Wayback Wednesday: Failed Franchise & Season Games
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at some of my failed franchise and season mode games, and reflecting on whether they’re actually failures.
Over the years in Wayback Wednesday, I’ve reminisced about several of my most memorable franchise, season, and career mode games. While they all represent fun times on the virtual hardwood for me, they haven’t been equally successfully as far as completion is concerned. Games where I’ve played through an entire season on twelve minute quarters stand out as the times I’ve really been hooked on the experience, but they’re arguably the exception rather than the rule. There are far more titles that I’ve never finished a single season in, than ones where I’ve had multi-year games.
Of course, as I’ve noted before, completion is what you make it when it comes to the annual sim titles. Unless you stick with a single game for more than a year, it’s tough to get the full multi-year experience in franchise and career modes; especially when you opt for full length seasons on twelve minute quarters without simulating! Even in the games where I didn’t finish the season, I still had a ton of fun. With that being said, there are also franchise and season mode games that I abandoned very quickly. To that end, this week I’m reflecting on some “failed” games, and pondering the concept of “failure” in that context. Let’s take a look back…way back…
Obviously, I’ve already recounted some of my most memorable franchise and season games that I didn’t play through to completion. My cousin and I had a fantastic 1995 season going in the PC version of NBA Live 95, which we would only play when he visited during the school holidays. Over time, I acquired newer games and hardware, and we moved on accordingly. The same goes for my 1998 season in NBA Live 96 PC, using my rosters. I went to great lengths to keep it going, but eventually started playing newer titles. NBA Live 2003 halted my NBA Live 2002 Kings Franchise, and then souring on that game brought my Timberwolves Franchise to an early close.
Those are some of my favourite franchise and season games that I remember well, and to that point, I don’t consider them failures. It would’ve been nice to finish at least one of them of course, and I regret that I lost the save files meaning I can’t dust them off, but the fond memories that I created with them are a clear indication of how much I enjoyed those games. It’s the games that I abandoned quite quickly, and have vaguer memories of, that are more interesting to reflect upon here. I can’t recall enough about them to produce detailed retrospectives, but the fact I have a few shows how easy it is to end up with a “failed” game. They also demonstrate that “failure” is a relative term.
Let’s begin with my failed Celtics Season in NBA Live 99 PC. After seeing it on the shelf at my local video store countless times, I finally decided to rent Celtic Pride. It’s no masterpiece, but it’s an enjoyable basketball movie that makes a couple of astute observations about rabid sports fanaticism. In any case, it planted the idea of playing a season with the Celtics in my head. I opted for NBA Live 99 PC, as that was a game I’d never finished a full season in before. As it turned out, this fanciful idea wouldn’t change that, as I only played a handful of games before tapping out. Looking back now, I’m not surprised that the idea failed mere days into the virtual 1999 season.
As much as I like NBA Live 99 and hold it in high regard now, at the time, it wasn’t yet old enough to be truly nostalgic. Furthermore, while that Celtics squad had some interesting players including Antoine Walker and a rookie Paul Pierce, I couldn’t form enough of an attachment to the team to be motivated to play through a whole season with them. In hindsight, a standalone Playoffs, or even just a few exhibition games – maybe even after creating the characters from Celtic Pride – would’ve been a better idea. Still, I can’t look back on it as a waste of time. I wanted to play a basketball game, I’d recently enjoyed a basketball movie, and so I tried an out-of-the-box idea.
The interesting thing about out-of-the-box ideas for franchise, season, and even career modes in basketball video games is that they’re a stark dichotomy. They’ll either be incredibly fun because they create such a unique scenario, or they’ll completely ruin the experience when they turn out to be too strange or silly. That happened to me in NBA Live 2002 when I had the bright idea of taking control of the Utah Jazz in a Franchise, trading John Stockton for Mike Bibby, acquiring Scottie Pippen, and then turning Karl Malone into a bench player. It was a ridiculous scenario that was funny for about as long as it took to set up, and then proved to be a dud during gameplay.
This is why I’ve generally preferred to begin a franchise mode game with real rosters, and then allow fictional scenarios to develop as the season progresses. Setting up a wild scenario from opening night, or making too many moves too soon, has tended to ruin the experience for me. At the same time, real rosters aren’t a sure-fire recipe for success either. When my cousin and I were trying to get into NBA Live 2001 – a game I’ve come to appreciate, but definitely have issues with – we started a Bulls Franchise. I recall simulating some games in order to reach the All-Star Game, but it wasn’t a fun team to use. Frankly, my cousin had incredible patience to go along with the idea!
