Madden NFL 10 (PlayStation 2, 2009)

Kinda looks like the Mortal Kombat 3 versus screen, except pressing buttons doesn’t change the letters in Madden so you can’t enter cheats here.

Just in time for the 2009-2010 football season, here is Madden 10! As with this year, I did not watch the Super Bowl. In fact I don’t recall watching or going to any games that year. At least this year I caught a game or two on TV. But I kept procrastinating on making my pick for who I thought would be at the Super Bowl. I figured the Chiefs again, but I couldn’t even tell you which 16 teams would’ve been contenders to be their opponent.

So as an FU to political correctness and in solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples that white liberals tried to erase, I picked the Washington Redskins even though I know that neither now nor 14 years ago nor any time in between were the Redskins/Commanders ever capable of making it to the Super Ball.

Since I brought up white liberals and am talking about football, I have to bring up (sigh) Taylor Swift. Some poll showed that she could sway up to 18% of voters because her shallow lifestyle that’s written by a PR staff- and her songs passing the blame onto the male half of the relation- appeal to lonely/idiot women, ie: Democrat voters. So my take is that it’s not so much that she’d sway 18% of the population, rather it’s that 18% of the population happens to vote the way she’d tell them to on their own. If that 18% didn’t think Swift would tell them to vote Democrat, they would never have been her fans, probably have cancelled her by now, and she’d die a penniless pauper instead of being a billionaire feeding off the insecurities and mental illnesses of white liberal women (and someone who, between her concerts and jet-setting lifestyle, pollutes more than some countries, something liberals seem ok with these days as long as you say the right thing after).

But as to the NFL plastering her face all over the place to try and bring those women who previously boycotted them and tried to disband them into the fold? Genius. It’s annoying to keep seeing SwiftCam (TM) but at the same time it’s hilarious that all these women that listen to her music and hated football because it was toxically masculine/only for rightwingers/kills people and needs to be replaced by soccer now changed their minds. Leftists used the term “hypermasculinity” to describe football, but now millions of liberal women are flocking to watch the game with Super Bowl advertisers catering more to women, courtesy of leftist Taylor Swift. Liberals are now celebrating the toxic masculinity they tried to war with 10 years ago, and all it took was one of their thought leaders to herd them that way with a relationship as phony as a 3 dollar bill. Well played, NFL, well played. Although, this totally undermines arguments in favor of the 19th Amendment. Oh well.

Instant replays let you watch the toxic masculinity from different angles. Or just watch yourself miss both your field goal attempts by hitting the left and then right sides of the goal post like I did.

And coming back full circle- these same white liberal women patting themselves on the back for cancelling the Redskins name to the chagrin of Native American tribes are now celebrating/contributing millions in merchandise sales to a football team called the “Chiefs” at a time when they are trying to not only ban that team name but ban that very word! And the kicker? It’s to celebrate the relationship between a white billionaire and a (mostly) white millionaire! This is just beautiful to me on every level. Maybe I will watch the Super Bowl.

Anyway, onto the game.

The Game

You can pick your teams from established NFL teams, fake teams the game has pre-loaded, or make up your own dream team. You can play at any stadium that existed at that time (since they are playing in real life at the LA Raiders stadium, I set it to the Oakland Raiders stadium) as far as I know, and even pick which time of day your game runs (you can make it start at one of the usual football game starting times, or make it start at whatever time your system says it is). I’m assuming you still can pick the weather because that feature was like 15 years old by the time this game came out. You can also customize the control scheme. There are a lot of ways to tailor this experience to you. One thing missing though is a closeup of the coin toss. One team picks heads or tails and which direction they are going/if they are doing offense or defense, and that’s it. No toss is shown.

Helpfully, shortly after booting up the game, before even the title screen, you get a helpful video telling you what new features you have for this game.

It plays enough like most every other football game made sense controllers had more than two action buttons that you can pick it up easily enough, though you’ll lose a bunch of yards at first trying to figure out the differences. I myself racked up 15 yards worth of “delay of game” penalties trying to figure out how to make the snap happen. Once I ironed it out though I played about as well as on any other football game I’ve tried- it just felt like all of them with the exception of the additional bells and whistles that didn’t do much to impact my playing experience.

