Acclaim Sports: Why They're Worse than EA | GameDay

acclaimed sports is the worst sports video game publisher of all time yes that includes the likes of 2k and ea acclaim has published fewer good games than i have eyeballs and the games that they have published are really only good to use as a coaster for your drinks yes ea sports is pretty bad right now with them winning the worst company of the year and whatnot but at least ea sports had a golden period of phenomenal games acclaim just never had that let's take a look at the first reason why acclaim is lame did you see what i did nba jam exploded onto the arcade scene in 1993 and revolutionized sports games as no sports game prior had tried to be this over the top especially with the nba license the game was developed by midway games you know the guys who are known for that super controversial brutal and violent game jackie chan stunt master for your own good go home now oh and i guess the mortal kombat games 2 or whatever a follow-up to nba jam was nba tournament edition then most people can't name another nba jam game what happened while midway made the arcade games a claim published the home console ports of nba jam midway would lose the rights to nba jams simply because they didn't own the name the nba did there's this guy greg lawson who worked for a claim and then went on to work for the nba licensing department he would go on to hand the nba jam license directly to his former employer acclaim this heist was so big that gta 5 online would blush so midway would continue on with the nba jam series except that it can't be called nba jam so they went with names like nba hang time nba show time which was a favorite of mine on the dreamcast and nba ballers which i also like a claim would continue with the nba jam name and even went on to do annual releases we had two different nba jam franchises going on at the exact same time and one isn't allowed to be called nba jam if only there was a third series going on we can have nba jam no way home the quality of acclaim's nba games were so bad it's no wonder nobody except losers like me know about these games i mean it could speak for itself this is nba jam extreme even though there's nothing extreme about it it looks like the basketball is extremely small seriously it looks like these guys are bouncing around in orange as i mentioned earlier acclaim would release these games with a year in the title and they would also strip literally everything that made the series good by taking it in a simulation route so not only is that a stupid idea i had more faith that i would survive a jump off the empire state building than i do a claim making a simulation anything there's a term i like to use called acclaimed jank and i think you'll see what i mean by the end of this video just look at it look at how it moves animates and listens to the sound [Applause] ward passes it to wide right it's soulless if shang's son walked up to this game he'd have nothing to steal i have no soul to steal compare that to nba showtime by midway which was released in the same year on the same console [Applause] he can't buy a bucket oh that guy just took a shot he tries it with a three it's just not fair ladies and gentlemen look at nba jam 2002 on game boy advance by acclaim nicely received i'll bet he didn't see that coming nicely received nicely received bounce pass nicely received oh that's going to cost them nicely received nicely yeah everything about this game was nicely received except the [ __ ] game itself acclaim would try one last time to go back to the roots of nba jam with a game called uh nba jam and you know what it was a fairly decent game nothing that'll blow you away though it looks even worse when you realize that nba street volume 2 which is arguably the best basketball game ever was released in the exact same year that's some tough luck right there the nba jam series would eventually go to ea who made a nba jam game that literally runs circles around all of this garbage ljn is another company that is notorious for making really bad video games and they had the wwf license in 1990 acclaim bought out ljn so now a claim has the wwf license they would go on to produce games for the snes and genesis that are just the definition of meh all the characters stand and move the same way and they all have the same moves except finishers every match just ends up being eye rakes chokes and strikes also there's so much grunting going on in this game it sounds kind of uh well it sounds like well just listen [Applause] i mean when you play these games is to grapple and then just mash buns until the meter would fill up just not good stuff overall the only thing that's memorable about these games are the recreation of the entrance music [Music] eventually a claim would make the jump to 3d with some truly bad games warzone and attitude are really really poor games instead of blind mashing like a neanderthal you have to enter in fighting game commands in order to do moves so yes she would have to do something like left right left in order to do a hip toss all of these games were not well received and it would eventually lead to wwf themselves splitting up with a claim funny enough wwe sued a claim later on claiming that acclaim still sold games despite their licensing agreement being over that's a lot of claiming judging from what i know this lawsuit doesn't make much sense from the wwe perspective of things because acclaim wasn't selling their games the retailers were but vince was probably just pissed he's associated with the claim i would be a claim would make an agreement with ecw to produce ecw games now that actually sounds really cool imagine a hardcore game that truly leans into the violent side of pro wrestling a claim hasn't been good but maybe this is something that