You may not know this, but my old man is a tennis umpire. He’s done it for more than 25 years, which means he’s had some pretty big assignments. Dad’s worked two Olympics, numerous U.S. Opens (including lines crew of the most recent men’s final), and has been called a fucking chickenshit bastard by John McEnroe himself.
Unlike McEnroe, my Dad is undefeated in Grand Slam competition — against the Hawk-Eye. That’s the instant-replay technology used overturn the linesmen’s rulings. So Dad, if he played video games, would be delighted to know his mechanical nemesis has no presence in EA Sports’ Grand Slam Tennis 2, due out on Valentine’s Day. Not that it matters, as my Dad could accurately call the game on a 12-inch black-and-white TV screen from the far end of your fucking chickenshit bastard living room.
Liam Miller, producer for Grand Slam Tennis 2 acknowledged that the development team considered including Hawk-Eye replays for verisimilitude — certainly as televised replay officiating is implemented in EA Sports’ Madden and NCAA Football products. “”It’s not like we didn’t think about it putting it in,” he said in a streamed broadcast, reported by VG247. “But people want to play tennis. They want to hit the ball. They don’t want to spend too much time looking at replays.”
Exactly, thank you. And as EA Sports — and any video game maker, frankly — has the means of developing a purely objective, 100 per cent accurate method of officiating the gameplay, I likewise see no need for it to include that fucking chickenshit bastard Hawk-Eye.
Leave a Reply