Sports: Renovations
Review
Cleaning up the Arena
by Howie Howard
reviewed on PC
This historic sports franchise is going to become a mall
Sports: Renovations starts out with the player learning that their local former championship basketball team franchise is going to be taken over by a developer that wants to build a shopping mall in it's place. Of course this cannot be allowed, and you are tasked with saving the franchise. However, as the chosen one, you do not possess the knowledge necessary to undertake such an endeavor but there is a way to increase your rebuilding knowledge. Along with earning some money to help the rebuilding process, there are other sports related businesses that need help and you can rebuild them to gain the necessary experience!
Players then embark on the various rebuilding missions - learning by doing - and then assume a leadership role in the revitalization of other sports entities. Your first job related task on the path to knowledge is the revitalization of a boxing gym. This experience will entail everything from taking out the trash, to cleaning, painting and refurbishing the facility by adding the necessary equipment and furnishings from a small budget. Sounds easy but it sometimes is not the case.
Rebuilding is not always a smooth process
Task-based management simulation games are quite common these days with the likes of Power Wash Simulator, Farm Renovator and many others populating the PC and console sim game market. All of these require a check list of tasks be completed before the next chapter can be taken on and here is where problems can sometimes arise with Sports: Renovations. If the player for any reason is not able to accomplish every task on the list then progress can be slowed down until the problem is fixed. Or your work can be stopped dead in it's tracks which unfortunately happened to me a couple of times in my game play through.
The first game slow-down for me was right at the beginning of the gym mission which required the taking of a photograph consisting of three different items inside the gym. It was easy to find the position where the picture was to be taken from and the three items were highlighted in red. The on-screen instructions suggested that I press the Tab key or the P key and a photo could be taken. I pressed the TAB key and it brought me to a menu that contained several icon items such as a camera, a journal, tools, etc. I pressed the P key thinking that a photo would be taken and that's when a camera view finder came up. I figured that pressing the P key again would take a picture. Nothing happened. I thought that aligning the three pictures up together so that all the required items were highlighted in green instead of red was the proper sequence. I pressed the P key again. Still nothing. I pressed the E key because that key was what opened doors along with other tasks. Still Nothing.
Its all about controlling your renovations
To continue with this game control explanation, I started feeling somewhat inept because I was having difficulty completing the very simple task of taking that picture. Finally I stumbled, not very easily I might add, on to a help screen that indicated that Tab could be hit and then with the mouse cursor the camera icon could be clicked and that would bring you to the camera view. Or that you could press the P key and that action would bring you immediately to the camera view finder where clicking the LEFT mouse button would take the picture. Wow, I finally stumbled on to being able to take a picture. Yes, it does sound simple but unfortunately, for me, it proved to be a rather clunky keyboard and mouse combination requirement that wasn't explained very well.
There was another issue along a similar line which brought some frustration back. I had completed 17 of the required items on the final task on the checklist and could not find the last item (which was a piece of furnishing that needed to be added to the gym). A help or hint option needs to be added to the game so that dense game players like myself can have something, or indeed anything, to get them out of a jam. Hopefully, this frustration will be ironed out by the developers in an update.
Curing those hiccups
I really tried to like this game. There are definitely some interesting mechanics, it is fun to play (when it isn't being frustrating) and it looks good too. Unfortunately I felt that the few silly hiccups that I experienced kind of made the game feel a bit disjointed, particularly with the PC controls. My feeling is that the mouse should control game actions with a click to open a door and to pick up items that needs to be placed in the trash can, take pictures, etc. Then with the other hand the key board can be used to move around, change tools and the like. It seemed like either the E key needed to be pressed and other times the mouse cursor could be clicked. This can lead to confusion I think. Maybe a better help and hint feature could be added in order to help players get out of a bind, like not being able to find where that last item needs to be taken care of.
All is not lost because the local sport franchise was saved
Even with the keyboard and mouse control issues I do like this game a lot because game play is right up my alley. It's an interesting subject and there is a very well developed story that includes a great team history for your team along with the other sports establishments that you work on. The game looks and sounds good as well, and all in all Sports: Renovations is a solid entry in to the sports rebuilding genre of PC games. It just might need a few tweaks.
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7.8
fun score
Pros
Very interesting subject matter and a very well thought out game concept that includes in depth sports team histories.
Cons
The PC version felt like it had disjointed key and mouse action combinations with not much help when stuck.
