ECW Hardcore Revolution
For the longest time professional wrestling video games were much like games licensed for blockbuster movies: the premise was great, but the actual end product was seldom passable.
The sport, er, sports entertainment, exploded around the same time as video games rebounded with the NES in the 1980s. A few commendable games appeared in the 16-bit era, but it was the jump to a 3-D landscape which set the new generation of wrestling games apart from the old.
Acclaim was at the forefront of the hot WWF license for the longest time, producing the popular WWF Attitude. But as noted to any wrestling fans, the late 90s were a huge war between the big two promotions: the WWF and WCW.
When WCW’s license jumped to EA, their former publisher, THQ, went after the WWF – this left Acclaim with no wrestling property during the genre’s highest period in history.
Enter ECW, or Extreme Championship Wrestling, a third outfit which was smaller than the other two mentioned, but was growing from a regional company into a national brand. Acclaim swooped in and made a deal with the company, in which they would repaint their WWF Attitude series over with ECW trademarks and characters.
Make no bones about it: that’s precisely what Hardcore Revolution is. A rebadged WWF Attitude.
That could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. For the WWF, THQ just rebranded their WCW vs. NWO World Tour game into WrestleMania 2000, with some enhancements, and it was wildly popular.
However, Hardcore Revolution was already built on what I felt was janky controls and sluggish gameplay to begin with.
Yes, it’s the N64 blocky characters, which was amazingly advanced for its time – but so much else about this game just feels more like a punch/kick brawler than a smooth-as-butter wrestling experience witnessed elsewhere.
Moves don’t really chain together well and you’re left with the feeling of those 8-bit and 16-bit button masher wrestling games as opposed to something “revolutionary”.
I will say that having the ECW theme to open the game will give you goosebumps. The amount of game modes and customization (including custom PPVs and create-a-wrestler) is more than aplenty to appease gamers looking for variety.
The roster or wrestlers, including some that can be unlocked, is a laundry list of most ECW mainstays too.
Usually, the fun in each of these games was watching the wrestlers’ entrances – and this is where the steam starts to run out for ECW’s title, as the company used a lot of cover bands to replay popular music hits. Those songs were unable to appear within the game and instead, you get the equivalent of a dubbed out, modified version for nearly every character.
The rest looks appealing – and the camera angles are a different approach than what you may see in other wrestling games of the era.
Yet, there’s something about ECW Hardcore Revolution that just seems off. That’s why I’m giving it a middle thumb – there’s some nostalgia and fans of WWF Attitude won’t mind the experience duplicated with ECW wrestlers.
But I didn’t care for Attitude either, so that’s why I’m somewhere in the middle of not being in love with this game.
Mega Man X2
Someone must’ve taken a cue from the original Mega Man 2 on this one…
Mega Man X2 is the sequel to the Super Nintendo’s “X” series of Mega Man games which spun off of the originals, which only saw one true dedicated 16-bit sequel with Mega Man 7.
The reason I say that X2 took a cue from the NES sequel is the difficulty: this freaking game is insane at certain points. It also has some of the more “interesting” and utter useless weapon upgrades in any MM game.
Granted, they still look cool and are at least creative, but in the end? They suck!
The story and mechanics are all familiar here. Beat bosses, obtain their special powerup, go fight the main boss…
Many of the “Maverick Hunters” (bosses) are incredibly cheap to fight against. One is a gator which you can’t see, then it grabs you and doesn’t let go. Another boss board has spikes – which means instant death!
Outside of the “norm” for these titles, the graphics are incredible for an SNES game. I had to see if it had a special chip in the cartridge and apparently it did. The “C4” chip improved the game’s graphics to where this title looks as good as Mega Man 8 on the original PlayStation (minus FMV cutscenes, of course).
There are also some vector 3-D graphics which look about as cutting edge as watching the Lawnmower Man on DVD these days but were likely state of the art at the time. They feel both revolutionary and out of place at the same time, as if to just show off that there was some special tech that could be accomplished.
Regardless, it’s a feat and an unexpected one at that.
In all, I actually liked this title a bit more than the first MMX. The story was cool, but it didn’t build much on original otherwise. However, the menus, sound, and graphics were all better and part two still feels like a step forward in the series as a must-play for any Mega Man fan.
Metroid
Now here’s a classic for you 8-bit Nintendo gamers!
I’ll never forget holding this game in my hands for the first time. The shrink-wrapped silver box with a spaceman-of-sorts ready to fire an arm cannon at aliens.
