"Ever played Madden '92 for the Sega Genesis?"

Ever played Madden '92 for the Sega Genesis? Well, Madden 2000 for the Game Boy Color is basically a mini version of that game. This doesn't mean it is a bad game, however....

Gameplay: 9

Madden '92 for the Genesis was and still is my favorite football game. I remember purchasing it when I was a tike, for $32.00. Or was it $31.00? Anyway, Madden 2000 for the GBC is a great game.

The opening screen shows a drawing of the sexy John Madden as the game credits scroll by. Skip this, and you go to the opening screen. Among the modes are Exhibition, Playoffs, Season, Sudden Death, and Options. In Options, you can chose the quarter lengths and the difficulty. Five minutes is the lowest quarter length you can choose, but the time goes by extremely slow in the game, so even at 5-Minute quarters the game will literly take an hour and a half - therefore, Exhibition is the mode you will probably play the most. I havn't even tried the Playoffs or Season because of how long it takes to play a single game. The Sudden Death option gives you 5 minutes to score more points then your opponent. This is a fun option, but gets old because the computer seems to get stat boosts in this mode, so it is hard to win. There is also a Multiplayer option for those of you that have a Link Cable.

After choosing your mode of interest, you are taken to the Team Select screen. All teams are included, plus an All-Madden team. You can also see the stats of the team; Offensive, Defensive, Special Teams, and Overall.

As soon as you pick a team, you are brought to another picture of John Madden, as he speaks of today's matchup. Blah blah ... the text scrolls by so slow it takes 5 minutes to finish what he is saying. Luckily, you can skip him. Heh, poor John - never gets respected.

You are then brought to the coin toss. Depending on whether you are the Home or Away team, you can choose Heads or Tails. But if the CPU is choosing, don't even bother looking at the screen to see if they lost the toss because they won't.

You are then brought to the kick-off. The controls are basic; for Defense there is Switch Player and Tackle. For Offense, there is Switch Player, Juke, Turbo, Spin, Jump, Hurdle, and Dive. You may be questioning how all those moves are done with 2 buttons. Well, it all depends on the duration of holding down the button. If you tap A, you will dive. If you hold it down, you will Hurdle. Likewise, if you tap B, you will Juke or Turbo depending on the amount of opponents around you, and if you hold it down, you will Spin. The controls are easy to learn.

I scored down the Gameplay a point because of glitches. Although rarely occurring, the glitches are hurtful (emotionally and gameplay-wise. heh) Like, sometimes you will be running up field from the kickoff, and suddenly the entire opponent team disappears. As you scream in fear, you get tackled by nothingness. Another thing that happens are graphical glitches after touchdowns. The colors sometimes get mixed up while your player spikes the ball.

Audio: 3 / Video: 8

As I mention above, this game is almost identical to Madden '92. Any graphics you see in Madden '92 will be here in the GBC version of Madden 2000, expect they are a bit smaller. The players look great for a GBC football game, and the colors are equally impressive. I was awe-strucked by how great the field looks too - it looks very close to the field in Madden 2002 for the PSone.

The Audio is annoying. The music is repetitive (only two songs) and the sound effects, or lack there-of, arn't all the great. During gameplay, there is the basic crowd cheer and the ''thud'' of a tackle. That is all the sound effects you will hear.

Replayability: 10

This game will never get old. It is a great game for long car trips.

Buy or Rent: Buy

Buy this game, you won't regret it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/29/02, Updated 11/29/02