John Madden Football '93

"Good Game with lots of Options"

Game Play: (7 of 10): The game play for John Madden ’93 is done very well. Compared to it’s the original John Madden game they took a huge steep to give you a challenging football game. The computer game is still dumb, but it does seem to make you think about you play calling a little bit more. One problem is that the money plays, once you find one of the money plays you will get 15 yards every time. One thing that annoyed me was the CPU taking to long to pick its play (on offense and defense). The game really becomes fun if you take on a friend. With the arcade style you will enjoy talking trash when you run over his best lineman or burn his DB to score the go ahead TD. This game is geared toward the running game, if you take a good running team you could just keep running with you top RB and score on will.

Options: (8 of 10): The one thing this game offers is tons of Options. You get 5 different game types. Pre-season, Regular Season, Playoffs, All-Time Playoffs, and Sudden Death. You can choose how long you want your quarters to be (5/10/15 minutes.) Although Pre-season and Regular Season are the same as far as I could tell, seeing that there still is no full season in this Madden game you can play through the Playoffs to try to get to the Super Bowl. My favorite option is the All-Time Playoffs in this you pick one of the greatest pro teams ever (Miami ‘76, Oakland ’76, Dallas ’77, Pittsburgh ’78, Washington ’82, San Francisco ’84, Chicago ’85, and New York Giants ’86) and try to beat the other greats and try to prove who is the best team ever. You also get two All-Madden Teams ’92 and “greatest ever”, that features all of Madden’s favorite players. As well as those ten teams you also get all 28 NFL teams for 1992-93 (38 TEAMS IN ALL!) They also added a battery to the game meaning no more passwords. The box says it will keep player stats but all I could find were QB stats (not sure if I didn’t know how to use the menus.). I also like the scouting reports on both teams before every game. There is also the option of playing in a dome on turf or a stadium on grass or turf, as well as weather conditions (Rain, Wind and Snow). Would have been a 10 of 10 if there were a full season here.

Audio/Video: (5 of 10): The graphics in this game have not improved much sense ’91. The players are a little bigger but that’s about it. Players don’t have their numbers on their backs unless the player’s number is 11 (all players have 11 on their back.) But they do have the number around them when you are controlling them or they have the ball. The grass or turf looks plain with little texture. The audio is just okay; Madden will drive you nuts with his Maddenisms. At first they may be funning, but after ten times they become old!

Replayability: (6 of 10): Very high if you like to play older football games, but if you are looking for a simulation then this is not you game. I could play this game for several weeks before I would get really burned out on it. If the game included a season with better stats then I would have scored it higher. Again the best replay value it has is with the two-player mode.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/02, Updated 04/20/02