Metroid captured the imagination of the era, which included Sigourney Weaver’s Alien movies. Little did us gamers know that Metroid captured a bit too well, that is, until you saw one of the secret endings or used the infamous “JUSTIN BAILEY” code on the password screen.
Either would reveal that the game’s protagonist, Samus Aran, is a female – a pretty shocking (and cool) revelation at a time when such information was rarely spoiled for gamers.
Metroid (and Konami’s Castlevania) would be so iconic and groundbreaking that the term “Metroidvania” would be coined for a genre of games with a similar premise: unlocking new areas by gaining new items/powers, often which requiring a lot of backtracking throughout the game.
But that wasn’t all that made Metroid unique. Most games of the time scrolled sideways, but Metroid did that and had vertical sprawl to it. You would often have to fall down, or scale, large corridors to get to the next section of the game.
With the exception of requiring certain items to get to certain locations, the game was also open-ended; meaning you could choose to go just about anywhere you wanted. (Though doing so might get you instantly killed if Samus wasn’t adequately equipped!)
The premise of the game is that Space Pirates stole an parasitic organism known as a “Metroid” and planned to replicate them as biological weapons.
Samus is actually a bounty hunter, tasked with hunting down the pirates and their leader, the Mother Brain.
The sci-fi overtones, fleshed out storyline, unique graphical areas, and new open-ended adventure made Metroid stand apart, but that’s not all it was known for. Samus was the first character to “spin jump”, curling into a ball mid-jump, in a video game: something taken for granted now but totally new to gamers in 1987.
There are so many good things I can say about this game, but in summation: combined it made for a helluva action/adventure game that still has a cult following to this day. Not only did it launch an entire series, but it launched an entire gaming genre.
If you haven’t played it, or any of its sequels, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
Even with 8-bit graphics, the original Metroid still stands tall as a game that is as accessible and replayable as any to this day.
Streets of Rage 2
As far as side-scrolling beat’em up games go, Streets of Rage 2 might be one of the best.
I’ve always held a high regard for the genre, specifically Konami’s line which took a formula based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and replicated it successfully to other brands such as the Simpsons and Marvel.
Sega’s flagship series features no such branding, but closely mirrors the edgier marketing of the Genesis at the time – as well as the pop culture trends too. In the early 90’s, action movies were all the rage, as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone cranked out box office blockbusters such as Terminator 2, Demolition Man, True Lies and many more.
With action, explosions, and the occasional ninjas all the rage, it’s hard not to see the inspiration for the sequel to the successful Streets of Rage. This title adds on more playable characters to start, and retains much of what made the first game so good.
Namely, the soundtrack to this game thumps.
The Genesis lacked the same audio processing as the Super Nintendo, but you’d never know it playing this game. Sega’s console also lacked a more diverse color pallet as its competitor, but that aside, Streets of Rage 2’s audiovisuals are quite possible the best of any Genesis game. Ever.
The stages take notes from other games in the genre, with a nod or two to TMNT perhaps, albeit coincidental.
The isometric elevator level? Sure. The pirate ship level? Maybe… Streets came out only a few months after Turtles in Time. Other stages draw inspiration from fighting in back alleys, a baseball stadium, and an arcade (which features the Japanese port’s namesake of Bare Knuckle on the machines as an Easter Egg.) There’s even a stage which is very Contra-like that feels as if it was ripped from the movie Alien as well.
None of this stuff takes anything away from the game, as it only enhances the culture surrounding it. SOR2 also puts some SNES-style movement throughout each level, visually surprising the heck out of me with background and foreground movement, and a solid number of enemies on each screen. Some of those opponents include enemies on motorcycles or others who throw bombs from the background.
The action never stutters, at least not in my single player implementation.
The HUD is a nice touch as well, showing the names of recurring bosses with a health bar indicator too. Gone are the days of figuring out just how many times you need to punch/kick a boss to beat it!
But punching and kicking aren’t the exclusive moves to SOR2. No sir, we have your usual jumping karate kicks but in addition, grappling knee strikes, suplexes, and special moves (which replaced calling in backup police with a rocket launcher) give the game some diversity and makes it seem as though you’re truly kicking ass!
Knives, pipes, and a samurai sword are among the weapons you can pick-up. You can also find money, apples and a fully cooked turkey on a plate by breaking barrels or other in-stage items: yes, young ones, that was a given in this era of games too and didn’t feel out of place as it might some nearly 30 years later!
