Bad Play By Play

Something that drives me nuts about Dave Koch Sports games

Bad Play By Play

Something you don’t often see mentioned on the Action PC forums is the problems with the play by play.

All Dave Koch Sports games suffer from these problems. It’s not always a big deal — but there are times where it just destroys the immersion.

Take this, for example:

If Davis had “no opening,” how in the world did he return this kickoff for 19 yards? I have no idea how I’m supposed to interpret this play by play. Did somebody lay down a key block?

See — with most football board games I’d be able to at least visualize what’s happening, based on who won the match up. Here, I’ve got no idea what happened.

And then there’s this one:

The “coffin corner kick” means we were trying to get the ball between the goal line and the 5 yard line. I suppose this one bounced into the end zone from there — but there’s got to be some better way to describe that than just “touchback.”

This one, though, is what really drives me nuts about this game:

I’ve got to assume that “blanketed” means that Davis was all over Shakespeare. If so, how did Shakespeare run for an additional 6 yards? How was he free enough that Wilburn had to push him out of bounds?

I know that the play by play can be edited, but the game engine is enough of a mystery that it’s not clear what needs to change where. I chalk these kinds of mistakes up to an unclear game engine, one that doesn’t know which players are causing which plays.

Dave Koch Sports should do better than this.