can motivate them to do a little bit better oh it's the exact same game as warzone and attitude huh this is somehow less extreme than that nba jam game from earlier you know the one where you're bouncing around a damn tangerine i'm not even going to comment ecw would eventually go out of business but acclaim is not giving up on wrestling games just yet they will go on to make legends of wrestling a wrestling game that utilizes a bunch of legends that aren't tied to any wwe contracts there are three legends of wrestling games and the series at best is mediocre i'll give a tiny bit of credit though and say that these are at least better than the warzone games although that isn't saying much the first legends of wrestling game is pretty bad the games just have that acclaimed jank all over them the body proportions are just completely insane with wrestlers like king kong bundy looking like he would have his own gravitational pull because he's so damn big the sequel would improve on things a little bit but the third game showdown legends of wrestling was somehow worse than the first game in every way except the roster i'd also like to point out that legends of wrestling 2 on the game boy advance is probably the worst game on that platform no joke that would be the end of acclaim's wrestling aspirations as we never got a single good game from it comparing these games to what thq was putting out just unfair acclaim would take their talents to other licensed sports games the all-star baseball series seems great on the surface specifically all-star baseball 2005 it's a game filled with features such as recreating moments from previous mlb seasons a fun little trivia game that asks questions only a person that's eligible for senior discounts would know and a franchise mode that's honestly more in-depth than not only what was out at the time but even more than modern games in some aspects you have a full-blown expansion mode that lets you create your team and head into an expansion draft you also have real and fictional stadium tours that are narrated by a guy who sounds even more monotone than me eric jeter this park is certainly an interesting place to play to say the least in a day and age where the retractable roof is fashionable the locko dome ignores the recent trends and stands out on its own you have to wonder what the architect was thinking if he was thinking at all forget about the weird bounces what about the soggy baseballs they even had a fictional future stadiums plans are underway for this new ballpark for the a's but as yet no timetable has been set there's even a mode where you pick players from a lineup and play a pickup game in a cornfield or a sand lot which is a shout out to feel the dreams and the sandlot movies respectively so you might be thinking this is a really really great game well there's just one problem with that the actual gameplay is terrible yeah it's more of that acclaimed jank the ball just teleports to the glove and everyone squats like a girl peeing in public the choice for this fielding camera where you can't tell what on earth is even happening is terrible but fitting you can turn it off but even a standard camera is hard to see what's going on just a sad scene to have all this cool stuff get wasted on this game you have to wonder what the architect was thinking if he was thinking at all you know derek jeter was on the cover for multiple all-star baseball games i would ask why he would associate himself with garbage like a claim but he did wear a yankee uniform for his career so he's probably used to it acclaim would make nfl games as well with their nfl quarterback club series this series as far as critical reception goes is more up and down than a kid in a bouncy castle some titles receive dreadful scores and some receive pretty good ones to me these games are to put it simply nothing special at all taking a look at quarterback club 2002 there's no acclaimed jank here [Applause] mostly it's just very very bland the best thing about them is the quarterback challenge but besides that there's nothing here besides a season mode that's so bare bones you could find it in a cemetery at least you can knock over the ref the series stopped after quarterback club 2002 which is a good thing because i think this series stood no match for the football games that were out at the time and the football games that were coming out eventually it would be like sending a four-year-old to fight superman out of the three major north american sports the closest thing a claim has made to something that's good between the three of them are some select nfl quarterback club and all-star baseball games and i'm being generous by saying that because i feel like none of them were great and none of these games are revered in gaming circles sports gaming circles or even baseball slash football gaming circles looking outside the three major north american sports isn't a different story unfortunately jeremy mcgrath supercross is regarded as one of the worst games in general it's ugly sounds awful and looks like they hired a guy from fiverr to make the cover where are you driving anyway it looks like the planet earth after the meteor that killed the dinosaurs landed also you gotta love those popping trees [Music] [Applause] this thing you're looking at that looks like a cartoon adult swim with air at three in the morning is foreman for real don't need to say anymore do i the weirdest game i found is freestyle street soccer which is a blockbuster exclusive no wonder they went out of business both of them the closest that a claim got to making a widely regarded good game was their tony hawk ripoffs well some of them anyway aggressive inline and dave mirra freestyle bmx 2 are actually good games that are really enjoyable to play even for today's standards