Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

[SpectralThundr]

Not a lot of fact checking done for this. High Score Productions, which was an internal EA studio did NHL 95 and NHL 98, Bill Walsh College Football 95, Madden 95 96 and 97, And early versions of EA's baseball title.

[jyoung]

Re: Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

High Score Productions was doing the SEGA Genesis and SEGA CD versions of those games, while Visual Concepts handled the Super Nintendo editions. Back in the early days of EA Sports, there was much less parity between consoles, hence there was one development team assigned to each platform.

High Score Productions' only Super Nintendo games were NHL 96 and Madden 96, both of which they were only doing because EA Sports was swamped with work that year trying to release 16-bit and 32-bit versions of all their sports series at the same time.

This "About the Artists" profile on Visual Concepts is from the Super Nintendo manual of Madden 95:

Spoiler

[SpectralThundr]

Re: Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

High Score Productions was doing the SEGA Genesis and SEGA CD versions of those games, while Visual Concepts handled the Super Nintendo editions. Back in the early days of EA Sports, there was much less parity between consoles, hence there was one development team assigned to each platform.

High Score Productions' only Super Nintendo games were NHL 96 and Madden 96, both of which they were only doing because EA Sports was swamped with work that year trying to release 16-bit and 32-bit versions of all their sports series at the same time.

This "About the Artists" profile on Visual Concepts is from the Super Nintendo manual of Madden 95:

Spoiler

Appreciate the clarification, I thought I was going insane or stepped into the twilight zone as I still have all those games and was a genesis guy over a SNES guy. All has been righted in the world. Carry on.

[DJ]

Re: Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

Jayson, you always do a great job with these look-back pieces for games like NFL 2K. I still have a PS2 and a copy of 2K5 that I play to this day. I also have APF 2K8 that I fire up from time-to-time. I still recall the great battles a group of us had in an online league here; those that played will remember my squad running wild with The Nigerian Nightmare Christian Okoye.

Neither game feels that dated, which says a lot about the teams that put out the games. The tiered star rating system in APF is sorely needed in other sports games.

It's hard not to get a little sad reading these features, though. Being in my mid-30's, I recall fondly the days when gamers had OPTIONS as to what sports game to play. It pains me to see just one football, hockey, wrestling, MMA and baseball game. Basketball only recently brought a 2nd game back into the mix (Live) and it has a ways to go to catch up to 2K. I know the rights fees severely crippled the ability of some smaller publishers to make a game and see any kind of profit (or at least avoid a huge loss), but man, it was so nice to try out Madden, Gameday, Quarterback Club, Tecmo Bowl and later, 2K. Each brought something different to the table.

I did my best to give them all an honest go and while I usually played Madden, there were years I opted for another game, like NFL 95, QB Club 96 (or 97) and Gameday 98, the game that got me to buy a PS One. Of course, NFL 2K5 was a game-changer and I've never been able to truly enjoy Madden since that game was released. Such a shame we, the consumer, are stuck with such limited options.

[jyoung]

Re: Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

Yes, Christian Okoye was a beast in All-Pro Football 2K8. Thanks to his "Workhorse" ability, he would break the first tackle from just about everyone except silver and gold defenders if you kept feeding him the ball enough times. It was a good way of simulating how defenses get worn out by having to tackle power backs over and over again.

I'm glad that Visual Concepts added a bunch of special player abilities to the NBA 2K series, because it really helps to make each player in All-Pro Football 2K8 feel unique.

[givemethemnachos]

i'm still playing ESPN 2K5 I play Madden 25 too

[Demoncrom]

I still play 2k5 and have owned every 2K football game since its inception. Its so funny, since all the Maddens that loved back in the Nintendo games were make by Visual Concepts and for my football kicks in the 90s it was all about Sony's Gameday football and then on Sega all 2K and Xbox on.

The writer missed the audio. Audio in the 2K series has always been amazing including custom soundtracks - just quality across the board. Miss that series. Tiburon tries but they are just not very good at football gaming. Hopefully this year with Pat Kirwin assisting them to actually get the SPORT into the game they will get it right.

[videlsports]

NFL 2k was great, I remember playing Madden on ps2 with eddie George on the cover, and Then My cousin Came over with His dream cast, and said play this Game with me, I checked it out and Loved the Big Models, cool animations , Intros. I was immediately in love with the Memory card too. For the First Time head to head you could call plays in secret with out your opponent knowing or guessing. And it just got better with time.

[bxphenom7]

Not this again.

NFL 2K5 did a lot of cool things, but if it wasn't $20 I don't think I would have bought it. Or a bunch of others.

I hate the exclusive license crap as much as the next guy, but 2K5 is one of the two most overrated, over reminisced games of all time, along with WWF No Mercy (king of slowdown and cheap AI.)

I don't know what game you played.

[Segagendude]

Re: Why The NFL 2K Series Was Truly Great And Why You Should Miss It

Nice trip down memory lane.

I still have 2k5 which I play on my BC PS3 "Fatboy". Still amazing to take it all in and get lost in the immersion.

And gameplay, wow. It's a chess match, moreso than a score fest!

Only regret I have is I don't have an XBOX. I prefer video highlights over still photos.

[bxphenom7]

I really hope 2k has a CFL game in the works. I'm not Canadian but CFL is the second most popular professional sports league in Canada so it would be a sound investment there. 2k's name and past work on titles like NFL 2k5 and APF 2k8 would pull in American gamers too, especially if received well critically, which shouldn't at all be an issue if it's a fully featured game. Even though the CFL has 9 teams, a cool expansion feature would be nice where you can add teams you either created or from Junior football leagues in Canada that hopefully would be in the game. I don't even care for the amount of teams, the gameplay would be stellar I'm positive on new hardware.

[bxphenom7]

*sigh*

I still don't understand why they don't start making 2K football again. I couldn't possibly care any less about the NFL license. The ability to edit detail about all players and teams is WAY more important to me. My current football game is Madden 13 for Wii, in which I've used spreadsheets to create completely random players. So yeah, don't care even a little about having real players. And with the ability to edit everything, you can make them if you want.

Exactly. I would do just fine with fictional teams as long as the game was still fully featured (franchise, career, etc) and had tons of customization. They would have the advantage of putting in things that they couldn't with an NFL license, like certain hits, the trash talk in APF, and much much more. They can still have their pre, halftime, post, and weekly shows just like NFL 2k5. If done well, I'd be just as immersed or even more in this fictional-team game than I would be in an NFL licensed game. The NFL license doesn't matter when you have your 2k name as a selling point, critical receptions, word of mouth, and I would probably advise to price the game at $50 or $55.

[Jakeness23]

All I ask for is to just TRY a generic game while letting the player create the players, teams, stadiums, logos, etc. Maybe it won't sell well at first, but if you have good gameplay and can bring those features back from 2K5, it won't take long to dethrone Madden. You save a lot of money by not paying for the NFL and NFLPA licenses. JUST TRY IT! 2K, SCEA, anyone, just make an attempt. We need competition for football gaming if we ever want it to get better.

[asu666]

Love the article and wish NFL 2K could have kept going because I believe we'd be a lot further along the game development path.

[Valdarez]

Still no weekly recap show or halftime show in Madden a full DACADE later. One of the many shames of EASports and the Madden franchise.