The Good - Late Night Gaming
One of my best friends growing up, Adam, mostly lived near me in his mom’s house after his parents were divorced. His mom would allow him to stay up late as long as he wanted on the conditions that he was quiet and it wouldn’t affect his performance as a student. We exploited his mom’s generosity once he got Madden 2004.
We never actually played games of Madden. Instead, Adam and I would be co-GMs and run a franchise for the full 30 seasons in one sitting (his memory card didn’t have enough space to save a franchise).
At the time, we didn’t really understand the financials too much outside of what a cap space was and how much of that space each player took up. We would always give the best players 7-year deals, regardless if we needed them or not, and for the minimum amount that they would still sign for. Every offseason, we would usually be way over the cap and be forced to trade away a bunch of players for draft picks and then go on and splurge in free agency once again. There was hardly any middle ground as a result. We either had dominant or pitiful teams, and our coaching staffs kept retiring because they were sick or winning or losing all the time.
Madden 2004 was the first game we did these late night marathons on, but it wasn’t the only one. Gran Turismo 4 came after that. Because of the nature of GT4, we had to have a career saved, so Adam had to delete some sports franchises in other games to make room for it. Though he was initially saddened by having to do that, I’m sure he didn’t regret it after the fun we had.
For those who don’t know, GT4 gives you the option to either be in the driver’s seat in A-Spec mode or behind the scenes instructing your driver on what to do in B-Spec mode. Adam and I solely used B-Spec mode. We would micromanage everything. Not only would we do that on the race track but off of it as well. We tuned every car personally and made buying decisions based on very specific reasons based off of in-depth research of potential cars, if in the market for vehicles, or existing cars, if in the market for parts. Of course, being such micromanagers made us clash frequently, but that just added to the experience.
In the case of what we did in Madden 2004 and GT4, we turned single-player functions/modes that we treated as co-op that took up long nights that could have been used for sleeping instead. As expected, our decisions were worse and worse as the night went on due to sleepiness, but we weren’t too hung up on whether or not we were successful or not despite how much effort we put into it.
In a sense, it’s a shame that in later years we swapped out gaming late at night with poker and movies, but I will always have those fond memories of our attempts at being general managers of NFL teams and pit leaders for a racecar driver.
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