This comment didn’t fit anywhere, but one last note is that they use actual songs instead of generic in-game ditties. I don’t really know when this feature started, but since it was not in any football game I tried yet I figured it worth mentioning. Heavy rock and roll stuff seemed to be the playlist.

My Opinion

Most of the crowd looks like the left pic, but sometimes they will superimpose these eager fan models over the generic crowd. I know that’s what they do because the game made their animations disappear before the camera changed where it was focused.

It’s ok, pretty much the same as any other football game. It was released on the Wii, PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, and even iOS and Blackberry somehow, so it’s not like there aren’t/weren’t other options for playing the game. I’d bet the Wii/PS3/360 versions look better too. So… I guess what I’m saying is there’s no real reason to buy this particular port unless you only have a PS2 (this isn’t even the last Madden game on the PS2), and really no reason to buy the game unless you forever exist inside the 2009-2010 football season.

My Prediction

Since I always use these as a basis to predict how the real Super Bowl will go, I will say that the 49ers will struggle with the controller until the Chiefs get a safety, then as they gradually get competent with the slightly different layout the Chiefs will be sure to keep throwing interceptions (three total) until in the second half when the 49ers lose their lead (and finally throw an interception of their own after MANY close calls) to tie at the end of the 4th quarter 27-27 despite the Chiefs only having a safety and a field goal compared to the 49ers’ two touchdowns at halftime. The Chiefs will win the coin toss at the start of the game and the start of overtime, but the 49ers will win by a touchdown.

NFL Football (Intellivsion, 1980)

Though it says Copyright 1978, the Intellivision was not released until December 1979, and only test marketed for much of 1980, and this game didn’t hit store shelves until February 1980.

It’s Super Bowl time again, so here we go with the annual football game review. Of course, I may not have many of these left to do if the other side has their way and bans football (thus depriving African Americans of yet another opportunity by replacing it with a white one- but according to the New York Times’ Steve Almond Blacks achieving in football is racist anyway because it’s racist for Blacks to have money I guess (he’s not the only NYT contributor that says Blacks success is racist).). I’m not sure why they want to replace football with soccer though since that means the audience is in as much danger as the players (seriously, aside from a movie with Jack Klugman and another movie with the assassin from From Russia With Love, when has an American football game ended in bloodshed? Strangely… it’s the less popular sports with the worst rioting. I dunno, I can’t tell iced canes from diamond bags anyway.), who are still in the same amount of danger as football players (perhaps moreso with women players, so maybe don’t get too attached to soccer in the longterm)… and sometimes war breaks out.

The Game

As you can see, the cartridge is plugged into the side (at the bottom of the picture), and the controllers have an interesting layout

Player 1 has yellow teammates with a red quarterback, and Player 2 has blue teammates with a black quarterback.

Intellivision was new to me when I played this. Evidently, you have to have two players otherwise you can’t play the game. There is no single-player mode. This is not the only Intellivision game to do this (speaking of Intellivision limitations, if you want to get one get the first version off the console, as the second version can’t play certain games, like Donkey Kong).

Being a game from 1979, you don’t get the same number of play options as future football games. There are still a few options to choose from, and you will need a manual to understand it. Luckily you can see them for free online. You may be wondering how a game from 1979 can have enough options to need a manual, and that lies in the controller. It has a keypad with 10 buttons plus two more buttons on either side of the controller, and on top of that (actually the bottom) is the…. uh… D-pad? Joystick? I have no idea what to call the thing for moving your character because it is a black circle flush against the controller.

Prediction

Since they were out of colors, the referees are depicted as black as well, which means they must be corrupt because they are wearing the colors of Player 2’s team. Thus I predict the referees at the Super Bowl will be biased as well.

I didn’t get to play this out because it was just me jumping between controllers. With no single-player mode, there was no AI to play against. So just based on the colors of the team it seems that the Washington Commanders and Carolina Panthers will play at the Super Bowl. I have not been following football and wrote this before the penultimate game had been played, so this is a legitimate prediction made in ignorance.

