NFL GameDay 2004 was Sony's desperate attempt to return the series to its former glory. I miss it greatly. Stock footage from Videvo.net #retrospective #SOFTDRINKTV #game #review #sdtv
From Tony Hawk Games, to NFL 2k5 and Street, NBA street, and some of the older Madden games like 04. Also, what I like to call the GTA of football games, Blitz the League, the WWE games etc. So many great games. I absolutely loved my PS2 and got so much play time out of it
If people don’t know 989 studios ended up becoming SDS that makes MLB The Show. If you know how amazing graphically and gameplay wise The Show is imagine what they could do to MADDEN!
@@pinmaamnip4787 hes right. Most ppl praising it play it the least or not at all. It's franchise is bare, gameplay is stale (the baseball games produced in Japan are more simulation), every online game is essentially a hr derby. Sports ganes overall are just in a terrible state.
It really is fascinating seeing people revisit the older sports titles that many, even back when they were released, simply passed over. There really was a lot of stuff out there back in the day
The level of nostalgia and love of SoftdrinkTV for that era is so strong, watching these videos make me feel 14 year old again. God I love this channel.
@@min-q7404 That was mine too, and when he said it was tough and no easy plays I felt that. It was super hard to get a 65-yard TD on Gameday. it was a grind to get to that endzone.
The very first football game I had as a kid was GameDay 2004 for the PS1. Played the hell out of it and actually preferred it over Madden 04 on the PS1. Also don't forget about NFL Street that came out January '04. It was such a good time to be a football video game fan. Soooo many options
I would've thrown in a mention on how GameDay '98 was the very first football video game to have fully polygonal players. Because that had previously been declared IMPOSSIBLE on PS1.
I wouldn’t call it EA’s crisis, they’re the one that has a money printing machine in ultimate team. It’s the NFL fans that has a crisis, and that crisis is purely the fault of the NFL. Can’t fault EA for cashing in on the sweetheart deal, but I can fault the NFL for offering that deal.
God I used to buy all the football games as a kid madden ESPN 2k gameday and blitz and even nfl fever for Xbox with Peyton on the cover 😭😭I have great memories of all of them ps2 was the greatest era for 🏈 games
I do want to mention that NFL GameDay had Super Bowl stadiums in 2002 and 2003 as well. Also, Madden did include different Super Bowl stadiums as well but only from Madden 10 to Madden 12. Thanks for making another great vid on a forgotten sports game franchise. I really enjoy watching vids on them. There’s a lot a more features that Madden and other sports franchises today left on the table from previous ones. I can’t wait to see what franchise you’ll cover next.
Great work, as always! I actually have a fond memory of this game. Back in 2003, I had just graduated Air Force basic training a few weeks prior, and they were doing a tournament at the BX (basically, a department store) on base for Gameday 2004 prior to its release. I entered as the New York Giants, and got all the way to the finals. Oddly enough, contrary to your part about the earlier games and not having money plays, I was able to get far due to 3 plays that I found that worked for me. Well, I get to the finals and blow a 4th quarter lead and lost my shot at winning a PS2 and a copy of the game. I played in the 3rd place game and showed no mercy to the poor kid that was matched up against me; I beat him like 80-21. I ended up winning a copy of the game and some PlayStation merchandise. I think I still have the messenger bag they gave me!
This channel motivated me to buy ESPN NFL 2K5 and play it with the fan-made NFL 2K23 update. Thanks so much for your vids! Maybe someday I’ll pick up a copy of the old-but-loved Gameday ‘97 and see how it stacks up. I was still playing SNES when it was released, so I missed it. But it might be fun to check out an early PS1-era football game and witness the for-its-time cutting edge graphics, sounds, etc.
I miss the early ps2/Xbox sports game era. We had so many choices between something realistic or arcade based it didn't matter. So much freedom. Now it's all soulless cash grabs 😕
Great video. I remember going every fall to my local Babbage's to get the New NFL GameDay for my PS2. I fondly remember the 2004 edition. Great game. So while most people bought Madden I was playing GameDay.
Never played Gameday but I'm loving all the tiny details here that modern Madden just skimps on. Those pre-game positional warm ups are amazing, the sidelines look so much more realistic on a 15 year old title, the pre-play player movement looks so damn solid, the tench interactions look so great.
Gameday 98 was my 1st football game and i loved it. even though you could literally juke through everyone and score on almost any possession. ahhhh the memories
Great presentation and very informative video. I remember those days I played Gameday 99 for PC and had 2002 for PS1. Good times! Unfortunately now it's sad times 😔
@@RonaldDorsinator great memories waking up Saturday mornings eating the pizza my mom ordered the night before and playing gameday 98 til inside the nfl came on when it use to air on Hbo
Every retrospective you make is a treasure, long time viewer and subscriber but first time commenting. Just want to tell you that we appreciate your hard work and attention to detail, so much.
