[Legionnaire]

My first memory of Madden was playing on the Super Nintendo in '94 or '95. Not sure what exact version of it it was. I know it had the Jags and Panthers, but I'm not sure if that places the game after the Jags/Panthers started playing in real-life, or if Madden added them a year early because the team names and colors had already been announced. Didn't really care for that game for whatever reason. I was kind of new to football as a sport, so I might just not have understood all the rules yet.

Then I briefly moved on to an NFL game I played on the Sega. I think it had Deion Sanders (or maybe Joe Montana, I forget), on the cover. Played that and started learning football. I believe it had actual players' names, so I started learning the players in addition to learning to sport itself.

I think I tried going back to Madden. But I hated whatever version of Madden I played on Sega. I vaguely recall playing my older brother, and he would hit my guys after the play ended, and I'm pretty sure he actually injured them doing that. So it ticked me off and I moved on.

Then I got GameDay for PS1. First football game I'd played with 3-dimensional player models. I'd begun hearing good things about Madden, but I just couldn't make the switch away from GameDay until Madden upped their game and got rid of the 2-dimensional players.

I think my first memory of enjoying Madden was somewhere around 97-99. They'd gone to 3-dimensional graphics and they'd introduced the Franchise Mode. Franchise Mode is probably what kept me invested in sporting gaming in general. Before that, the only longevity those games had was by issuing yourself a personal challenge to replay the "season mode" with each team and win a title with all of them (which was a mindless, repetitive task that would only be any fun on more arcadey sports games like NBA Jam).

But my favorite Madden memories are playing against one of my best friends from high school. After graduation, we both stuck around in town and the PS2 was our excuse to get together and hang out all the time. Our favorite thing was to play snowy or rainy games against each other, and we liked to both pick NFL Europe teams (to prevent any nonsense from highly rated Randy Moss-type star players who could do everything too easily and score at will, which made the game less satisfying). We had epic games where we had to grind out yards and fight for points. Now that he and I don't live near each other anymore, I miss that time in life. We tried some online playing when we both upgraded to PS3, but it wasn't the same as sitting in front of the same TV with a case of beer between us.