We unfortunately lost legendary commentator John Madden this past December, and in honor of that I decided to write the annual football game review then and there instead of waiting. So this is being written December 31st in the wee hours of the morning while playing through these four games and then writing this post (and yes, I wrote it concurrent with finalizing the previous post). Madden 98 was the last Madden game- and among the last games in general- released for the Sega Genesis and SNES.
So I have been paying zero attention to football this year. So little in fact that even though I must have seen at least one full game and like four or five half games, I can’t even begin to recall what I saw. So instead of hastily researching a prediction, I’m just going to say the Buccaneers will win the Super Bowl because Tom Brady and it really doesn’t matter what team they face. So since the other team does not matter, in my simulations they will go against the Tennessee Oilers (because I pay so little attention that I still think they’re a thing).
Sega Genesis
It plays like any other Madden game I’ve played, what more can I say? You can select how long each quarter is, which stadium you’re at, which teams you go up against, the weather, you can even substitute players. A lot of customization that I can’t even begin to understand or grasp, as an almost non-football fan. Something different that I saw here is that you can have up to four people playing, so go ahead and have two friends on one team versus two on another and argue with your chum over strategy and who gets to be the QB. Turn Madden night into Monopoly night!
Getting a grasp on the controls was a little awkward at first. Navigating the menus is easy, but throwing the ball is not. You have to tap the same button you start a play with a second time in order to engage the “select who you want to throw to mode”- which means letters corresponding to control pad buttons appear underneath players you can throw to. It took me longer than I care to admit to figure this out, long enough that the other team got a touchdown in. Not that it mattered, they clobbered me.
The game has a very limited selection of John Madden sound bites that it will play for you, but it also seems to have a “records” section for longest yards ran and passed and what have you. I also like the music- it sounds almost like rejected tracks from the first Sonic game.
Super Nintendo
The music was a little blander here… though the sound on my SNES was failing so maybe that was part of it too. These were the same tracks, just done on the SNES’ music program. It did have more sound clips than the Genesis version though, even had some of Madden’s co-announcer (I believe this is Pat Summerall, both of whom I am, familiar with because of this little nugget from 1998… while I never really was a football fan, I did enjoy his performance there and learned of his existence that way). Also like the Genesis version, three buttons are used to navigate the menus and the plays are even shown as being designed with three buttons in mind. This gets interesting when you go to execute the play, because if you have one that involves tossing to one of the three people shown in the graphic for the play, you are presented with the option to toss to five different people because the SNES controller has more buttons than the Genesis controller. The graphic for the play doesn’t show where the extra players would go, so if you’re feeling frisky give it a toss! Also of note- you can only have a maximum of two players here, not four although the SNES can have four players, and whereas the Genesis gives you the option for a 2 minute quarter, the SNES version has 3 minute as its shortest length, which apparently is the norm as the PlayStation and Saturn versions do that too. Overall though the Genesis and SNES versions are pretty close, but way different compared to each other than the Saturn/PlayStation versions are when compared to each other. Actually, I prefer the Genesis version because its snow-covered field actually looks snow-covered, while the SNES just opts for a lighter shade of green than the normal field has. I also noticed divots in the field, I think those were spawned by the ball impacting there. These would appear in the Saturn and PlayStation versions too, but not the Genesis.
Another neat thing this version did- it showed John Madden and Pat Summerrall before the game, during half time, and after the game on screens marked “pre-game show”, “half time”, and “post-game show”. None of the other versions emulated that aspect of watching a real football game, though the Saturn/PlayStation versions did have pre-game voice clips of Madden describing the teams.
Sega Saturn and PlayStation
These are almost exactly the same. The only difference I noted- and I’m not even sure it was a real one or just random chance- is that when I paused the PlayStation version the menu overlooked the goal post, while when I paused the Saturn version the menu overlooked the center of the stands, where the broadcast booth was sitting at the top. I think the AI is a little different too between the two versions. It actually seems pretty similar between the 16-bit and 32-bit versions, but a little different in the Saturn version- the standard defensive plays I used (I only used like three regularly) didn’t have the same effect even though the game settings were the same, plus my players seemed a little less likely to catch the ball. Also, you get the commentary from John Madden more regularly during gameplay and there’s a 3D intro video that looks almost like early PS3 quality graphics.
Comparison Gallery
My Conclusion
I threw interceptions in each of them. I think I threw three or four in the Sega Genesis version and two or three in the Sega Saturn version, then I think just one in the SNES version and definitely just one in the PlayStation version. Maybe that tells you a little on the difficulty, I dunno. But the Saturn version is one of the first two Saturn games that I owned, and the only one I had for a while (I can’t remember exactly but I think I was gifted the Saturn in either 2003 or 2004, so as a middle schooler I had no job with which to get money to buy more Saturn games, plus I already had like 10 other systems by then to worry about getting games for). So based on that, and on the prices of Saturn games, I’d say get it on the Saturn to affordably bolster your Saturn collection. The price for games on that system is much higher than when I started: my jaw actually dropped when I saw that Mega Man X4 was going for like $400 on average, when I bought it 10 years or so ago at $120ish. Mega Man 8, which I had been tracking for years ever since it was just $80 and I deemed that too expensive, now seems to be as much as a PS5! Well… that is, as much as the disc version of the PS5 was in September without being bundled with anything. Holy crap!
C-Gaymer 