Being a much younger gamer who’d grown up with NBA Live and stubbornly didn’t want to admit that the series had erred in any way – even though I clearly saw that it had – I kept trying to get hooked on a Franchise in NBA Live 2001. However, my solo efforts weren’t any more successful than the one my cousin and I attempted. The one that sticks out in my memory was a Knicks Franchise in which I managed to acquire Chris Webber and Jason Kidd, while absolutely gutting the bench. Thinking back, I must’ve played about five games before calling it quits. Neither the scenario, nor NBA Live 2001’s gameplay, were appealing enough for me to stick it out any longer.
One of my strangest failed franchise games is my Bulls Dynasty in NBA Live 2005. It’s unusual, not only because the same scenario worked out so much better the very next year in NBA Live 06, but also because I don’t quite remember how it fell apart. I can’t recall souring on the gameplay, and the story topic that I was maintaining for it basically ended without fanfare or announcement – though I did note that I was still playing, just not bothering with further updates – so nothing’s jogged my memory as to how I came to shelve it prematurely. Looking at the dates though, I was probably focusing on making offseason roster updates, and covering NBA Live 06 previews.
I do remember that before that Bulls Dynasty, I’d attempted to begin one with the Cavaliers, who of course featured an exciting second year player named LeBron James. It didn’t last long at all though, at which point I went back to my favourite team. I could’ve sworn I created a story topic for it, but apparently not. However, while digging through the archives of our Stories section, I was reminded that I did start a 1996 season Dynasty with the Bulls in NBA Live 2004, using my mod. I’d completely forgotten about that! It didn’t last long, but it was still a joy to discover, as I’ve always regretted not using that 1996 mod more often after finally completing it.
Although I had the good sense to hang on to my NBA Live 06 Bulls Dynasty in case I wanted to pick it up again – which I ultimately did – I made an effort to get into NBA Live 09 and NBA Live 10 on Xbox 360. Mind you, it could’ve been a much better effort! Going back and reading the story topic for my NBA Live 09 Bulls Dynasty, I was cringing at how I was kind of blowing off people who were genuinely interested in it, just because of my own lukewarm enthusiasm. Considering how I was hooked on Fallout 3 and struggling to really get into NBA Live 09 – another game I’ve grown more appreciative of since then – I should’ve held off on beginning that story topic.
Attempts to start Dynasty games with the Bulls and Cavs in NBA Live 10 imploded even faster, and were definitely failures. It’s funny to look back on now following my huge NBA Live 10 kick in 2021, and how well the Bulls did in 2011 with players who were also a part of the 2010 squad. At the time though, I wasn’t feeling the gameplay, and was also rather disillusioned with the team’s direction. I also missed playing on PC, where capturing screenshots was easier. I should’ve given both the game and the Bulls more of a chance, but if nothing else, I shouldn’t have started those topics until I was sure that I could follow through. It was a valuable learning experience, at least!
Indeed, the same could be said of all the franchise and season mode games that I didn’t complete, though those failed NBA Live 10 Dynasties were extreme examples. Beyond the obvious lesson to hold off on a story topic and avoid hyping everyone up for content that I couldn’t deliver, the games that didn’t pan out helped me to develop an approach to franchise gaming that would be more successful. They demonstrated that some ideas for wacky scenarios are more fun in theory than in practice, because the novelty ends up wearing off extremely quickly. Above all, it’s impossible to truly enjoy sinking time into a mode if you’re not enthusiastic about a title’s gameplay.
As for the ones that ran a little longer, they were fun while they lasted. Any franchise or season that kept me hooked for several months was successful in its own right, and I might’ve seen a few of them through to the end if not for school, work, modding, and other things getting in the way. Again, completion is what you make it, and as long as you enjoy your time on the sticks, then it wasn’t time wasted. Compared to the grinding and online woes in MyCAREER and its connected modes, those abandoned franchise and season games are also far less frustrating! They didn’t yield any virtual rings, but they nevertheless represent fun times and enthusiasm for basketball gaming.
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