Regardless, the controls for this game are incredibly tight whereas other brawlers may see you miss punches and take unnecessary strikes, SOR2 seems to “hit” on all cylinders.
While the level of difficulty ratchets up depending on the level you’re on, or the options screen where you can set it, the game is a blast to mash buttons through and still feels fresh for replayability. If you’re a fan of any sort of games such as those mentioned, or Capcom’s Final Fight, I would highly recommend Streets of Rage 2 finds a way into your retro gaming backlog… and please do move it to the top of the list!
Mario Kart: Super Circuit
Mario Kart: Super Circuit is a cult classic that’s sort of an oddity as well. That’s because it was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2001, five years following the Nintendo 64’s sequel to the Super Nintendo original.
However, the GBA version here, despite being a 32-bit platform, more closely resembles that of its SNES predecessor than that of the N64.
Although that sounds like a knock in my review, it really isn’t. Many of days and nights were spent with this title in hand mastering a whopping 40 levels, which was the most of any Mario Kart game up until the Wii U’s Mario Kart 8 (which only trumps it by adding DLC).
New to the series was the concept of bringing back levels from the previous SNES game, denoted here as “extra” levels and unlocked as you complete each of the Super Circuit cups: five of them, which is also an uptick from the series’ usual four-per-grand prix.
The game plays much like you’d expect, tightly tuned to its controls despite having to once again use a D-pad in lieu of an analog stick introduced with the N64 controller. Regardless, it’s still a fun romp, with the usual nine returning characters as well as all of the same items.
There are some carryovers from the N64 game, but Super Circuit is at heart, and in my opinion, a direct sequel to the SNES original as it was unable to achieve a lot of the new 3D features that the more robust N64 could accomplish. In spite of those limitations, this game is much more polished than what was capable on the Super Nintendo, and shares a closer link with its successors just based on the art direction.
I also like how the sprites are made to appear three-dimensional with a lot of different scaling and scrolling effects, not only on the opening menus but throughout the game. Some of the finer details include getting frozen (as in covered in ice) if you fall into a pit in Snow Land or seeing karts that are ahead/behind you fly above an overhead pass. Some levels also change from day to night or vice versa as the sun rises and sets.
The audio tracks are what you’d come to expect: catchy and used to where they don’t become too monotonous.
The game modes are a plenty, with the handheld nature of the GBA allowing for up to four players to link up against one another simultaneously too.
While you’re unlikely to dive into GBA games anytime soon, this title lives on with some stages reappearing as “retro” tracks in later iterations of the series. (Although there are several stages which I never want to see again… cough… Cheese Land… cough… why Mario Kart 8, why?)
As this game has been reissued in other spots, completionists and Mario Kart fans should definitely give it a look. The large number of levels and unlockables (despite no unlockable characters) will keep on busy for quite some time. The visuals aren’t so shoddy either that they’ll eventually turn you off from playing, which his maybe my biggest gripe for a game that should’ve never been on the SNES!
Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll
Growing up, parents were always worried about their kids becoming couch potatoes by watching too much TV or playing too many video games.
Along comes the Nintendo Wii in 2006, introducing motion controls which saw you, the gamer, actually move a vehicle on-screen by tilting your controller – a motion that kids were already doing while playing the NES and SNES, but without any true interaction with the console.
The Wii’s motion controls opened the door for physical activity, which opened the door for fitness games and extra peripherals; including one which harkened back to the 8-bit generation and Nintendo’s Power Pad, now aptly named the Wii Balance Board.
The Balance Board launched with Wii Fit, a fitness game, and others followed suit. The list of games developed which supported this add-on were few in number, however. Many were other fitness or dancing games, or another title which simply tacked on the controls for novelty.
Yet, there was one supported game that not only fit the use of the board, it wasn’t your usual add-on or fitness genre title either.
“Step & Roll” continues the strange world of Super Monkey Ball, where monkeys move about a stage while rolling in large hamster-style balls. The stages have short time limits and rotate about as you flail your character like a marble towards a finish line.
On your way to the goal you collect bananas, hit bumpers, or fail and meet your demise.
The short but fast-paced levels are enjoyable, but the addition of the Balance Board as a controller made YOU the monkey!
Now it was up to you to shift your body weight while standing on the board, shimmying and gesturing to get your monkey across the finish line.
The result is often fun or frustrating, with no middle ground. Missing perfection toward hitting the goal is met the same way as using the Wiimote – you just start the level over! Seriously, trying to get back on track in the Super Monkey Ball series is a futile effort in most cases, which translates over to the Balance Board controls too.