My Opinion

I think it’s a fun game, seems like it’d be fun if you play it with someone else. A lot of Intellivision games are so cheap that you can afford to get them in boxes with manuals. So there’s not much reason to pass this up.

Madden 98 (Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, 1997)

It was also released on the PC, but I don’t have that and assume it was the same as the Saturn/PlayStation releases.

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

Title screens- clockwise from top left we have the Genesis, SNES, Saturn, and PlayStation versions. That “Press Start” prompt on the Saturn one is also on the PlayStation version, it blinks in and out.

How the final scores are shown- clockwise from top left we have the Genesis, SNES, Saturn, and PlayStation versions. The PlayStation one was only a tie because the ball was in the air on its way to me making a field goal when the 4th Quarter ended, like some movie cliche. But then it went into overtime and no one scored, so we tied. I was the Buccaneers for every game.

From left to right we have endzone images for the Genesis, SNES, and Saturn/PlayStation versions.

The menus for selecting the team were the same for the Genesis and SNES, and also the same between the PlayStation and the Saturn. The Genesis and SNES strangely used valuable cartridge space to have separate menus for the options you see lumped into one menu on the PlayStation/Saturn versions.

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!

Troy Aikman NFL Football (Atari Jaguar, SNES, Sega Genesis, 1994)

From left to right: Jaguar, SNES, Genesis

Third year in a row doing this, so next year you ought to expect a football game review the week before the Super Bowl. Regardless of the NFL’s politics and if I’ll even remember to watch the game, I’ve just GOT to jump at the excuse to play a football game. Like liver, it’s something I abhor most of the time but annually get a craving for. I jumped at the excuse early on this one though and had this post ready to go January 6. I hadn’t touched it since.

Confirmation screen for the settings you input. From left to right: Jaguar, SNES, and Genesis. Yes, the SNES and Genesis are almost identical. Yes, this is my Super Ball prediction.

Though, to be fair re: the aforementioned relation between me and football, last year I made great strides and attended 2/3 of the home games played by the Washington Football Team.

Oh, you thought I meant the ex-Redskins? Nope, I meant the DC Defenders! I attended their first game (the first XFL game of the renewed brand) and the last game before COVID stopped all XFL games. The following night I attended the last Monday Night Raw to have an in-person audience, so there is a nonzero chance I contracted COVID (asymptomatic of course) while fattening Vince McMahon’s wallet.

The Game

Deterioration of the endzone graphics from left to right: Jaguar with the Bills helmet and font, SNES with the helmet and the wrong font and a BS call by the ref because that was an f’in’ touchdown, and Genesis with nothing but a red patch for its endzone.

It is a standard football game. You set the teams and fields, you play on a field, you select plays and can pick who you toss the ball to. The same formula you’d find in a modern NFL game. One thing you can do that I hadn’t seen/looked for in its contemporaries is that at the beginning of a game and during halftime you can adjust the salaries of your players. I didn’t fiddle with it, but I assume more money meant better stats and vice versa.

Atari Jaguar

This version did have the best graphics… but not by the margin Atari would have you think. And while in the commercial they badmouth the 3DO you might recall from my review that it looked waaaaay better even though it came out the same year as this game.

It played pretty good. I assume that brand new it would’ve come with a little overlay for the controller’s keypad since according to the manual (I had to find one online) some of the buttons down there are used. I didn’t miss out on not knowing these keys though; the buttons on top did everything I needed. The graphics were… well, it looked like it belonged on the SNES. It was done by Williams/Midway (complicated story, but at least at that time they were the same company and subsidiaries of Atari), who would also do the way inferior Genesis port… which probably explains why it was way inferior, at least to the sorts of losers that trust no one, especially people with lovely goodies. Or losers like me, who lost 7-14.

Notice the nice big logo in the middle of the field. Genesis did not have that.

Super Nintendo

I think this was the best version. The player sprites were worse than the Jaguar, but the field looked better. You could actually tell it was muddy. Very slight edge in the sound department too, but only because they have music playing over the title screen. Sorry Atari, I did the math and this copy won out. Speaking of winning, that’s totally what I did on this game. 7-3.

