a game plan to win the big game - most imagine themselves as an athlete, making the big play to win the big game.

      PS-
      Why does every new feature like this in any game have to be picked apart before even playing the game, anyway? I'm not necessarily directing this at any one person as this goes on amongst gamers all the time. There's a bizarre traditionalist streak that seems to go through a lot of gamers and it seems very out of place considering the constantly advancing technical nature of the hobby...

    • I largely agree with these comments, on the football/soccer/hockey field, you have nothing around you other than the field and your team mates and opponents.

      In a video game you have all your surroundings, and you have to focus on the poor looking first person perspective.
    • In short, I think this looks like a very cool demo feature, and might be great if I had 10 real human teammates to play with, so I wouldn't worry about switching players. However, that doesn't seem to be the goal

      Are you sure they're not getting ready to throw that feature into an Xbox Live version? 22-person gaming is pretty much common-place in PC on-line gaming, maybe they're moving toward the same on consoles.
      Note: Try not to flame me too hard - I haven't been a console gamer since the NES (outside
      • 22 person live games would be cool, but I'm not sure how well they'd work out. Football requires a lot of coordination, discipline and timing between its players. This is usually only achieved with a lot of practice and experience.

        I think that, except for really hard core expert teams, much in the way of play calling would end up going out the window, as routes that require precision would not be run reliably. On defense it would be easy to blow coverage, and hard to coordinate things like line shifts or c
        • True, but I know I've played a number of pick-up touch football games with somewhat random people. They have usually seemed to work pretty well. So, while you probably wouldn't have a great precision team all the time, it may still be fun.

          Personally, I think one of the big things that would be missing from the multi-player on-line sports arena is voice. I know voice over IP continues to improve, but I don't think it's yet able to handle something like that, and I would have to say that yelling "I'm open
          • I read something about this a while back, and the producer/developer/whatever said that it would be really tough, if only because EVERYBODY would want to play the RB or QB. How long would anybody stick with it if they were playing, say, offensive tackle, and KNEW they would never get the ball?

            Be honest...
    • Actually I've wanted to see this in a sports game (preferrably one of the FIFA games rather than an american football game) for at least 5 years now. The technology's been there forever, I'm disappointed that no one's attempted it yet.

      There are many difficulties the developer would have to overcome, definitely. Guess what, that's why games cost so much to make. It is entirely possible - not easy, but possible - to make a good 1st person sports game, but it requires some original thinking. If you take o

    • Quarterback Attack [gamezero.com] by Crystal Dynamics. This game failed in the market pretty much on two counts #1 came out at the peek of FMV hype, #2 was on the 3DO. But truth be told, when I played the game I was really pleased with the experience and wouldn't mind someone improving and expanding on the game with modern hardware. (note, I wrote that linked review but it includes screen shots if you want to see what the game looked like)

  • Hopefully hype (Score:4, Informative)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @03:01AM (#6389186) Journal
    As someone that has enjoyed the NFL2K series (which has routinely been a better game than Madden, but lots of people just love the fat guy on the box), I'm wary of these moves.

    At the same time, it may be pure hype. Maybe you can go into a first person mode, but if you choose not to, everything is just like the NFL2K games of the past few years. That would be a good idea. If someone wants to use the gimmick, they can. Hey, maybe they can even pull it off nicely. If they don't want to use it, they can avoid it.

    That's how I imagine the implementation. It would be a grave mistake to do otherwise.

    • Re:Hopefully hype (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Arkaein ( 264614 )
      I'm curious (especially as a later thread says something similar about NFL2K). I've never played any of the NFL2K series. In what ways would you say it's significantly better than Madden?

      I'm genuinely curious, Madden seems very tightly put together to me. The AI seems quite realistic, the CPU knows how to manage the clock and the game situation quite well, the physics seem quite well developed, DBs will actually make interceptions regularly if you throw right to them (unlike many older football games), run
      • I don't know about better/worse whatever (and I wasn't the previous poster), but I do know that all 3 of the major NFL 2003 football games scored roughly the same in reviews, and I eventually chose MS' game (because it was $10 cheaper), which is obviously neither Madden nor NFL 2K3.

        I'd say rent it to give it a look. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people just stick with the 1st series they found that really satisfied them (in other words, didn't annoy them). I'm not a really big football fan, so I
      • Madden is a more polished overall product, with lots of cool features. NFL2K is a better pure on-the-field game. NFL2K has a much more deeply developed running game. Madden is very pass-heavy (not like the joke that is NFL Fever, but still more than reality). NFL2K has the best running game on the market, especially between-the-tackles. NFL2K is generally more influenced by the player's actions than Madden. Madden relies a bit less on player intervention. NFL2K requires a knowledge of football. A lot of
        • The differences sound intersting. I was still curious, so I looked at some review sites, and there were a few surprises. One of the sites had some opposite views from you, saying that NFL2K3 was slightly more arcady and emphasized the pass more, while having a superior franchise style mode. Other sites had still different views.

          Also I wonder if the people who don't translate Madden skills to NFL2K3 successfully play on the tougher modes very much. I play on All Madden currently, and against the CPU it seem
          • NFL2K3 is available on GameCube. NFL2K4, however, will not be. If you're into sports gaming, you're on the wrong console. :) (I love my GameCube, but it is the worst out of the three as a sports gaming console).

            I can't speak as to what the reviewers say, but as someone that was on the Top 40 board (out of thousands) for NFL2K3 on Xbox Live before I stopped playing, I'd say my opinion is fairly well informed. I played against some of Xbox Live's very top players. Many of them played with a heavy emphasis

  • done that ... sort of (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In 1986 Activision came out with a first-person football game for the Commodore 64 called GFL Championship Football. It suffered from the major flaws people have commented on here, namely that you could't see the whole field at once and had no peripheral vision, so you would just dart about hoping that there was always an open lane in front of you...
  • Nearly every publication that lined up the various football franchise games found that once Visual Concepts got involved (2k3) that the Sega product was superior to the EA. But EA has been in this game since ... 1996 and has a much much bigger following.

    So give sega a few years to catch up - and continue to outplay Madden and you will see those figures improve. I think that this year they are going to be much much closer. Especailly with ESPN hyping their game full time.

    Also, EA's refusal to go XBL will a

  • When I first read this I assumed it was talking about football, as in the version known by everyone outside of the U.S. - I'm still waiting for EA to realease a version of FIFA in first person perspective.
  • EA already had this feature in Madden 2000 for the PC, and i can testify that it was no fun at all.

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