Football Pro 98, Online Leagues Alive and Well

[MikeMcMahon]

I recently joined the PNFL, an online simulation-based league for Football Pro 98 and took over the Dallas Cowboys (even though I can't stand the Cowboys IRL).

Here's a video of my second game:

The beauty of this game is that every play you see being executed is the creation of a current or past owner. If you look closely at the plays you can see the impact of the more innovative coaches in that you see other coaches adapt what they created to their own plays.

A week in the PNFL looks like this:
Sunday Night: Submit new custom plays to commish
Monday-Friday: Scout your upcoming opponent, reverse engineer their playbook and playcalling tendencies, develop a playbook and playcalling tendency to beat them.
Friday Night: Set roster for game
Saturday Night: Submit final gameplans to commish.
Sunday Morning: View results

[bhurst99]

That video brings back some great memories. I was in a two person, one AI, 12-team FBPRO 96 league (we controlled five teams each, the AI controlled two) and we spent hours creating plays. It got to the point where our offenses were so powerful we were putting up 40 points a game with ease. We had moved on the creating defensive plays when we stopped playing.

There were some crazy user made programs that allowed you to edit the schedule, keep track of who committed penalties and knockdowns, edit draft classes, etc. I've still kept all the stats.

We played five seasons and every season took a year of real life time which shows how dedicated we were.

[Purplepower_NC]

Ahhh...FP Pro. It has to be the best football game ever made. We had a league of 5 of us, that would get together every Sat and play head to head, and if we had to play a CPU team, two of us would take over as Def/Off Cord. We would spend hrs making plays, and thinking all week how to stop a certain team or play.

[bhurst99]

Quote: Originally Posted by Purplepower_NC

Ahhh...FP Pro. It has to be the best football game ever made. We had a league of 5 of us, that would get together every Sat and play head to head, and if we had to play a CPU team, two of us would take over as Def/Off Cord. We would spend hrs making plays, and thinking all week how to stop a certain team or play.

I don't know about best football game ever made. The one major weakness the game had was that you couldn't run effectively between the tackles. Every run play you made had to be a sweep.

[MikeMcMahon]

Quote: Originally Posted by bhurst99

I don't know about best football game ever made. The one major weakness the game had was that you couldn't run effectively between the tackles. Every run play you made had to be a sweep.

You can definitely run between the tackles in the PNFL. Outside runs have a higher average, yes, but if you have the right inside runs for the right situations, you will do better than 4YPC consistently. Take a look at the last drive in the highlights. I got a lot of yardage grinding the ball between the tackles. My favorite is the excellent cutback by #21 (Garrett Wolfe).

[GlennN]

I actually like 97 better than 98. Are you running it under Windows 7? I couldn't get 97 or 98 to run in Windows 7.

[bhurst99]

Quote: Originally Posted by MikeMcMahon

You can definitely run between the tackles in the PNFL. Outside runs have a higher average, yes, but if you have the right inside runs for the right situations, you will do better than 4YPC consistently. Take a look at the last drive in the highlights. I got a lot of yardage grinding the ball between the tackles. My favorite is the excellent cutback by #21 (Garrett Wolfe).

That's interesting. I never really got into FP98 as there was something about it at the time I didn't like but I can't recall it now. I stuck with FP96 and you definitely couldn't get 4 YPC between the tackles inFB96.

[MikeMcMahon]

Quote: Originally Posted by bhurst99

That's interesting. I never really got into FP98 as there was something about it at the time I didn't like but I can't recall it now. I stuck with FP96 and you definitely couldn't get 4 YPC between the tackles inFB96.

Well, it may just be that in the many many many years that the PNFL has been running, defenses have been crafted with the specific intent of taking away the outside run on first down. This is done with lots of point read/zone/run defense logic on the outside, which doesn't help much with quick inside running. Another important thing about inside running you can't do it with a heavy set. The best way to run outside is with a single back and receivers spreading the defenders out wide (since man coverage tends to dominate).

Quote: Originally Posted by GlennN

I actually like 97 better than 98. Are you running it under Windows 7? I couldn't get 97 or 98 to run in Windows 7.

FBPro98 runs fine in windows 7 32 bit for me. In 64 bit, it will run, but the patching executable does not. Best thing to do here is to use virtualization software like VMWare and have a virtual install of something like Windows XP. I know I've run FBPro98 on macs just fine this way.