However, the board feels somewhat natural and the game gets even more enjoyable as you play with others in the same room. It’s quite possible the best Wii motion-control game to be played with a party not named Wii Sports.
If you have a Balance Board and can track this game down, I recommend doing so. It may not be something you pull out a lot to play, but the few times that you do are worth the experience.
Jr. Pac-Man
I wonder how many people have never heard of this game?
This game is somewhat lost to the annals of time as Bally Midway created this game without Namco’s permission and is cited as one of the projects which severed the two’s relationship.
Jr. Pac-Man is yet another spin-off of the tried-and-true formula which stormed arcades with the original Pac-Man and its most famous incarnation, and another originally unapproved Namco mod, Ms. Pac-Man.
Junior probably isn’t as well-known because the changes to the classic formula aren’t, well, classic – at least when compared with Ms. Pac-Man.
Instead of a pink bow, Junior wears a beanie. The ghosts are the same, the pellet-eating the same, the cutscenes tell of some weird relationship with a girl ghost, and the items just swap of to being kid-styled.
The goal of the game is the same: eat all of the pellets without losing all of your lives. You start with three lives, the standard, and try to avoid touching any of the four ghosts.
The game looks like a bootleg but plays like a mofo.
Seven total mazes appear in the game, with most of them increasing the power pellets to six instead of four. For the unfamiliar, the energizers allow you a brief amount of time to eat the ghosts. I found Junior to be a lot faster to adapt to, especially with the speed of the ghosts and the lack of time a power pellet (or “energizer”) lasts… sometimes a mere second or two.
By comparison, Ms. Pac-Man feels like you’re playing in slow-motion, even on the first level!
There are no escape tunnels and the boards seem massive compared with its predecessors, as the screen scrolls horizontally rather than showing the entire level on-screen.
Those items? They make the game more difficult if you don’t grab them, as each pellet it touches gets bigger – giving you a higher score but slowing you down further. If the item touches a power pellet, both the pellet and item disappear.
I understand trying to capitalize on the Pac-Man craze with another variation at the time. However, the changes to Junior seem like a “World Champions” type of challenge rather than appealing to the casual gamer.
Years later I now understand why this cartridge was seldom played on my Atari, although, the video game crash of the 80’s saw me pick this up in the discount bin for a mere $3 – likely the reason I didn’t despise the game as much then as I do now in this review. (Plus, games were just understood to be ridiculously difficult to play back then!)
For Pac-Man fans, check it out. For those who want a challenge – check it out.
For all others? Meh, still check it out. I just don’t promise that the trip down memory lane will necessarily be a fun one!
Yoshi’s Woolly World
The first impression anyone will get from Yoshi’s Woolly World is that it’s a child’s game: and you’d be correct.
Nintendo has positioned the Yoshi games as platformers for younger children for several iterations now. It really began with this title for the Wii U, which also has a “Mellow Mode” to make the game even simpler for those smaller tykes who may be playing alongside their parents.
Mellow Mode makes this game almost too boring to want to play, unfortunately. The regular mode may bring it back to speed with the “Island” series of games (which offer a far greater challenge) but the repetitiveness of Woolly World can, and likely will, get to more mature gamers.
With that said upfront, this is still an enjoyable game with superb art direction, graphics, audio, and controls. The style of the game is at the forefront, as noted in the title, everything is geared toward yarn – think grandma’s knitting – as Yoshi creates “yarn eggs” now, and unravels enemies and secret areas like kittens playing with a ball of yarn on YouTube.
Throwing yarn balls at “invisible” outlined targets covers them in yarn to complete necessary platforms or unlock areas of the level.
It’s a really cool mechanic that fits well within the Yoshi genre – so well, that I think this game is underrated and overlooked due to being too simple at times (and ignored by more serious gamers).
Yoshi, himself, operates in the same manner as Island games, however, there’s no babies on Yoshi’s back anymore – your life is a circular heart meter similar to the timing mechanism in previous games when a baby was knocked off of Yoshi’s back.
The game is geared toward completionists, with plenty of replay value… if you want to actually grind through and replay it.
I found collecting every flower, piece of yarn, rubber stamp and more to be monotonous. However, some of it may be necessary to proceed later in the game.
Collecting everything will unlock a different color or “themed” Yoshi which you can swap to play as – a pretty cool reward if you ask me.
