ESPN Videogames

[BCWWF]

You have just got to support this, they sell their games for under $20.00, thats unheard of. Not only that, but they are really good games too, not just bargain brand. In case people don't know, the ESPN title took over for the games formally called 2K games.

I got ESPN NBA a few days ago, and I like it a lot. It is a lot more realistic than any games I've played before. One thing I like is that the defenders are automatically guarding their guys, in other games I've played you have to hold L2 or something to stay in position to guard.

I also have ESPN NFL. What I noticed about both of these games is that you need to play them a bit to get a feel for them. You can't just step in and play it, but thats how I like it. More complicated and strategy oriented.

As a whole, I am not a big fan of EA Sports games. I prefer ESPN or Fever over Madden, I don't like the EA basketball game. The only game that I really like is Fifa. I think ESPN Baseball is the best baseball game out there by far.

Even if you do like an EA game slightly better, is it really 30$ better? I want to see these Sega games do well so that the rival companies lower their prices to compete.

What do you guys think? Do you prefer EA gameplay? Is it worth the extra pay?

[RoXer]

Picked up NBA 2K5 from Best Buy the other day. They're selling it for $15. I've always preferred the 2K games over EA when it came to basketball. However, I think NFL ESPN still has some improving to do if it wants to be better than Madden. I've never played ESPN NHL so I can't compare it. And this year I switched from ASB to MVP 04.

Do you play online? I wanna try the ESPN leagues to see how they match up with EA. Well, with Madden at least.

[ColdwaVer]

I love the low pricing on these games, it's damn time a company realized that it's somewhat less than reasonable to expect people to shell out 50 bucks a year for what ususally amounts to updated rosters and some gameplay tweaks. A game would have to be completely worthless for me to go with a comparable game for 150% more cash.

[Arashi Kage]

I've always been an EA Hockey guy, dating back to NHL Hockey on Genesis. With EA dropping the ball with hockey the last few years, this year I couldn't take it anymore (with EA failing to complete a create a player feature on time for NHL2005) I went out and purchased ESPN 2k5.

ESPN may not have as good of player models and animation, but it has classic teams, more realistic gameplay, good manual goalie controls, realistic arenas, better quality commentary (though I don't care for the style of American hockey announcers) and all for a cheeper price.

I'll still have to go out and rent NHL2005 just to try it out, but as unimportant as create a player may be for EA, it's absence was a key factor in me purchasing the product of the competition, and I've heard from many people that they won't purchase NHL2005 for the same reason.

The only thing I don't like is that the ESPN titles are not on Gamecube, so no 4 player hockey for me (n). But 2 player on my brother's ps2 is better than no hockey at all.

Honestly, developers should spend 2 years on game development to make a complete and worth while game, rather than a new sports game every year consisting of roster updates and minor changes.

[AareDub]

I'm still an EA fan. I played both Madden '05 and NFL2k5 and honestly, I feel like the ESPN game was horrible in comparison. It had a lot of nice extra features, but the gameplay was pretty bad in my opinion.

It's nice to see some cheap games out there, but it seems that when it comes to EA and Sega, you get what you pay for.