Sports Games

[Inatimate1]

Time to open a discussion on the virtual sports world. What Sports Games would you recommend or are you playing at the moment?

In The Park - Baseball Game
I have recently downloaded a demo of "In The Park" Baseball, from the makers of the management series "Out Of The Park" Baseball. In this game you create your own Baseball carear as either a pitcher or a batter, assign stats to your players, and then you hit the main game, where after being drafted by one of the MLB sides you can then buy bats, gloves or running shoes, train your player. Attempt to gain respect in the bar through drinking contests and fights, and even pick up a girlfriend.
There's an eBay type feature where you can buy products cheaper, and a gym where you can train your player with a very good training regime mode.
The game also has a very very in depth stats feature in 4 different areas, team stats, individual player stats, league stats, and your own stats, including your "Rookie Playing Card" in much the same way as traditional Baseball cards.
When you first start your carear you generally start in the "Single-A" or "Double-AA" team, which is like playing a few squads down from the main team. Your coach then decides if you start, and you can either simulate the game, or get straight in there and call your own plays for your player.

The demo only restricts you to one season, but I actually think I may buy the full version


New Star Soccer 3 - Soccer Game
Works in much the same way as In The Park, in that you assign your own individual stats, and can train your player, pick up girls, buy items (which don't really have any effect), and also play matches at both club and international level. In New Star Soccer, you control only one player, and this is you. There are many leagues to play in, and there are two types of start. Where you are assigned a team, usually a lower league side from the Conference. Or you can pick your own team, but you will usually start on the bench if you pick a big side like Man Utd from the start.
In game you actually get to play as your player as well, using your keyboard to move him around the pitch, and pass/shoot, but if your rating in the match is poor or if you are low on energy you are likely to be subbed.
Better performances lead to better contracts to buy cars, houses, clothes, and even performance enhancing drugs. they also lead to a higher individual value, and an increased chance of getting into the International side or even transfered to a bigger club.
Very good and different game from most in my view, and well worth playing the demo if you are into Sports games. can be very frustrating at times, but definately a cracking game

Any more to add to the pot
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Top Football Tipster June 2006
7th Overall In The WC 2006 Competition

[odannyboy]

Spent many hours playing Champ Manager 01/02. Imo not only one of the best versions of the game, but also one the last computer games I played properly before the responsibilities of adulthood took hold. A classic
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Football is simple, but the hardest thing to do is play simple football.

[betking]

Football Manager 2007. Never bought 2008 as Im still playing 2007, currently upto something like the 2025/26 season or thereabouts, and the fans are more demanding than ever. They wanted me sacked because I was 6 points of the lead in 7th place, with about 5 games in hand! Madness! Sow hile I recommend it, prepare to lose a lot of hours to it....

[welshie1]

Agree with Betking really, just I did buy Football Manager 08 and it's class, especially if your a Derby fan because they can be made in to a pretty decent side on it.

Put the new patch in to the game and it's absolutley fantastic
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[HarryPabla]

cant go wrong with football manager 2008, fantastic game but u do lose a lot of time, totally worth it

[Zipster]

Same here too, Football Manager 2008!!!!

Love it even though for the first five years seasons as the tractorboys manager i got Promoted/Relagted/Promoted/Relegated/Promoted.....i have now managed to keep them in the Premiership for three seasons and finished 8th in my last season, built a pretty good team now so hopefully no more relegations!!!

And if you really get into the game then you can find yourself losing whole days!!!!

[Inatimate1]

Tennis Elbow Manager
This is a great game for those fans of Sports management games, Tennis Elbow manager is a development by Mana Games which allows the player to manage their own player for up to 15 years on the game, as well as managing other players within the game through yearly contracts with goals to achieve such as maintaining a ranking position, winning a tournament, or helping a player to raise themselves up to a certain ranking.
There are hundreds of tournaments to enter, including the four main Grand Slam events, all of the Masters Series events, Davis Cup ties, International Series events as well as Challengers and Futures events, and the end of year Masters Cup event for the top 8 in the doubles and singles race rankings.
When starting up the game, not only can you choose your home nationality, as well as allocating attributes to yourself and your player, but you can also in a sense "time travel" and begin your carear as far back as 1990, with Becker, Edberg, Agassi, and Lendl amongst the players competiting with your player for titles.
The one thing I do like about this game is that you can choose the tournaments your player enters, as well as training up your player to best suit your own preference. Training can take place each week, and the amount of time you can spend training your player depends on their tournament activity for that week, and unlike most management games, your players skills decay week on week, so rather than being able to train up your player to be the "perfect player", you have to find the right balance of tournament activity and training in order to sustain your players ability.
The game also goes pretty in depth in terms of stats, not only are there over 600 players competiting in the individual rankings at any one time, but you can analyse your player's performances on certain surfaces, with the number of wins on that surface and their longest winning streak, as well as being able to see your longest streak of weeks at number 1 in the rankings.
I think this game is an absolute gem of a game, with both the mens and womens tours to manage in, and many different personal goals you can aim for, it does make for hours of fun in my opinion, and is well worth the $25.00 for the full version. A demo can be found at the Mana Games website, www.managames.com , worth a look in my opinion, I stumbled across it by chance and was instantly hooked
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Top Football Tipster June 2006
7th Overall In The WC 2006 Competition