Sega Genesis

I give much credit for how they did the field, since the Genesis wasn’t designed for 3D.

This one is the worst of them all. Bad graphics, bad sound effects. I do like how they did the field though, a bit better than its contemporary Madden 94 on the Genesis. Just glancing real quick at online videos of Madden 94 on the Genesis since I don’t have my copy on hand, I’d say that this game edges out that one a little bit. So it’s not so bad for the Sega.

I first tried to play the usual Bills v. Packers, and was 8-0 because of an accident when trying to score the extra point. The graphic for kick strength appeared, I set it, but then instead of kicking it went to a two-point conversion. A play or two later the game blacked out when transitioning screens, so that ended that.

I went back though and tried one of the other play modes available: coaching. In that mode, you decide the plays and decide when your team starts action on the field, but otherwise you have no control over anything. This game ended 0-0. There was no overtime, and when the clock ran out I was probably just two plays away from a touchdown. Oh well.

Conclusion

I don’t think I ever threw an interception on the Genesis version, I threw one or two on the Jaguar version, while on the pictured SNES version I threw two or three at least, basically in back to back to back possessions, all in the second half. I played the game on the hardest difficulty on each system.

My Super Bowl prediction is obviously Bills v. Packers, and it seems from my simulations that the Bills will win (I’m counting the Sega Genesis rounds as a single win). The last two years I used kind of what I’d absorbed about football goings on from my family, but this year I flat out cheated and checked the division standings.

As for the games… if you want a traditional football game on the Atari Jaguar (thanks to the dub of Godzilla vs. Megalon I BADLY want to call this the “Atari Jagyoo-ar”), this is it. I mean it is the ONLY traditional football game on the console. There is one other football game, but apparently it’s a caricature of football and more arcade-style. But the best out of the bunch is the SNES version.

Madden NFL ’94 (SNES, 1993)

In the long tradition of sports, I’ll start this by insulting the other side. A big “sit and spin” to feminists that say we can’t talk about sports because it’s exclusive to women and leads to male behavior. The manly men at ESPN can do the same. I try to tailor my insults to my target.

Like I did last year, I’m looking at a football game in honor of the Super Bowl this Sunday. The one I picked was the previous game in the series from the one I did last time. I had been under the impression that last year’s review was of the first game in the series, and only just now found that I wasn’t even close, and that the game I reviewed had no counterpart on other consoles. I think that’s an anomaly for the Madden series, where you have  a game that’s exclusive to one system. It came out in May of 1994, and the game up today came out in November of 1993, just in time for you to copy the action at the Thanksgiving Day football game. I got my copy 26 and a quarter years too late for that, so I’ll be simulating Sunday’s game.

The Game

The other team intercepted my ball 6 times, I got theirs only once. I still won.  The overall stats showed I didn’t even have the ball as long as they had it. I assume this means my defense was phenomenal while their defense was crap.

It’s just like the one I played last year. Pick your game options and play. I chose the 1969 Chiefs, facing off against the 1989 49ers. I think I enjoyed this one more though, or perhaps one year hence I’ve somehow grown more fond of football games.

Wikipedia states that this was the first Madden game to have the camera pivot when the ball changes teams, say for instance via interception.

There is one thing though- there was no option visible for deciding on getting a two-point conversion after scoring a touchdown. I don’t recall if the 3DO version had it, but I know other Madden games give you the option for doing that instead of kicking for the extra point (for those not in the know- when you score a touchdown your team immediately after can either kick the ball like you would for a field goal so that you get 7 points instead of 6 for your touchdown, or if you’re in a big jam or need an extra point to keep the game from being a tie then you can try a two point conversion, which basically means instead of kicking for the extra point your team tries to run the ball into the endzone a second play in a row. That’s much more riskier than the extra point, which only Apache Chief can block).

These exact settings led the game to reset itself.

Just like the Madden game on the 3DO, we’re treated to some audio clips of John Madden talking synced up to sprites, though obviously here the quality is poorer and there are way fewer. Speaking of audio, I’d also like to note that I enjoyed the music. Catchy.