Poochie also makes a cameo appearance along with some other familiar Mario characters. (The various types of Shy Guys are especially cool.)
In all, Woolly World is an enjoyable, but super easy romp. Like most Wii U games it’s lost to time for a console that didn’t sell well. Unlike some of the best Wii U games, this one wasn’t reissued for the Nintendo Switch, instead getting a port to the 3DS which doesn’t hold up as well graphically (but is aimed at a better, young target audience of that handheld console.)
If you have the ability to check this game out, as a fan of Yoshi games or simple platformers – or have a kid that’s getting into gaming, this one is highly recommended. Hardcore gamers can safely bypass this as it won’t be their cup of tea.
NFL GameDay
Sony’s PlayStation took the world by storm and in 1995, it’s best-selling game was one that got the jump on EA’s Madden franchise.
NFL GameDay launched on the PSX heralding a new era of what could be done with CD-based games. While John Madden Football struck first on EA’s 3DO platform a year earlier, the expensive console had difficulty penetrating the market whereas Sony’s first foray into video games came in at half of the price, with game titles often selling for nearly half of what kids and parents paid for cartridges with the previous generation.
With EA scrapping their first Madden game for the PlayStation, NFL GameDay had free reign for a year. While it did a lot of the same things that Madden for 3DO got right, it also had its success and shortcomings.
Loading time… loading… loading…
Ah yes, everyone’s biggest complaint with disc-based games actually wasn’t too bad here. The initial startup menus are preceded by animated full-motion video (FMV) of NFL logos and helmets, along with a catchy tune that would play interspersed throughout the game, along with a riff ripped off of Queen’s We Will Rock You in-game. (Which, actually gets a little annoying, but can also be turned off in the options menu!)
Oh yes… the options menu.
Whoever designed this menu likely designed prisons for a living at some time. Rather than logically scroll throughout the options with the D-pad and use the X button to confirm, as has become standard, nearly every freaking button on the controller is used just to get the game set the way you want.
You choose a visiting team with the L1 and L2 buttons, home team with R1/R2, and the D-Pad scrolls up/down the main menu.
But beware: it’s almost indecipherable to attempt to change your default in-game controls. Ditto for setting up time for quarters and weather situations as well. (For example, you need to use the left arrow of the D-pad to get over to the menu to change quarter length.)
Once the NFL stopwatch let’s you know the game has stopped loading, you’re treated to a team-themed screen that changes to a primary color of your selected squad once you move the player left or right. This jumps right into the coin toss as to not waste anymore loading time – another nicely optimized and well thought out decision by the developers.
You then move into the kickoff mode, which moves a bit faster than Madden players may be accustomed to. It’s at this time you realize the stadiums don’t bare any resemblance to their real-life counterparts, other than teams who played in dome stadiums getting a generic indoors building immune from the four weather conditions you can set: sunshine, rain, snow, and windy.
The outdoor stadiums all look the same as well, with an NFL logo in the center of the field.
The differential of the home team’s stadium places team logos around the 30-yard line on each side, and of course, custom endzones. Some fan banners also hang around the place, but unlike Madden’s sidelines, these ones are absent of detailed touches such as referees with yard markers, teammates on the bench or even referees.
Instant Replay exists, as does an option lifted from Sega’s Sports Talk series where you can change the view from a slightly overhead, behind the quarterback look we’re all used to, to one that zooms in closer behind the action. You can also swap in an isometric look from the days of Play Action Football on the NES or go completely sidelines in style with a Tecmo Bowl look as well. Play also zooms in on an active runner with the ball, which is a nice touch.
Most of these are rather distracting, especially with the cool addition of the highlighted blocks beneath your selected player, which states their last name – as the game has a full NFL license in addition to the NFL Player’s Association.
However, the NFLPA addition is a bit misused with the lack of menu options in-game. You will get a notice of names and short stats, such as “so and so ran for X yards”. The presentation here gets closer and closer to watching a real game on TV, but playing the game can be a struggle.
The playbook lacks any real diversity. There are a few basic formations which offer around 6-8 plays, if that, for each. You also have no clue as to what the computer is sending into the huddle, so you may pick a 3-4 defense up against a three wide receiver set – a mess to defend against, if the game wasn’t so awful at passing the ball!
This is likely one of the worst games to get used to throwing the ball and its anyone’s guess as to when and where it might go. The learning curve is so much I nearly broke a controller. (I’d much rather play Play Action Football on the GameBoy for what it’s worth.) It’s so bad, the computer rarely completes passes either.