@@Future_Trunks94 I'll be honest too, I am hooked anytime I see great stadium design in a NFL, NCAAF, MLB, even some basketball games college or pro. Do that at a high level and I am hooked.
Thanks for this one man. The NFL Gameday series on the PS1 are actually the first NFL games I played religiously, to me Madden in the PS1 generation didn't even come close. Hell, Madden wasnt even as good as Blitz or NFL Xtreme, at least to me.
I remember when I was 15 I played Gameday 2004 at Gamestop on the one the Kiosks. My brother and I loved the gameplay so much we bought the game. Unfortunately, the franchise mode in NFL Gameday 2004 was simply not even close to what Madden 04 or even ESPN NFL 2K4 were offering at the time and we both ended up not playing the game after the first week we bought it. P.S. I love the commercials you included in the video, I remember seeing the LT commercials dozens of times
While not always the greatest, I always had a soft spot for gameday because it was so different and unique, and had elements that other football games didn't have. Like some tiny details on the visuals, etc. I miss it dearly, and glad I collected most of them again. Great video.
I have had so many sports games in my collection so my son can experience choices. We kept the ones we liked. Then we had another boy so I'll have to do it all over again 🙂
Used to play the demo of this on one of those old Jampack demo disc's. Recently dug up a copy and was somewhat amused and disappointed. Idk how to describe it but the game kinda feels like it was made by people who don't actually watch football (kinda like madden today). Oh well. there were some cool secret teams and stadiums, and many of the codes to unlock them are lost to time, not on any gaming website or forum I can find online.
Every football game was 🔥 in 2003. There was an NFL video game for everyone. No one was stuck. I was a fan of madden yet I also played what my friends liked, NFL 2k, nfl fever, and game day. Each of us had a specific football game. We even played nfl blitz. It was a great time for football gaming. Great video.
GREAT VID. Another topic you reminded me of in here, despite being a bit broader, is "VOICE CONTROLS". I remember the concept being dabbled back to C64 but during this period, PS2? With GAMEDAY and SOCOM2 making this concept such a featured part of games, it is a real shame it didnt stick around. Socom and Game day both nailed it and really showed how natural they could be
The instrumental with the Sax in the middle of the video was so good and distracting I had to go back and watch the video again to hear the actual essay lol. Great job
Damn this brought me back i just recently got nfl game day with Tom Brady on the cover for my PlayStation I’ll have to see the year later excited to see you review
This was the football video game I grew up with, I would come home from school and the first thing I'd do before I'd do my homework was play one game of NFL GameDay 2004, and I loved every minute of it. It had a great soundtrack too, some of the songs are still in my head after all of these years. You were right about the running backs being over powered, especially the man on the cover, LaDainian Tomlinson. LT in this game was the equivalent of Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl.
It's really sad how sports games have been written off entirely in the modern era of gaming. Even the people who agree with me that gaming is currently at the lowest point it's ever been don't seem to care that sports games have all but turned into low effort digital casinos. They used to be console sellers man, I remember people buying PS2s purely for Madden or MVP Baseball. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and NFL 2K1 are some of the highest rated games of all time on Metacritic (flawed as their system may be, it does prove a point). Even the lower tier (for lack of a better word) games like All-Star Baseball and Gameday 04 here had their followings. I truly think the decline of sports games since the mid aughts is the perfect encapsulation of how far gaming as a whole has fallen since then.
Agreed entirely. Gaming and entertainment in general is become more niche and less geared towards casual fans. Even watching sports is more about gambling and general sports business now more than ever.
I got GameDay 99 for Christmas the year it came out & it was awesome at the time. It wasn’t until Madden 01 that I remember everyone starting to abandon GameDay. My mother in law got me GameDay 2004 for Christmas in 2006…I smiled and just quietly buried it in my closet before firing up Madden 07. I’m sure it was a step up from the past games on PS2 but by that point I was just too much into Madden. Miss those days.
Oh man the names in this video haha REDMAN. I was a GameDay guy. I cannot tell you guys enough how magical it was to go into the Ps2 and Xbox era. Remember sitting in my living room, complete darkness, winter outside, just getting my 12yr old self complete immersed in the graphics and the sound. Wow the sound was amazing. I absolutely loved it. Maybe it was my age, but gaming used to be like a magical adventure. I think that is lost today. And yeah I discovered my sexuality to those exact loading screens 🤣🤣🤣
The read and lead passing is still one of the coolest features of all time. EA did a similar thing with the right stick with Fight Night, and the sense of control you had in both games made improvement and success so rewarding.
