Front Page Sports: Football

Dynamix/Sierra

Nobody had ever seen anything like Front Page Sports: Football when it debuted in 1992. Sierra On-Line's Dynamix division crafted the game to be a total re-creation of the NFL, complete in nearly every way. Just presenting the basics of the sport wasn't good enough for this design team. Along with a meticulous depiction of the gridiron game, Dynamix painstakingly detailed every aspect of NFL operations, from custom playbooks for every team to multiseason career play. It was every die-hard football fan's dream come true. Actually, it was every computer-owning football fan's dream come true, as there were no other credible football games available for the PC at that time.

Revamped graphics made the '96 edition the best.

So it shouldn't be much of a surprise to learn that the original game developed a sizable following in short order. The series really took off with the release of Front Page Sports: Football Pro 95. Many still regard that game as the Holy Grail of football simulations, a remarkable achievement that has yet to be matched. Some of its features evoke envy even today. For example, the CD-ROM version came with 10,000 different plays, a figure that was light years removed from the measly two dozen or so included with Madden games of the time. Each team used different playbooks designed to accentuate their strengths. And a complex play editor let you design and store your own plays if you didn't find enough choice in the default selections.

Franchise play was truly outstanding. You could get lost in Football Pro 95 for months, guiding a club from season to season, through good times and bad, from rebuilding years to championship drives. Seasons unfolded like stories, with every game, signing, and trade somehow interacting. There was something natural about the way that everything unfolded. What's more, the AI was spectacular. And very, very astute. Along with responding to single-game trends, the computer reacted to plays used frequently in earlier weeks in the season as if it had scouts in the stands watching those contests. As a result, the killer play that surprised everyone in week three wasn't nearly as effective in week six. No other sports game in memory provided as much of a long-term challenge as Front Page Sports: Football Pro 95.

Later editions improved the eye candy, if not the stability.

The only thing that really stood between the Front Page Sports: Football Pro line and mass-market acceptance was terrible quality control. Every one of the releases after Football Pro 95 was seriously unstable. Stability actually seemed to decline every year. The '96 edition crashed to the desktop only every once in a while, but the '98 one went down all the time. Numerous patches were required to make it even remotely playable, and even then, problems persisted. Such shoddy programming reached a nadir with the '99 version, which was released to stores to meet the 1998 holiday rush in a completely unplayable state. Sierra briefly considered patching the game but then decided to abandon the series entirely in January of 1999. A recall notice was issued, and the game was pulled from the shelves. Lingering attachment to the series caused a few hard-core fans to attempt fixing the game on their own, though most just cursed Sierra and turned their attentions back to the 95 or 96 games (both of which are still played in online leagues).

Although the Front Page Sports: Football line died an ugly death, the influence of the series lingered. In addition to the way that it forced EA Sports to adopt management options in the Madden series, it spawned a host of imitators. Unfortunately, most of the copies were also-rans that lasted just one or two seasons. ABC Monday Night Football was probably the best of these games, earning a devoted following that demanded and received a sequel. Others, such as Accolade's wholly worthless Legends Football 98 and Blue Sky Software's interesting but fatally flawed Total Control Football, weren't worth anyone's time or money.

Looking on the positive side of things, one can make a case that Front Page Sports: Football made it possible for later football management games to thrive. Without Dynamix and Sierra bringing franchise play and serious stat-crunching to the masses, it's hard to imagine the likes of the Front Office Football and Action! PC Football lines of text-based management simulators building such substantial followings.