Running the ball is effortless but you often run into your own blockers and defenders always pancake your back, on his back, with every tackle.
You can “feel” the tackles in this way, but it gets to be an old trick quick.
Another big gripe is not seeing down and distance on the screen’s HUD, unless you’re choosing plays. You can’t get a feel for how far you need to go to get a first down, because only the game and play clocks are displayed. A really shortsighted idea for a game that otherwise has strong features for its time.
Overall, the game is leaps and bounds above its competitors of this era in the graphics and audio departments, sans the 3DO Madden – of which it still holds up in several areas too.
For those who bought this game, they likely didn’t see the same flaws I’m seeing playing it years later. It was likely understood this was an entry into football games sort of title and as such, it was still state-of-the-art for its time.
As for nostalgia, a lack of any play-by-play or any audio bytes, lack of any B-roll or still photography to support the menus or in-game experience, and the looping Queen riff, added to the frustrating passing mechanics and paltry playbook make this a game to revisit if you owned it, but one to pass until later iterations catchup with the promise of the 32-bit generation.
John Madden Football
This very well could be my one and only 3DO review on this site!
For those who are unaware of what the 3DO is, it was a next generation console launched in 1994 as a platform developed by Electronic Arts. The consoles would be manufactured by a number of consumer electronics companies such as Panasonic and Goldstar, in much the same way a VCR (at the time) or DVD player (years later) would license those technologies.
The CD-based system was ahead of its time, but a high price tag ($700 USD) and lack of launch day titles (and available consoles to purchase) put it behind the 8-ball. It would eventually fail as titles were delayed and Sony’s PlayStation (as well as Sega’s Saturn) were released a year later.
However, being an EA supported platform had its benefits, and John Madden Football was the biggest of them all. I can recall being at a mall and seeing a 3DO on display running this game at what was then Electronics Etc., today’s equivalent of GameStop.
Returning to this game gave me those fond memories of how advanced this version of Madden is. For starters, there’s literally no comparison between this 1994 title and the Madden 95’s released on 16-bit competitors such as the Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis.
Madden NFL ’95 for those consoles barely raised the bar from the ’94 edition, which was a leap for 16-bit platforms with a number of new features, but nothing like we’d see on the 3DO.
Done right from the start, the 3DO version includes the full NFL license. That means real teams as well as branding. However, the NFLPA licensing was absent, although player names wouldn’t start showing up on the competition until Madden NFL ’96 anyway.
Once the game loads (which is another sticking point – its super slow) you’re whisked away into the realm of Full Motion Video (FMV) with an animated opening of the iconic EA Sports crawl which fades into team logos and helmets with the famous “John Madden Football” words scrolling into view.
FMV takes front-and-center throughout the game with an actor representing an in-game referee who conducts a coin toss and makes various calls from penalties to touchdown signals.
John Madden himself has a few video scenes – they are all generic enough to apply to every game configuration with audio snippets over what one might call “B-roll” such as grainy photos of a team’s home stadium. Still, this was high-tech stuff for 1994!
In-game, a “scouting report” option may have the best feature in the game, as it will show a set amount of random highlight clips from whichever team you’re viewing.
Getting started, the game menu has its usual modes including preseason (exhibition), regular season, and playoffs. You can also play as historic teams, with one for each franchise and two All-Madden teams.
Again, the player names aren’t included, only numbers – which show in-game below the “star” icon underneath selected players. While the graphics are crude, they’re still sophisticated compared with the sprites on the SNES or Genesis. However, they’re also fairly generic with no numbers on jerseys and palette swapping for the helmet, tops, bottoms and skin tones.
But, they are big players on the screen. Larger than life and anything that preceded it.
As for the game play, it can be a bit slow and tedious. Rather than cut to play calling menus after each play, all of the players scurry around the field back to the line of scrimmage before we get to call a play. There’s a noticeable delay in the action here and after selecting a play too – all while the clocks run.
That can be a bit distracting, as is the tedious passing – which is nearly as bad as non-Madden games in some instances. Otherwise, the rest of the bells and whistles are here, including spin moves, dives and speed bursts. The game still plays like the other Madden cousins, but with a fresher paint job.
Overall, this is an enjoyable game that was far ahead of its time. Within a few years Madden ’97 will blow the doors off of this title in 1996, but we’re talking a full two years later – a lifetime in the tech world.
I would encourage any retro gamers with a hint for nostalgia to check this out, even if you only play a game or two like I did.