Thread: Reality and Fantasy don't mix

Reality and Fantasy don't mix
By Chuck Klosterman
Special to Page 2

This is exactly why I wasn't interested in that Head Coach game.

"NFL Head Coach" is -- indeed -- the most realistic sports simulation I've ever found.

And it sucks.

It is the dullest, most bureaucratic game ever created. All you ever do is sit through meetings, stare at scouting reports, watch scrimmages, and make unemotional small talk with an extremely detail-obsessed owner. This has got to be the only video game in the world where part of the intended "amusement" is not responding to e-mail during daily office hours. "NFL Head Coach" is so real it's almost devoid of pleasure. I was drawn to this game because I wanted reality ... which -- as we all know -- is repetitive and hard. This is why we play games in the first place. As is so often the case, what I "want" is the opposite of what I want. For whatever the reason, we have all been convinced that authenticity means everything.

I fell in this category:

For years, I pushed my fantasy peers toward the concept of a "keeper league," which we finally adopted in 2002...My natural inclination is to make every detail more realistic, which -- at least in my mind -- makes everything better. But it turns out the opposite is true. Moving to a keeper league has really had only one impact: It has made "draft night" shorter and less exciting -- and that, of course, is typically the only night of the fantasy season that's really, truly fun (and the only evening of the entire year when I communicate with most of the other owners in real time). In other words, I actively convinced nine other dudes that we should make our fantasy league less social and more uninteresting.

:lol: , that sums it up.