The NFL Gameday series was my game back in the day and the gameplay and commentary was amazing, the best thing I loved about the game was when you made a bone crushing hit or tackle the screen was flash white like and you’d hear the thunder and lightning sound effect it was awesome as hell…..not to mention when your player got injured if not mistaken he’d either limp off the field or the ambulance would come out and take him back to the locker room or both, I forgot who was the sideline reporter. Then i switched over to NFL2K4 and then NFL2K5, that was she wrote after 2K5……
I loved GameDay on the PSX (97 and 99 especially), but was disappointed by the PS2 versions. IGN gave 2004 an 8/10 (back when IGN was good), and I played the 2004 demo on the December 2003 OPM disc and LOVED IT!!! One of my favorite football games of all-time, and while the game can be too animation heavy sometimes (despite how beautiful they are), it's still a lot of fun, and I still pop it in from time to time. I have bought and sold this game so many times (just like NBA Live 06).
Man the customization and attention to detail in Gameday 2004 was unreal. You could do some of these things in Madden, but not anywhere to the extent of Gameday. I loved spending hours customizing every single detail of the jerseys, players and stadiums. And the player models looked more realistic compared to then Madden's triangular torsos. I eventually migrated to Madden for a couple years, then to the NCAA series. But Gameday will always hold a special place in my heart.
Having vintage Super Bowl stadiums and fields is an awesome feature! I had no idea about this. I'm a big fan of LA Coliseum, and the columns--I think it would be fun to play on the Super Bowl VII field. Thankfully, these PS2 football games are still pretty affordable...
I remember getting this for Christmas when I was 12. Wasn't a fantastic game but I still enjoyed it. I loved the secret stadiums (I remember there was one when the players were almost in space suits playing on a highway and to this day I can't find a picture of it-stadium 2050?). The game was kind of predictable (I could use the same punt return formation to get a guaranteed touchdown). I also remember constantly getting penalized yet it was rare the CPU got one unless it was for pass interference? I think they left at the right time mainly with EA and the NFL making the competition disappear. As you mentioned, good game for a rebuild but too little too late to threaten EA or 2k. It was nice to see competition and a selection to choose from as you mentioned. Now the guys at EA make like one change and don't fix the glitches and that applies to not just Madden. One of these things is we all long the days of competition to choose from but I don't think it'll ever happen again for the NFL which is unfortunate. Great video btw! :)
Hey man I don’t if you’re going to read this but legit watch your video almost every day. After seeing this video I would love to see you make one on nfl fever
GameDay 98 had Jerome Bettis on the cover. My dad, bigtime Stillers fan, bought the cardboard cutout from EB Games, and had my PSOne on lockdown. I was pretty much only allowed to play GameDay growing up. The series was pretty high tier til the PS2 era, but 04 looks especially like a solid game.
My Guy soft drink with ANOTHER W.. this game was INTEGRAL to my child hood.. I played this before owning madden, and actually loved the game ALOT more.. the game was very realistic and taught my football more than any madden game had ever done.. it was a beautiful game and very underrated that many didn’t know about. Tbh if they revamped this SAME game w newer features and such, I think they could actually compete with EA and that’s how good this game day game was.. nostalgia COULD be failing me, but for me to remember this game above all else means a lot
If you weren’t around or too young during this time, You missed out on a great Era for sports games. Having multiple titles for different sports games seems so unreal now.
Would love a more comprehensive video where you break down the gameplay and features of Gameday 2004. It was my first PS2 football game and while it was a step up from my N64 copy of Madden 01, kid me just wasn't satisfied until I would get my hands on Madden 2005 and ESPN 2K4/5. It's interesting seeing the praise now as an adult, what about it did kid me not like? I think it'd be great to see a video where you go over what made this game good
hey man , just a question what madden do u still play the most in your spare time. or what game would u recommend i would have a good franchise mode experience as well as presentation?
I've been begging anyone that could ask San Diego Studios to go back and remake GameDay to push EA like it used to. Thank you for letting these young ones know what once was. Most think Madden is all there ever was and nothing ever was close.
I never played this one, but I played the earlier games on PS1. I really liked them and I also liked the NCAA Gamebreaker games. This game looks really solid. It's so strange that they made 2005 for PS1 but not PS2.
I didn’t even realize game day was still going this late, never was a fan but can’t remember why, probably because of my age during psone and the difficulty
Without question, the most "playable" video football game ever created. I can't say it replaced Madden in my list, because there were things about Gameday that were less deep than Madden. But goddamn if dropping a perfect 360 degree spin move with Warrick Dunn and going yard wasn't the single most fun thing I've ever done in a football game. I miss this so much I wish I still had an old PS2 to play it.
Great vid! I was a Die hard fan of 989 sports during the ps1 era. Faceoff, shootout, GameDay series were all a blast man! I Preferred them over EA. Truly miss the sports game competition we had back then!
I remember seeing NFL Gameday 2005 at FYE and thought it was so bizarre they were still releasing PS1 games when the Xbox 360 and PS3 were about less than a year away from releasing.
after watching this video i’ve been playing this game for the past few hours and it’s actually pretty fun ngl i’ve found myself engaged and enjoying it
