October has come and gone, and with it have been some awesome games across all three platforms. Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions will undoubtedly be a front-runner for handheld game of the year. Ratchet & Clank Future is a lot of good fun on the PS3. Also, Buzz: The Mega Quiz releases in North America this week for PS2, and it's a really fun party game that should cause lots of (game-based) turmoil during the holidays. But really, this installment of State is more about tying up loose ends, and responding to some of your e-mails. Hopefully, we can elicit some new discussion from it.

We're Not All Ditka, Y'know!

Around a month ago, I mentioned my frustration with sports games and the lack of tutorials to help people learn to be better at them. It seems that quite a few of you also agree. I got some great responses, not only with suggestions, but also with some personal testimonials.

Chris says:
When the Tampa Bay Lightning (my home town) won the Stanley Cup, I ran out and bought EA's NHL game. I just learned the rudimentary basics of the game, but I couldn't turn a decent strategy aside from just keep shooting! No tutorial as to "why" you do certain things... I love sports games, but you are absolutely on point: these HD-DVDs and Blu-ray discs should easily be able to set aside enough space to plant some explanatory videos. A 4-3 defense? Audibles? What? Guys who have played Madden for years are video game equivalents of Bear Bryant. How can I possibly compete when I don't understand the why and the how?

I agree, of course. It's funny that after that article, EA released Madden 08 En Espanol. I'm glad that EA is going after another demographic that likes football, but how about making Madden easy enough that any Spanish-speaking person, whether they live in the US, the rest of the Americas, or Spain, can learn the intricacies of the games When EA can make a Madden that can teach a Spaniard how the NFL works, then we'll see progress.

Boris disagrees, however:
I think the big thing the companies think is that people that don't follow the sport in real life most likely won't be interested in playing the game. The target audiences are football fans or basketball fans, and they are expected to know how the game is played. I'm not saying that is right, but there is kind of a point there. If you're interested in a sport, even if just in a video game form you should educate yourself on the sport beforehand, the game's job is to replicate that sport the best way possible, not to teach it to you. It's not like they explain the rules before every basketball game, or soccer game shown on TV. It's just expected that you know it.

Anyway, that's just my two cents...
Thanks for your contribution, Boris, although I think that games have the power to be a teaching tool. I wouldn't appreciate soccer as much if I hadn't been playing FIFA and PES all these years, because I can't watch much soccer on TV. If gaming's social critics can say that games teach children to be more violent people, then why can't games also have the power to teach people how a sport works? That's my take on it.