Announcers... variety?

[ThunderBall31]

I brought this up on the baseball message board and I wanted to bring it up on here. I think that this is a great idea. My personal opinion is that there shouldn't just be one pair of announcers in a video game. I think that it's a good idea for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that it gives the game a bit of variety. The second reason is that having one pair of announcers gets really tiring after a while. It's annoying hearing the same "catch phrase" again and again and again. I'm sorry, but I kinda get tired of Jay Bilas talking about a hot dog and mustard. There should be more than that. I think that adding another pair or two of announcers would fix this problem.

This could be another video game first.

Have maybe three pairs of announcers. I know that Vitale is all tied up with MarchMadness and Packer with Final Four (thank goodness) but we could get some other announcers into the game for like certain areas of the country. Like maybe Abdul-Jabar for the west and Enberg for the Midwest and stuff like that. Then the announcers could also take their regions for the NCAA tournament.

Opinions?

[squidpants]

Are those guys ESPN announcers? I thought Enberg was NBC or something. It's an ESPN game after all. But i mean, they could get Jack Ramsay or Michelle Tafoya or whoever (those are the only other basketball announcers on ESPN I can think of right now)

[ThunderBall31]

you are right, they are not. but I couldn't think of any at the time. what about the idea though?

[squidpants]

Yah, I think it'd be very cool, especially if they all said different stuff, not the same few lines. Like they used pretty much the same lines from last year. Which is fine, but I think different voices saying the same thing would be boring. Maybe they could get Bill Walton, he does some columns and stuff for ESPN, that'd be awesome for him to say "THROW IT DOWN BIG FELLA!" on the game. Maybe there could be phrases like that though, the announcers could get pumped and say "whoa! a huge dunk!" or something. I think the announcers are good now, but they don't really get that excited.

[kghst18]

I have had this same idea for years.

The only reservation I have is that there may not be enough disk space to include the files on one CD but with the recent technology I am not so sure.

Here is my opinion as to how they should do this:

1) There should be 4 tiers of announcers. This should be a goal for the developers, maybe adding one or two set a year until they get to 4.

A) The first announcer set should be the "radio" voices of the team. They should be hired from a group of about 3 or 4 choices. This would be the only announcers available unless your team get ranked or plays a ranked team.

B) ESPN-2 Broadcast Team. This team would do games which involve teams in the 21-40 range. (teams ranked #20 to #25 and teams getting votes)

C) ESPN Broadcast Team A. This team would do games involving teams ranked #1 to #20. The current team would be perfect for this.

D) ESPN Broadcast Team B or an ABC Broadcast Team. This team would games involving teams in the top 20.

This would also add something to the NCAA tournament. Each team could do a different round, for example. Also, each team could do different tournaments through out the season.

The reason I don’t think we’ll ever see this is that there is too much involved with it. ESPN would have to pay each team money and if, for example, your team is never ranking in the top 25 and never play a top 25 team, the effort to include these announcers would be wasted. Having said that, there is great potential for this idea as this is one of those ideas that will bring sports games to the next level.

It is not something we as gamers should expect to be included in next years’ game. This is something the developers must work on as a long term project, maybe adding a few announce teams each year. I, personally, would like to see the “radio” voice of the team added for next year.

One final note: this idea of announce teams could also translate into the recruiting area. You could, for example, get more TV exposure by selecting to play Duke (at Duke only unless you are a prestigious school) which would translate into more recruiting power rather than playing a cupcake team. Just an idea.

[ThunderBall31]

yes, good idea

[DCMASTA]

I LIKE THE IDEA B/C IT WOULD ALLOW SOMETHING THAT EVERY

SPORTS GAME HAS BEEN LACKING. !IN-GAME UPDATES FROM OTHER

GAMES! THE ANNOUNCERS WOULD SAY THINGS LIKE LETS GO TO

WHOEVER FOR AN UPDATE ON THE REST OF THE TOP 25.

I KNOW YOU HATE THIS SEGA, BUT ON EA'S NCAA IF THE GAME INS'T

INTERESTING ENOUGH, THEY JUST HAVE THE PA. SO A GAME WITH ONLY

MID MAJORS SHOULDN'T HAVE THE TOP ANOUNCING TEAM.

[kghst18]

In game updates would be great. Maybe even a half-time summary of the top games of the week.

[reames]

This is a great idea. And disc space isn't an issue; the potential of DVD-based games aren't even close to being reached yet.
I could see having 1 set of "National" announcers, for NCAA tourney games, or Top 25 games that would be on ESPN in real life.
Then maybe each conference (or region of the country) having a pair of unique announcers? They wouldn't need to be real-life ones, just representations. e.g. Jefferson Pilot Sports broadcasts all the regional ACC/SEC games around here (in the south), and it would be cool to hear a realistic announcer with a southern accent doing it. I don't watch regional Atlantic-10 games, but I'm sure they have different accents up there too.

*on an unrelated note, please, please put USC's Colonial Center in the game. It's a badass arena, and y'all left the old 1950's Frank McGuire Arena in the game for some odd reason

[Mos1ted]

Yeah I like the idea EA did with the college football game with the televised game thing. I think that ESPN College Hoops should use that system for next year. And with that they can make it reflect recruit interest. Recruits might vie for a team that gets more televised games and that nature. That would be cool.

[Silver Gecko]

Games ship by default with 1 announcer set. You can purchase additional announcer sets if your system has a hard drive for a low fee?