The first wave of Thanksgiving Weekend purchases has arrived! As with other recent collection additions, many of these are upgrades to games I already had– but now the discs and cases are in far better shape.
For example…
This is a factory-sealed copy of NFL Xtreme 2 from 1999. That means, yes… this game has been unopened for more than 25 years. The price tag is from Circuit City. As with all of the sealed games I pick up, I’ll be opening this one when I’m ready to play it, as it’s a definite upgrade to the copy I had before.
What is NFL Xtreme 2? Well, it’s the second and final game of a series that was created to capitalize on the popularity of NFL Blitz. 989 Sports adapted its NFL GameDay engine and simplified the playcalling, while adding over-the-top animations and trash talk from players. To be clear, NFL Xtreme 2 is no NFL Blitz. It’s not even close. However, fans of the NFL GameDay series may find more to like about these games. It’s not bad, but makes me want to play Blitz instead.
Next up?
Grudge Warriors is new to my collection and completely new to me. I wish I had some additional context or personal experience to share, but grabbing this literally came down to, “Oh, this looks interesting… and I don’t have it yet. Sold!”
Moving on…
Knockout Kings 2001 arrived before this one did, and I needed to upgrade both games. My history with this game stems from my time with FuncoLand in late 1998, when I was an assistant manager. My staff used to play it from time to time when the store was quiet, and I used to watch. I really hadn’t played a boxing game since Super Punch-Out!! for the SNES, so trying to play this was… rough. I did have fun watching others play it, though.
These days, as a fan of older sports video games, it’s more about representation in my collection for as many sports games as I can find for the PlayStation. I don’t have to be good at the games– or even have experience with them– to want to have them so I can check them out at will. But this game, along with CyberTiger, carries FuncoLand memories… and that makes me happy.
Let’s take a look at the next game…
There was a time when NBA LIVE ruled the video game basketball court. NBA LIVE 2001 was the first of the cross-gen games in the series– which means we saw versions for the original PlayStation and the then-new PlayStation 2. While the games remained popular for the PlayStation at the time, I personally thought the series was becoming more of an afterthought for the older hardware. That said, there wasn’t much competition left. Konami had moved on from NBA In The Zone, and FOX Sports was one-and-done after NBA Basketball 2000. 989 Sports had taken over the NBA ShootOut franchise, and it never really found footing compared to LIVE.
This copy of NBA LIVE 2001 is an upgrade. Other LIVE games in my library are in new condition (NBA LIVE 98 is one of these, and my favorite of the series on PlayStation), but NBA LIVE 2001 was in rougher shape. Older sports games like this are generally cheaply upgradeable. They’re also a fun way to build a collection on a budget… if you enjoy sports games, that is.
Speaking of (more) sports games…
As NCAA Football was to Madden, so too was NCAA GameBreaker to NFL GameDay. Adapting the pro games to college appealed to large audiences, and college football has a very dedicated fanbase. While EA’s NCAA Football series would go on to enjoy 15 years of success across two console generations, Sony’s NCAA GameBreaker series stumbled after its run on the original PlayStation and struggled with cancellations and weak showings on the PlayStation 2 before being shut down by Sony.
NCAA GameBreaker 2001 was the last of the series for the original PlayStation. It went out on a decent note, I feel. There’s plenty of content here and solid levels of presentation. Hearing Keith Jackson on commentary was (and still is) pretty awesome. If you watched any big college football games back then, you knew that voice. “Whoa, nelly!”
This one’s also an upgrade. Many of the games in this series that I own were bought early on in my collecting journey, as they were cheap. They’re also not in the best shape… and landing sealed copies was tough in the second half of the 2010s into modern day as prices were elevated due to the NCAA falling out of video games for awhile… and now sealed PlayStation games have been going up in value.
One last game for this log…
The more I think about it, the more I think that hockey is probably my favorite sub-genre in sports video games. While there may be individual games within other sports that will always be on my list of all-time favorites, like NBA JAM, NFL Blitz, and MVP Baseball 2005, hockey games are the ones I consistently go back to and enjoy across multiple console generations… even modern-day.
The NHL FaceOff series, like NFL GameDay, enjoyed a head start over EA. NHL 96 was never a thing for the original PlayStation, so NHL FaceOff ran practically unopposed for months. NHL FaceOff 97 was more of a roster update, with some minor presentation changes…and then came NHL FaceOff 98. This game, while good, had no chance against NHL 98. None. Even while updating to polygonal player models and increasing the game speed, EA had NHL FaceOff 98 beat in presentation, gameplay, and fun factor. It not that Killer Game didn’t try with this effort– it’s that the gap in quality was far too wide to overcome, and this gap remained for the rest of the Original PlayStation Era.
Still– the NHL FaceOff series is a key part of original PlayStation history, at least in my view. It’s important to me, as a fan of sports video games and the original PlayStation, to have the series intact and in good shape. This was my last missing piece in that regard.
And thus ends another Collector’s Log entry. I know there’s been a lot of sports games, but the games coming from eStarland soon are more diverse. There will be different things I’ll be writing about, too, including my goals for collecting next year and why I collect and open sealed games.
For now, though? Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
Pete's Perspective 
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