awoolcott's Full Review: NFL GameDay 2001 for PlayStation 1
Probably the last NFL GameDay release on the current PlayStation, NFL GameDay 2001 is an excellent finale to the football game series that put John Madden's back against the wall. Sporting excellent graphics, realistic sound, and (for the most part) realistic commentary, with plenty of features to keep you going, GameDay 2K1 is your best bet for PlayStation football. Except...
If you are coming to get GD2K1 for a revamped engine and a whole new look, forget it. GD2K1 is for the most part exactly the same as GameDay 2000. Everything IS touched up a lot (but if I didn't go back and play GD2000, I wouldn't have noticed the graphical enhancements), with nothing new to offer, besides the "Play as any position player" option. So if you want a revamped game, wait until PlayStation 2 next month, and pass up GD2K1. Enough of that, on to the features.
Features
Exhibition - Pretty self-explanatory. Pick a couple teams, select difficulty level, weather, and get started. It's definitely a nice place to get your skills refined if you are rusty (or have spent too much time on NFL2K on Dreamcast and forgot how to play). Here also you can play up to 8-player multiplayer as well.
Season - Also, pretty explanatory. You select your team, play with your rosters, sign and release players, create players, and play a whole NFL season. During the season you can track individual stats, see a list of the current selected Pro Bowl players (changes depending on performance), and weekly MVP's. Statistical tracking is kind of lax compared to Madden, but it does give you the important stats.
A new feature in Season mode is the Pre Game option, which allows you to change and shuffle your rosters around if you see fit. Like if your backup running back is having a better season than your starter, you may change around the assignments. It's better than going straight to Substitute and playing with it during a game, that's for sure.
General Manager - This is the true meat of GD2K1. Its core is the before mentioned Season mode, just with a ton more depth. When you start the GM mode, you are asked to select a team, then name your coach (I always come up with something stupid like Sgt. Strumpet). Then the preseason activities begin. You are asked if you want to skip these or go through with it. If you decline the season goes on as usual. If you accept it, there are a few steps that you take in building your team.
The first one is retired players. This is a list of players who have hung it up during the off-season. You can't get them back! The second feature is the resign free agents option. You get two choices - sign them all at once, or manually one at a time. I suggest the latter because some guys aren't worth resigning!
The biggie is the draft. It's only a 4 round draft, to keep the clutter out probably. Your performance in the previous season is where you pick in the draft, as in the real NFL. After that you have to sign them, which isn't a big deal - they don't ask for a lot of money (except the one guy who wanted $4.5 million as a ROOKIE - but he is a future Pro-Bowler!). Once that is through they ask you if you want to play pre-season games or go on to the regular season. You only play 1 pre-season game, to get a feel for your new team.
The season runs like a regular season would - play games and track stats. The only difference is the Coaches Report - it gives you coaching stats and league news. If you do badly they keep saying that they are informally looking for new coaches, and you CAN get fired mid-season (though you can hook on with another team). The news though is repetitive and says the same thing for each team..sheesh.
And once the season and playoffs are over, you just rinse and repeat. It's not unlimited seasons, but you can go quite a while.
Playoffs - If you want to skip the Season and go straight to crunch-time, you can do that. Just select your team and get going. That simple.
Tournament - This is the multiplayer section of the game. Up to 8 (I think, may be 16) players can compete in a ladder tournament, playoffs style. This mode is tons of fun actually, a nice diversion from playing the computer a billion times. Winner gets a kick in the pants in my house!
Now, on to the actual game.
Graphics - No, GD2K1 will not blow your mind graphically. If you haven't played GameDay 2000 for a while, you might not even notice a difference. And if you've played a lot of NFL2K on DC lately, they will look even worse. But they are nice enough for me. It's that nostalgic feeling, you know like it was at the end of the Genesis days. The player models are realistic, and are scaled to accurate height and weight (so they say). The stadiums are realistic too, including 2 "new" ones (one is Huskie Stadium in Seattle for the Seahawks, while they get a new stadium built; the other is Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati). The players also move very nice, with plenty of cool animations. Tackling looks like tackling, not guys ramming into each other trying to make the other fall down. No they aren't NFL2K or Madden 2001 on PS2, but for PlayStation they are excellent.
Sound - Again, Dick Enberg and Phil Simms handle the announcing. And again it's the best out there, most of the time. 99% of the time they are spot on in their analysis, but the 1% is annoying. Once I fumbled the ball (blasted Marshall Faulk) and the computer recovered it. Then Simms did the replay and stated that the offence recovered. Sure they did. Other times it will say that an interception was thrown when I hadn't even run the play (it was waiting for the 2 minute warning). Weird stuff. And on occasion they repeat too often (once Enberg made the same announcement on three straight plays - irritating). The arena sounds are good though. Instead of the oldies music they played during touchdowns and end of quarters, some sort of rock music plays - more typical to football. The crowd sounds are somewhat realistic - I swear they cheer every touchdown, not just the home team. The player grunts and groans are also realistic. Just do away with the cheesy dances please!
Control - GD2K1's control is spot on the most part. Running and receiving and passing is easy to pull off, and each button on the pad executes a different motion, from a hurdle to a stiff arm to a juke. Or just a little speed burst as well. Just be careful with the jukes and stiff arms - they can be turned into fumbling problems. On defense you can tackle and jump with ease, though making a QB sack can be hard because they trick you into a roughing the passer penalty.
Gameplay - The one major change from GD2000 is the ramped up difficulty. In GD2000's running mode, you could rack up hundreds of yards with ease. Though in GD2K1, you have to EARN your yardage, with jukes and dives. No straight forward running, you have to be tricky. Though the faster backs can do more with less. Passing is similar to GD2000, where if you throw to a man in coverage, they won't be getting the ball often.
The computer AI is improved when you are on defense, but sometimes it does border on cheating. Guys like Randy Moss can torch your DB's on some pass plays that if you do the same will not generate the same results. I have had plenty of leads blown because of my defense not being able to cover (but defense has never been my strong point). Every once in a while you can torch a team (I smothered the 49ers 59-0 playing as St. Louis), but most of the time you have plenty of competitive battles.
What about Madden? - Yes Madden 2001 is out too. In my opinion though, ever since GameDay '99, Madden has been second to GD. Actually, ever since Madden made the change from sprites to polygons, GameDay has been superior. The graphics are better, the announcers are better, and the gameplay is better. Madden does have more features and stats, but GameDay's game play is easier to use and more fluid and fun.
Overall - NFL GameDay 2001 falls into a category for two different types of people. If you have GameDay 2000 and don't need the updated rosters and little graphical touches, don't spend the $40 upgrading. If you have to have the new rosters and all (like me), get GD2K1. At least you won't have to make a gameplay adjustment. Because if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
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