Since Football season started last Thursday I decided to go back to one of the earlier Football games I had every played. John Madden Football ’92 was a game that my friends brother owned, but since they shared a Sega Genesis he was able to play as well. When I would go over my friends house he would always ask me to play him in John Madden, because he knew I was horrible and we both liked to laugh at the huge ambulance that came out on screen.
For my Way Back Wednesday game I decided to back and play a short game to see if I had improved over time. I figured since I was used to playing Madden games with more complex controls on current consoled, this should be easy. I decided to play as my favorite team, San Francisco 49ers, and challenge the Oakland Raiders. I figured they would be an easy team, but I couldn’t see any stats to back up my claim. With three buttons and a D-pad, there was very little that you were able to do. This made playing easier, because you only had to remember a few buttons when on offense and defense. Since I had no manual, this also made it easier to fiddle with the buttons to see what did what. As an example, it wasn’t until the 3rd quarter that I figured out which button was used for sprinting. The game looked just as pixelated as it did when I was young and as I got into my first play, I remembered why I was so horrible at this game. Current Madden games have players marked by buttons and when you feel it’s a good time you can throw it. In the old Madden games, you couldn’t throw the ball until windows popped up with players who were open. This caused me to lose many yards the whole game because I wanted to throw it to a person but their window didn’t pop up, so I just ended up spinning and diving a lot. I also didn’t know that the San Francisco 49er offensive line was nothing but paper, because I tried to scramble to give myself time but no one was ever open and I ended up losing yards almost every play. I suppose the game was trying to be a little realistic, because when you were running and someone was open you stopped and took a second to throw the ball. That precious second was a great defying moment in many plays, because that’s when I would get sacked. The defense was a little better, and I didn’t really take control of anyone unless the Raiders were running the ball. I ended up holding them to two field goals and lost without scoring a single point.
If you watch my last drive, you will without a shadow of a doubt some of the worst playing anyone has ever seen. I went from being almost in the red zone to losing 61 yeards because no one was open. Sadly there were no injuries and I didn’t get to see the giant ambulance, but I did get to see the old logos and a game without the option to Ask Madden.