the only thing i don't like about them is some artistic choices like aggressive inline having these giant roaches that use squish and day mirror 2 seemingly takes place in a reality where all life on earth has been eradicated except dave meer and his bike like where is everyone but in all seriousness these games are good i can go all day here as a claim had an nhl series a volleyball game forget about the weird bounces what about the soggy baseballs even a lacrosse game that was narrated by stevo my mother plays better defense than you the buffalo bandits won and the new york saints nothing you know i made that up but i'm not completely sure it's untrue well anyway we need to move on the final thing i want to talk about is the absurd idiotic controversies that surrounded a claim i've already covered the nba jam stuff but a claim was bleeding money like eddie guerrero when he went up against jbl in order to get some buzz for their games they did some desperate publicity stunts one of these stunts is using homing pigeons who are decked out in virtual tennis two logos to fly on the court during a tennis match strange now with the release of burnout 2 coming what would be the best way to advertise it well if you thought paying for people speeding tickets then i have to ask if your walls are padded the uk government put a stop to this i mean would they have paid for people's funerals too speaking of funerals in order to advertise shadow man the second coming i know i know it's not a sports game but uh shut up a claim offered to buy tombstones to advertise the game here lies shadow man the second coming available now for ps2 games like what is going on here an acclaimed spokesperson said the video game industry is the fastest growing segment of the entertainment industry we're always looking at new ways to reach an audience and because it's for games we can have a little fun i'm not an expert on advertising but encouraging people to commit vehicular manslaughter is probably not a good advertisement strategy then there's the most controversial game that a claim would ever release named bmx xxx instead of a game that relies on its you know good gameplay these guys went with the edgy crude salty nut route i got a hot salty nut spot you want to ride me like a bite i sit on your face nudity dog something and everything in between this is technically in the dave mirra series of games but dave mirra didn't want to be associated with this mess and even ended up suing a claim the thing with this and other acclaim advertising controversies is that none of them work in the case of bmx xxx it had the exact opposite effect retailers pulled the game from store shelves which led to awful sales doesn't help that the game sucked ass too i guess this game has the honor of being one of the few non-adult only rated games to be prohibited from twitch streaming so there's that so congratulations acclaim your game is in the same company as games like genital jousting and huck hold simulator a claim would eventually go bankrupt and that would be the end of the acclaimed sports arrow with little to no fanfare none of these games have a long lasting appeal or left an impression on really anyone besides hey i played this game when i was 6 years old metacritic is a sight that gives the average critic score of a game it's not the end-all be-all by any means but it's still a good indication of how good a game can be more often than not out of the 29 acclaimed sports games that have metacritic scores that i've found the average score is 64.5 that number isn't impressive at all on its own but take into consideration i didn't count the handheld versions of games like the awful legends of wrestling 2 and i only counted the highest rated port of the game which is important because there have been some terrible poor jobs especially on the dreamcast versions of games and i counted the burnout games even though i personally don't consider those sports games i gave every single advantage i could and we still have a bad score i looked at mostly every ea sports game that has a metacritic score until the year 2004 and we have an average of 85.6 what a landslide even more of a landslide when you consider that i used 46 ea sports games compared to the 29 acclaim games even compared to sega they fall flat sega has an average metacritic score of 84.6 with 25 games midway sports the company that acclaims stole the nba jam franchise from scored a 74.2 acclaims highest scoring game was burnout 2 which shouldn't really count anyway like i said but whatever and the lowest one is paris dakar rally the bottom line with acclaimed sports is that they were a poor company that made poor games that sold poorly and it led to this painfully poor postmortem jokes and alliteration aside this is actually quite sad for a number of reasons while a lot of these games were nothing special a lot of them had interesting features and aspects that even modern games don't even have today you know what despite the quality of these games there's nothing wrong with more options and competition the fact that we have no other choice for a football game or a baseball game or even a boxing game is a little sad sony sports games weren't anything special until they found their groove with the mlb the show series maybe a claim could have done the same bounce pass nicely received uh probably not now if you'll excuse me i'm gonna go on a gta style rampage and i'm hoping rockstar can pay my bail forget about the weird bounces what about the soggy baseballs

Channel: GameDay

Views: 152,272

Keywords: Acclaim, acclaim sports, EA, EA Sports, All star baseball, NFL qb club, NBA JAM, aggresive inline, Worst sports video game publisher

Id: hK_rbWloAK4

Length: 18min 40sec (1120 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 30 2022