This
series was always a solid contender to Madden. It's a finely tuned game of
football, and it has features that EA's juggernaut does not. The passing game is a little
easier and the running game is easier to pick up since the linemen stick the offensive
line better. You can see further downfield on passing plays, though 80 yards does seem
like overkill. Full season play is available, but the NFLPA did not license this one. Only the star quarterbacks are featured by name. You can also play some scenarios from classic games to try to rewrite history. That's all there is to do outside of the stadium. Inside, you'll rack up stats if you're familiar with football, especially on kick-offs. The spin move is easily abused. Defensive coverage is fine, though spoiled by markers that indicate how open a receiver is. Why read coverage when it's done for you?
The playbook is also rather poorly conceived. It's broken down into short, medium, and long, then into the usual formations. You then have to confirm your selection each time. These are extra, unnecessary steps and in a tight game, it could decide the winner. Also, if Madden is the only thing you're used to, the extra, separate button to call up the receiver icons is annoying too.
Those are the annoyances in the gameplay department that made this series always seem a few years behind. It's an otherwise decent football engine. It's a nice change of pace from the years of Madden, and on the 32X where EA was wise to stay away for the most part (except for Toughman Contest and the non-US release FIFA), and it does stand as the only football game on the console.
However, there's just not much here to make it different. There's smoother scaling, and a gameplay-hindering zoom effect when close to the goal line. It crops your view and the sprites become unidentifiable as football players. There might be a few extra colors splashed around in spots, but it's hardly enough to call it different.
The audio is, overall, cleaner than the Genesis version. The hits and grunts as players smash themselves together on the line provide a nice backdrop to the action on the field. The menus offer up decent music, just not NFL Films quality stuff.
If for whatever reason you still play 16-bit football games (and there's nothing wrong with that), you might as well just get the last and most refined version, '96, on the Genesis. Though Acclaim wants you to think otherwise, this isn't a 32-bit football game. It's a 16-bit one that happens to have lost it's way when looking for new hardware.
