It's so damned nerdy, but the loop of "tinker with tactics in Football Manager, play a game, lose, curse like a god-damned sailor because you can't figure out what's wrong, buy players in hopes that they'll fix your tactical ineptitude, still lose, rinse, repeat." The gameplay loop in FM of eternally tinkering with tactics and thinking you're hot shit and trying to snatch up "wonderkids" is immensely satisfying year in and year out. Honestly, in good sports games, this is my favourite thing—tinkering with systems and fitting in players to said systems and seeing how I can develop said players and systems in tandem. Building a starting eleven in PES or Football Manager around a stalwart, young centre mid with a screamer of a long shot and awesome passing ability to bomb balls to some lanky-ass ginger Scottish kid I've pulled out of obscurity or the next young Brazilian superstar I've snatched up on the cheap and brought to whatever club I'm playing with is immensely fun. There's something immensely satisfying and RPG-ish in seeing your players progress and utiziling their unique skills. And seeing how players can improve your team and just how they play differently and how their strengths can cooperate and they can make up for each other's weaknesses is rad. Basically, when a sports game gets its player types right and dudes feel unique, it is immensely satisfying to fuck around with signings and strategies and build a team that feels all your own.
Something like PES or Football Manager or even NBA 2K16 feels like you've got players that feel unique and getting to know player's strengths and weaknesses and signing the type of player that fits your needs perfect, for me, is awesome. A game like, say, NHL 16, while fun to play, just doesn't scratch that itch for me because players just don't feel all that differentiated. It's just like... well, this dude doesn't lose the puck as much and this goalie isn't so shitty at giving up rebounds. Players don't feel too unique like the games I mentioned above. And that's a shame.
It's funny, too, because I don't much care for watching a lot of sports, but I love playing sports games because I can get so, so invested in the Franchise/GM modes.
I also very much love this article too, Austin. It's some great stuff.
I don't even particularly care about Weezer or any of the other bands Dan rags on/has ragged on in the past, but yeah, as others said, that whole ragging on Weezer thing was just shitty and reeks of "Dan being Dan"—and it gets tiresome sometimes. Like, we get it, Dan, you don't listen to music made after 1985. But Jesus, man. At least Jeff called him out on his shit. And Jeff can be shitty too, but he eventually at least just says something isn't for him. Dan just becomes inflammatory and shitty. And it's not particularly funny or charming. Regardless of whether he's meant to be taken seriously, it's really not particularly hard to not be an asshole about things. He's coming off like a snide prick and that's not cool.
On the actual game: Sometimes that FMV can look fucking bruuuutttaallll, and not in "lol this is dumb and funny" way. The MGMT video is proof of that.
Also sucks that there seems to be a lot of complaints about build quality and callibration fuck-ups. :(
Honestly, this game also just seems kinda... empty. If I wanna get back into the whole plastic instrument thing, I wanna do it with a bunch of friends. I'm not a 15 year-old anymore, so the whole "single player" score attack aspect of Guitar Hero just doesn't appeal to me. I just dunno who wants this game, personally. But that's just me. Doesn't mean it sucks. Just isn't for me.
Willtron's comments