One big drawback- I got glitched out of a game I was playing. The game reset itself. Another drawback- I set the weather to include rain but that didn’t materialize while I was playing, or if it did its effects were not visible. Or maybe its effects were felt, explaining why I lost the ball a bunch of times.

Overall

This year’s “super-advanced simulating machine”.

It’s a pleasant football game, probably better if you’re playing with someone else. Madden 94 lets up to 5 people play together, though I don’t even have one person who lives within an hour of me that’d be interested so you just get this review based on one player. It’s a great budget title too- I paid less than $15 for a copy that came in a box with the manual. I don’t know if it’s supposed to come with as much equipment as the 3DO version had, but I assume it did because I’ve seen other football games do that, though none were Madden games. Do your research I guess is my warning to the completionists out there.

How I feel almost every time I’m at this screen. Sometimes it’s this too.

Yes, I know this review is short but what can I say that I didn’t say last time? To the untrained eye all these football games look alike, a topic I already have plans to dive into next year. Unless the Bills are going to the Super Bowl, then I’ll probably be in a coma at this time from the shock to my system.

Due to the wildly correct guess I made last year, here is my prediction for Sunday’s scores.

John Madden Football (Panasonic 3DO, 1994)

Super Bowl Sunday is… well, Sunday. So let’s take a break from ramming our political views down your throat and unite around football, where everyone is one and there is no intrigue or politics or… well doggone it. Look, it’s either this or I try to spin the shutdown ending one way or the other and talk about the Left eviscerating the Covington kids despite them being the real victims, with the Left as usual taking pleasure in endangering the lives of teenagers… not so surprising there really since they like endangering babies too. Anyone who can’t vote or doesn’t vote for them doesn’t matter, it seems.

I’m not much of a football fan. I vaguely identify with the Buffalo Bills and their perpetual inability to deliver significant wins (it’s like looking in a mirror I tells ya!), and that was chosen by higher authorities as my favorite team a little over 11 years ago. I watch the Super Bowls, and bits and pieces of a handful of games during the season. All that said, it’s amazing that on the morning of January 12th I managed to narrow down my Super Bowl picks to being either the Dallas Cowboys or the Los Angeles Rams. I just looked up who the top teams were though and guessed the Cowboys for some reason. I knew the Patriots would be in it, EVERYONE knew the Patriots will be in it. That was known back in August. Too bad the only time I ever rooted for the Patriots was in the 2017 Super Bowl, when the media tried to make the Super Bowl into a referendum on white people and Trump. Fun fact: in a contest of athleticism and strategy, it’s totally racist if white athletes end up besting black athletes. Here are some headlines from 2017.

• New York Magazine: There Are So Many Reasons to Root Against ‘Trump’s Team’ in the Super Bowl
• NBC Sports: Curran: Patriots’ Super Bowl win is America’s nightmare
• The Root: The Trap House vs. the White House: Why Black America Needed the Falcons to Win (they say that the Patriots are “racist-adjacent”, and say that their logo is of a white guy though he looks more like Chief Crazy Horse to me)
• Colorlines: How the Super Bowl Became a Battle for America’s Soul The subtle—and not-so subtle—roles race, xenophobia and Islamophobia played in Super Bowl LI.

And then the reactions on social media were quite pretty. “I hate seeing white people happy”. Hitler only wishes the Jews gave him that much ammo to fuel hate against them, and then these people spewing their own hate wonder why they in turn are hated. Gotta love these vicious self-feeding cycles; whoever said perpetual motion machines are impossible never tried to transform the human capacity for hatred into an energy source. Just take two people, make them hate each other, then watch as they fuel it themselves! It’s more than a perpetual motion machine; it’s a perpetual motion machine that gets faster and faster! And yes, I am condemning both sides. The whites who randomly hate nonwhites, the nonwhites who randomly hate whites, and the ones like me who think hating the other people because all or some hate you is a useful response.

But I did get a kick out one of the Northeast’s most liberal cities, Boston, being declared the most racist city that a certain comedian ever went to. When the Left turn on each other it’s always fun.

