[JayhawkerStL]

I came to the Dreamcast late, but bought it specifically for NFL2K1. I didn’t move on to other consoles until the GameCube got 2K3.

FWIW, I felt like this was an acceptable dipping of my toes into the kiddie football games. I put up with the complete lack of sim quality gameplay because it looked so good. I chose a GameCube over the Xbox because my kid had just gotten old enough to play games.

I mean, I had to get over the fact that kids were calling a game a sim, while using a controller to do spins. The leagues I had been running had custom plays and playbooks, as well as rosters. But 2K was fun in a “dressed up TECMO for adults” kind of way.

But then, I escaped Madden and console football for FBPro. And while 2K was better than Madden, it was always odd to see folks revere it so much as sim, even with 2K5 on the Xbox. Loved playing it, and ran leagues. Never ever felt sim, to me.

It’s why I found it easy to enjoy Madden once it really started to improve around Madden 15. I was never looking for a sim, but just a fun “dressed up TECMO for adults.” It’s why a next gen version of 2K8, with current and past stars sounds like an awesome game, to me.

I loved 2K, and was pretty bitter at EA, but it never made me pretend 2K was ever more than it was. It was my third most played football franchise, behind FBPro and Madden (with this recent run of games). But it’s ahead of the text based games like Action PC Football.