NFL 2K1 for Sega Dreamcast

When the Dreamcast launched on 9.9.99, one thing that it brought back was something that had been missing since the days of the Genesis: Sega Sports. Sega Sports was a pretty well known name brand that once faced off against juggernaut EA.

With Sega's acquisition of Visual Concepts, they were sure to have a sports product to compete with the likes of the Madden NFL franchise. However, we all know that wouldn't be the case as EA refused to publish games for Dreamcast, for reasons that probably will never be known. One interview with Bing Gordon states that EA didn't understand the chip set that Dreamcast used, and refused to learn a new one, and others say that EA simply lost faith in Sega (too simple of an answer, if you ask me).

EA's stand-offishness attitude on the Dreamcast elevated the Sega Sports vs. EA Sports rivalry into something different. It became more than a rivalry between which brand of football game was better, it was about which company was better, which console was better.

In my mind, there's no doubt that NFL 2K1 crushes Madden NFL 2001. I am not a fan of sports in general, and that trickles down to me not being a fan of sports games in general. However, with the hype surrounding NFL 2K1 when it came out, I had to give it a try, and I liked what I saw. Sure, it was football, but it was fun. So, when NFL 2K1 released in September of 2000, I was ready and waiting to play it.

The game looked great, it played great, and the VMU was fucking great when playing what an opponent next to you, so they couldn't see your plays. But what really makes NFL 2K1 worth writing about is that it was the first online gaming experience that many gamers had at that time, and it was a success.

In retrospect, I am more amazed now at what Sega was able to pull off with a 56K dial-up modem than I was then. This wasn't Chu Chu Rocket (which will probably be a DCGW later on), this was a very graphically intensive game with what was, at the time, some really cool audio.

Gamers went online, ended up in a lobby, set up a game in one of several modes, and then you were in. This game didn't support voice chat, that would come later on with Alien Front Online, but you could use a keyboard, which was pretty cheap and a lot of people had them.

I didn't even know that there was a "Coach Mode" in the game until I was at a friend's house, (you know him as krazy), and someone asked, "coach mode, cool?" He joined the game and quickly left after realizing what he had agreed to.

That was the same day that I realized how popular Dricas Gaming had become. I had contributed to DricasWorld for years, but the owner Jonathan realized that there was an oversight in Sega's online plans. There was no ranking system. So, he created a website to rank the best players. When I was at krazy's place, the "coach mode, cool" guy was the only one willing to play him because everyone else said, "r u dricas?" and refused to play him because he wasn't a member yet.

Those were good days, the budding of online game communities brought together through online gaming; the console game becoming a social activity even when you're alone at home. Gaming communities online really became expanded to not the kinds of people who went to game forums before, but everyone.

Dreamcast really helped to bring gaming mainstream in a whole new way, thanks to being an internet ready console out of the box, and NFL 2K1 will always embody the beginnings of that to me.