The Game Please…

Like with watching football games, I’m usually not one for football video games. I can piece together what the plays do based on the diagrams, but I have no idea when to use what. It’s a miracle I know which side of the field to run to. Also, they’re all the same. I’ve played Madden ’97 and Madden ’98 on the Sega Saturn (they were the first, and for a while only, games I had on the system so I developed a slight nostalgia for them), one of the 2000s Maddens on my brother’s Xbox 360, and NFL Quarterback Club on the Sega 32X. They all felt the same as each other, the same as this game. RealSports Football on the Atari 2600 though, that was a unique experience. Maybe that will be for next year.

My Stone Cold Lock Of The Century Of The Week

After running a simulation on my super-advanced simulating machine so advanced it goes by the symbols “3DO”, I determined that the Dallas Cowboys would beat the New England Patriots at the Super Bowl this year with a score of 35-7. Fortunately since it ended up being the LA Rams, I can still claim that if the Cowboys had made it to the Super Bowl they would have defeated the Patriots 35-7 and never worry about being disproven. As for the real game… oh I dunno… I’ll make up a number. 31-28, Patriots win. I’ll probably end up doing this year what I did in 2017 too- I’ll think the game starts at 8pm and sleep until then, only to tune in during halftime.

The Simulation

Outside of the graphics, this could have been any Madden game or even NFL Quarterback Club game up through I think 2006 (I’m just guessing on when that Xbox 360 Madden game I played came out). And if the formula hasn’t changed after that, it’s entirely possible this is the exact game I’d be playing if I laid down $60 at the store tomorrow. But I’d bet dollars to donuts that the flashy new games don’t come with the ridiculous amount of paper that this had. Look at that play chart!

This is why the Amazon faces deforestation.

How The Game Goes, In Pictures!

Start with the kickoff

Choose your plays. I have no freakin’ idea when any of this is appropriate to use. Sometimes I’d just mash a random combination of A, B, and C until the game started. Other times for some reason I had only 2 seconds to decide before the decision was made for me.

Pass your ball if you picked a passing play. Otherwise just run around towards the football like a chicken with its head cutoff. I don’t recall the Sega Saturn games doing this for passes though- as far as I remember, the other football games zoom out and put an icon over the people you can pass to, while as you see here this game just splits your screen 4 ways.

Have the guy you throw to either fail to catch it, or have the other team catch it. Usually for this game, my guy only failed to catch the ball if I took control of the player catching it. Pressing one of the buttons lets you change which player you control, I assume like every other football game. Usually it was my computer-controlled player intercepting the computerized-opponent’s ball.

Run up the field all by yourself, because the Patriots might as well not have a defensive line.

Watch your player do his touchdown dance because this is 1994 and the NFL has not decided to penalize players for this yet.

Kick that field goal!

Watch as the ball soars over the clearly 2-dimensional goal post!

RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!!!

Review your stats either at halftime or at the end, and ponder how you beat the other team 35-7 when you just mashed random buttons and got only -1 yards average per run.

The Game In Video

Remember, this is in 1994 when full-motion video in a video game was a novelty. And when it took forever to load! It was a conscious decision to have valuable chunks of my time used to load these video clips that generally lasted only a couple of seconds, sometimes the loading time was longer than the video!

Start with the coin toss

Flag on the play!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this a first down? I don’t know! Let’s stop the game for an hour to show a 5 second clip of us checking!

Touchdown!

 

The early 1990’s cheers for you.

His arms are in the shape of the field goal posts to signal your field goal is good.

 

And sometimes your field goal kick does not make it.

John Madden drops in at the beginning, halftime, and end of your game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Was It?

I only wanted to play half a game. I needed to only play half a game. I needed to go to bed because I had a long day ahead. Instead I stayed up an extra half hour to finish the game. So I liked playing it. Like I said though- it felt like any other modern football game, except for the cutscene loading times. But FMV was novel in a video game, and I guess they liked showing it off. Probably was a selling point too.

 

So… enjoy your Super Ball! Go spend Sunday watching burly men toss pig skin around.