The Sports Gamer

by Yug

Now that the FIFA World Cup is finally over, I’d like to take a moments to reflect.

For me it means no more staying awake at ungodly hours to watch the T.V. … No more overpriced out-of-stock jerseys and scarves to buy … no more politicians giving us permission to be late for work … no more drinking the nights away into the early mornings …

… Ok, that last one was a bit of a stretch. However for the majority of Australians who got caught up with World Cup Fever, it certainly seems like the end to an extended celebration. What has any of this got to do with video games you may ask?

Before I go there, you need to understand something about me. I’m not a sports kind of guy. I don’t play any sports, I find watching most sports to be boring, and I never play any sports games. Mario Kart doesn’t count, and neither do ‘extreme’ sports games. I’m not a stereo typical geek either; I don’t stay at home playing World of Warcraft on a Saturday night, etc. I just don’t do sports.

I know there are a lot of you out there just like me, the kind that get caught up in the event as opposed to the sport itself. People who follow the State of Origin every year but don’t care about League. People who watched the Rugby World Cup final but have no idea what’s actually going on, screaming along with everyone else that Jonny Wilkinson is a bastard but not really knowing why. I’ve even watched the Superbowl a few times just to see the million dollar ads, and to be honest the low budget Budweiser ones are always the most entertaining. Never has interest in an actual sport led to me being interested in an actual sports GAME however.

I acquired a copy of 2006 FIFA World Cup on the Xbox 360 a few days before the opening matches of the actual FIFA World Cup. I played through a bit of it; found it a bit frustrating, not really knowing or understanding the complexities or even basics of the controls. I did try, as I’d played the demo months earlier and found it fun, however about the time I accidentally started running the wrong way after half time and scored a goal in my own net, I gave up and put the game on the shelf, happy for it to start collecting dust.

A few days later I was in a local pub late at night, watching the Australian vs. Japan game, our first in the FIFA World Cup. Even I knew this was a significant game, a cultural event for Australia, as we had never before even scored a single goal in what is probably the largest sporting event in the world (second to the Olympics). It looked like the trend would continue, right up until the last 10 minutes, when against all odds we came back to score 3 goals in quick succession. Needless to say the atmosphere in this small pub was amazing, and for every one of those goals the entire pub erupted into celebrations with beer, blood, and sweat flying everywhere. Never before had I felt such national pride, or excitement watching a sport. In an instant, I was hooked.

A few days later I decided to load up 2006 FIFA World Cup and have another go playing it. Suddenly the teams I was choosing made sense to me. I started looking at the Australian team, choosing players based on what I had actually read about them, as opposed to the stats presented for each player in the game. The game itself was new and exciting, with each pass I played with tactics I’d watched in the games, trying to position my star strikers and setup cross’s to them. I was annoyed, even SHOCKED, that the Harry Kewell model still had long hair.

I had joined a class of gamer which I had never previously understood until now. I had entered the world of the ‘Sports Gamer’, where the game has to be as accurate as humanly possible to the game on which it’s based or else it looses the thrill of playing.

Of course, Australia didn’t end up winning the FIFA World Cup in the end. We can pride ourselves in the fact that we were beaten by the penalty dive faking Italians who ended up winning the whole tournament anyway. The thing is though, is that every few nights I find myself reliving the same experiences I had by playing the video game based on the sport, and in my virtual world Australia wins every time :)

You can read Yug's full review of 2006 FIFA World Cup here: http://www.australiangamer.com/review/117/2006_fifa_world_cup.html