John Madden Football
System: SNES
Release Date: November 1991
Developer: Park Place Productions
Publisher: EA Sports
Genre: Sports
Bring America’s top sport to the Super Nintendo with John Madden Football! You already know the gimmick. Madden came out on the Genesis and gave you the ability to choose from two superior football titles. Seeing that Sega produced Joe Montana, EA was free to port theirs to the SNES. And so they did. The question remains, can you take your team to the title?
You can choose to play a single game or the playoffs. Be careful with the quarter length you choose. I thought 10 minutes would go by quickly. It didn’t and really killed my enthusiasm to play more than a game. I started the playoffs as Detroit and got put up against the much superior team from Washington. John rambles on for awhile at the beginning of the game.
The first thing I notice is the framerate is chugging. I don’t know if the system can quite handle all the developers are trying to do. This makes the gameplay worse. For example, passing is really a coin flip that I lost more than I won. The manual says to press the X Button when the ball gets close to the receiver to manually catch it, but I didn’t get that to work once. Luckily, Detroit’s running back is unstoppable and that is how I gained my yards.
I do like the presentation. You get scores and a big play from a couple other games at halftime. This makes it feel like part of a real world. The music is a lot more sparse and I didn’t feel the sounds were quite as good as Sega’s. I was able to beat the team from Washington, but after an hour, I didn’t want to keep playing.
Graphics: 2.0
The frame rate is super choppy and it makes playing more difficult.
Sound: 1.5
The music isn’t very good and the sounds are just average enough.
Gameplay: 2.0
Passing is useless and if you don’t have a good running back, good luck!
Difficulty: 2.5
Completing a pass is a crap shoot and if the computer doesn’t want to be tackled, they won’t be.
Fun Factor: 2.0
Games take a long time to get through, stick with 5 minute quarters.
Overall Rating: 2.0
John Madden Football earns a C. The Genesis version is the far superior choice out of the 16-bit Madden outings. You can skip this one.