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Originally Posted by Anachronism
What every happened to front page sports football? That game was simple, smooth, and had the beginnings of a good career mode.
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To me, nothing since has come close. I was heavily involved in FPS Football from 1995-1999, ran some online leagues and played in many many more. By itself FPS 98 was the most stable, playable of their games and I'd consider it a reasonable simulation of football, although over the course of many seasons the accuracy of the statistical engine and thus the playability would suffer as the player development and draft talent algorithms would start topping out.
Combined with 3rd party utilities made by folks like Lorne Sundby (the King!), Shaun Sullivan, Gelat, and later the VPNFL crew - this game was and probably still is the best combination of all facets of football sims. Reasonably accurate statistics, graphical representation that wouldn't stress anyone's setup (but also wouldn't come close to the current standards in Madden or ESPN), a full stock playbook and the ability to design plays with few limitations, lots of statistics, and an overall feel of realism that I personally haven't felt since.
When Sierra released FPBRO99, it was fatally buggy. They recalled it, and then scrapped the game and canned the entire development team and division, just before they were bought out. Thus the death of FBPRO. For years many continued to play, and there is still a core of gamers that continue to play it in online leagues, although they are very scarce. There were many attempts by folks with programming experience to contact Sierra and buy the code, with no success.
I have no doubt if Shaun Sullivan had tackled creating a football sim it would have been as equally impressive as his fine baseball sim.
This is not to say that some of the current offerings aren't solid, but as yet I have been unable to recapture the 'immersion factor' that FBPRO inspired.