GamerXchange:
We are drawing closer to the start of the NFL season, this is always an exciting time of year for me personally. I played football at both the high school and college level, I’m about as big of a football fan as there possibly could be, so it makes sense that I always look forward to new football video games, or at least I did until EA got exclusive NFL Licensing rights and pretty much killed the competition by garnering a monopoly in the market. To this day, when someone brings up the all time best NFL game of all time, ESPN NFL 2K5 is always the front-runner in this topic of conversation. The main reason that people still talk about it being the best, is because it still offers features you cant find in the latest edition of Madden, ESPN NFL 2K5 came out in 2004 and it still plays as tight as ever, sometimes its a real joy to break out retro games and play through them, this is one retro game that I seriously couldn’t stop playing.
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Yes, July 20th will mark the exact 20-year point for this classic sports title, which made its debut on the original Xbox (and PlayStation 2) to incredible reviews. The Xbox release actually has the best Metacritic rating of the two as it's a slightly better version, with the average sitting at a whopping 92/100. Yes, this game really was that good!
Not a chance on an official remaster but the PC mod scene should be able to help you out.
NBA 2K19 has caused quite a bit of trouble and heartache for fans, given its latest ad situation. But how did it get that far? Perhaps ESPN NFL 2K5 is the game that ruined all sports games forever.
ESPN can barely keep the lights on, they haven’t had influence in sports in over a decade let alone the gaming industry. Literally has nothing to do with Take Two and the NBAs ad partners
Pixel Critique's month-long tribute to the games of 2004 continues with a football game that managed to feature David Arquette, and still change the world.
Crazy how this game is still the best when it comes to simulating real football. It's sad that Madden will never get competition.
Beat me to it. By far, one of the best games to have the NFL license. I am lucky to still have a Phat PS3 and so I can still (and do) play it.
I believe there were roster updates until a point, but I'm not sure if they still happen.
It's amazing to think that 2K5 is still selling new copies to this day.
Never got to play this, but I hear it was really good. I just HATE the fact that EA has exclusive rights to the NFL license. It's BS, really.
A game I really liked last gen was Backbreaker. I like the behind the shoulder cam, which made you feel like you were right there in the action. And the tackles looked great because of their collision engine. Sadly, it didn't do too well because they weren't allowed to have the real teams.
As a FULL game, Backbreaker was pretty bad. HOWEVER, there were elements of that game that were SUPERB! The physics that drove that game were AWESOME. The collisions that were created, and physics driven, were unique each and every time. I liked it because it was so different. However, I wonder if a developer with more knowledge of the sport (they were completely NEW to football) would have gotten a hold of it, what could have been? I give props to the devs of Backbreaker, because they were TRYING! Madden seems to have just stopped trying. They keep selling football...one piece at a time. Oh, and cherry picking 2K5 for "new" ideas. LOL
Yea, I agree. It could have been a better game if it had devs, or maybe was just a more fleshed out game. Still, I think it would have benefited from the NFL license. And those tackles were awesome, lol.
Def. the best football game ever. Such good memories playing this with my best friend. We use to keep a notebook of our games win loss and whatnot, I think we played over 200 games lol.
