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OrionX -> RE: Football, anyone? (5/17/2006 12:27:29 PM)
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For those that don't know this I'll tell you a short story.
There used to be a football game on the PC that went by the name of FBPro (Football Pro). I believe the very first edition was released in 1994 and while it wasn't eye pooping for graphics it was pretty good and the statistical tracking system for that period in time was down right fantastic. FBpro lived until 1999 - well actually FBpro'99 was pulled of store shelves due to literally game-stopping bugs. If FBpro'99 was tested correctly and not released in it's state at that time, it is very possible the PC market for football simulations (not games) but simulations would be very.....very different right now. However, Sierra Entertainment, Inc., a studio of Vivendi Universal Games, screwed the whole thing up because they wanted to release the game as is no matter what the cost and so they did. That resulted in the pulling of every FBPro'99 sim off of every shelf in the United States and wherever else they sold it.
So where did Shaun Sullivan come into play? Well, lets see - the man released some of the best and most comprehensive game utilities/tools in PC football history. Without his utilities (and of course some others out there) FBpro'98, FBPro'97 wouldn't have ever been what they were. The one utility I remember the most was;
*FPEdit '98 - it was the most powerful tool that can be used to modify almost anything in Front Page Sports Football (for '97 & '98).
Oh and Shaun also made one for Front Page Sports Baseball '98 (another sports sim by Sierra Entertainment). This tool was tooted as the best utility to ever hit the PC market for Baseball simulations.
The story ends when the demise of Front Page Sports Football, due to the lack of care, motivation, and just plain stupidty of Sierra Entertainment stops production of all their sports simulations and decides it can not compete with EA's Maddens series. However, what Sierra Entertainment didn't know was that it wasn't the beautiful graphics that the end-user wanted. It was the customization abilities and statistical data tracking that we wanted. So sometime in 1999 Shaun made his utilities freeware instead of shareware. In fact, it was on 10/23/99 that Shaun decided to do this. He then announced his "new" project called Puresim Baseball. [&o]
I'd be willing to bet that if Shaun reads this he will be lead down the path of memories that may even make him shed a tear or two.
This is why I motioned that Shaun Sullivan, the creator of two of the best utilities to ever hit the PC regarding sports simulations, to produce an American pro-football simulation that may even expand to college and other rule sets.
We all know Shaun knows & understands Baseball but believe me when I say that he has that same understanding of football as well. To this day there are leagues still playing FBPro'98 (the most stable fo the series) since that game provides fun, stats, and a lot more features than I want to go into right now.
Seriously, Shaun and Matrix needs to sit down and talk pro-football, PS style. [;)]
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