My Annoyance With Sports Games

I have an XBOX and I aside from Mass Effect I play only sports games. I love getting my sports fix but all games I play have two major problems: the AI and the infatuation with "User Control".

I have found that the majority of games have an AI that is just plain horrible or seemingly non-existent. European football is one my favorite sports and I just can not bring myself to play FIFA. In earlier versions, FIFA was just terrible in terms of what my players would do if I wasn't controlling them. I'd give up 3 to 5 goals a game because my defenders just wouldn't move when there was a player coming right at them. It usually didn't matter though as the game's AI was so pitiful I was able to exploit it and win games around 5-4, 4-3, etc. For those who aren't aware, real football matches usually don't have more than 3 goals. There is also no strategy involved in the game. I recall seeing something on collegehumor that was showed what the game would be called if the name was the most said phrase. For FIFA, it was "That Was Absolutely Lucky! No Skill Involved." Skill/strategy is something that should be used to win games, not dumb arcade-style luck.

The thing with user-control is ridiculous as well. With the quest for full user control, they are making games 10 times more dificult to play. The reason I stopped playing MLB games was mainly because of this and it's why I am extremely frustrated (but somehow still enjoying) NHL 11. I happen to have double-jointed thumbs so it's quite difficult to do exactly what I want with the little joysticks. I can't stand that if you want to be able to use buttons instead of the sticks all the time, it makes the approach amazingly convoluted and annoying.

Right now, I play NHL 11 all the time and because of my difficulties with the sticks, I can't pass even close to where I want. I aim 5 feet towards the guy at my left and somehow it goes 15 feet diagonally to someone on the other team. I mean, what's with that? In older games you'd aim a pass near a teammate and it would just go the teammate instead of the next county.

I could ramble on more about this stuff but I just wanted to get that off my chest.