NFL GameDay 98

"After all these years, it is still an awesome game"

INTRODUCTION:

Well, it's been almost a decade since NFL Gameday first came into my home. I was only 5, but I was ready to play, being an avid sports fan. I was thrilled with the game, and I played it until I had beat the Season mode several times (mostly with the Steelers, because they are my favorite team). Then, later on in my life, we got a Playstation 2 and my NFL Gameday 98 experience was over, or at least I thought. A few weeks ago, I was bored, so I pulled out my Playstation 1, the old thing still working, and I turned it on without even opening the lid to check for a game. Luck would have it, it was NFL Gameday 98. So I played for a while, and I found it was still exciting. So I have been once again hooked on this game, having not much else to do with my life. So after thinking about my review, I decided to rate this game 7/10. Let's break it down, shall we?

GAMEPLAY: 7/10

So it's been 10 years. So what? The gameplay still holds up. There's only 2 modes available, which are Pre-season, which is a one-off game, and Season, which is the full sixteen games, with stats, Pro Bowl voting, and league standings. There's also the draft, which is fun, but deletes all of your created characters, which I found out when my almost all created character team went through the draft. Also, as I have said before, you can create your own characters and put them through NFL Training Camp to be used either in the free agent pool or on a team. It's really cool to put yourself in the game, or your family members. They even give you your own picture for your character to use! There's also trading, in which you can trade any player for any player, without any limitations. You can make an all-star team if you want. In my opinion, they could have added some sort of different mode, because even though it's a football game, there should be something else, like a franchise mode or something. When you play for extended amounts of time, it starts to get a little tedious. But the controls are very nice. When you're in the huddle, you use the d-pad to choose a playbook, then the shape buttons to choose your exact play. Then you go to the play. Press x to snap. If it's a passing play, press x to bring up your receivers, then another shape button to throw to that receiver. Something that wasn't added was the ability to fake a pass. I found that out when I started to play again. If you're running, use square to dive, triangle to jump, L1 and R1 to stiff arm left and right respectively, and circle to use a random evading maneuver. That's another bad concept about the game's programming, it chooses a random move. 7 out of 10 times it will pick the wrong move, seemingly more when you are close to the endzone. On defense, use circle to change your player, use square to tackle, and triangle to jump. On either side, use the d-pad to run. Simple. The gameplay is simplistic enough to enjoy, without being too simple as to be boring.

GRAPHICS: 5/10

I'm sorry, but this part of the game did not age well. Unfortunately, it looks atrocious. The character models look very blocky, and their hands are very blocky as well. The crowd is seemingly one gigantic blob, with different colors splotched around to make it look sort of like people. The football is decent, but it could definitely be better. At least the teams have the correct colors...by the way, almost all of the teams are in this game, save for the Browns (they had yet to go back into the NFL) and the Texans (they weren't even thought of yet). Every other team is present, and each has the right uniforms (I would hope so). The players are colored, as in skin color, correctly, as there are white players and black players. Unfortunately, they all look the same height and weight wise. The field looks good (for a PS1 game), but it always seems too short. The numbers on the jerseys look a little blurry at too much of a distance, but close up, they look okay. Oh well, all PS games look bad now, it would seem.

MUSIC/SOUND: 6/10

I really do like the menu music, because of all the guitar solos. However, it is very annoying to wait for 10 seconds to let the clip reload itself. In the actual football games, music is virtually non-existent, save for half-time, which is how it should be. Unfortunately, the lack of music meant that the announcer got to talk. I do not like to listen to the announcer as he is extremely annoying. I find it much easier to mute my television instead. The problem with this guy is that he announces practically EVERYTHING. What down it is, who ran the play, how many yards were gained (which isn't always accurate), etc. For example, I'll be running with Jerome Bettis, who gets tackled by Deion Sanders for 9 yards. It is extremely annoying to hear him say "10 yard gain on the run", when it is only 9. Also, he won't even stop talking when you pause the game. He'll start to say things unrelated to the game, such as "Will the owner of a white pickup truck please report to the parking lot. Your lights are on." He is balanced out by the crowd, which, contrary to what it looks like, sounds very realistic and really gets into the game. When Jerome Bettis gets the ball in his home stadium, the audience yells "BUS!". There are a list of players that have special audio clips for them catching the ball at home. Also, the crowd chants loudly for the home team when they are on defense and the away team is close to scoring. They do the "We Will Rock You" chant with their stomp stomp clap routine. The players themselves sound very realistic. You can hear the quarterback call blue 42 and so on before the play. You can hear the players grunt and groan during the play as well.The hits sound extremely good, the crunching noise it makes gives the impression that the tackle really hurt. The ball hitting the ground is realistic too. I hate the announcer, but overall the sounds are really good.

DIFFICULTY: 6/10

It's not that hard to pick up and play once you memorize all of the controls. The AI is programmed to stop you from picking up a really good pass or run twice in a row. This gets amplified once you near their goal line. On offense, the AI has some trouble with running, unless they have an extremely good running back (like Barry Sanders or Jerome Bettis). However, the AI is good at passing, unless you are good at blocking. The Season mode is a good challenge, as you try to win as many games as you can and get a lot of your players in the Pro Bowl.

REPLAY VALUE: Medium

It's fun to play a couple seasons, especially with different teams, and maybe with an all-star team. But after awhile, it's only fun if you have a bunch of friends all battling it out for the victory. So play in moderation, lest it get too boring and sit on your shelf in the basement, collecting dust.

Long Live the Sextuple Rush! (That was a play me and my friends tried one day. There were 7 people on one team, and 1 person on the other. We used the Bring It play from the Goal Line playbook, and 6 of us were the lineman. We all blitzed the quarterback, with the other 1 hanging back to prevent a possible pass. Luck would have it, he ran backwards, all 6 of us chasing after him. He throws it to one of his receivers, who can't make it to the ball, and it gets intercepted by the player hanging back. He returned it for a touchdown by the way.)

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/26/07

Game Release: NFL GameDay 98 (US, 07/31/97)