Madden Football 64 (N64) Review

Madden Football 64 was released on October 31, 1997 for the Nintendo 64 (as the name implies). This one’s a rather interesting entry in the Madden NFL series. Why? For starters, it’s the first game since John Madden Football to not have NFL team licensing and endorsement. The other odd thing involves how it handles that lack of licensure. As will be shown throughout this review, this odd duck does a number of things differently from most other Madden games

Graphics.

For the first Madden title on the N64 (’99 through 2002 would follow), this game looks pretty polished. What few logos are actually in the game look neat for a cartridge game, although it should be said that most of the logos in this game are just variants of the EA Sports one. As mentioned above, the thing that separates this entry from the majority of the rest of the series is the lack of NFL team endorsement. The teams are there, don’t get me wrong. Just don’t expect to see the New England Patriots’ signature logo. Instead, you’ll see the city they play in represented in text on a banner bearing their team colors (in the case of New England, Foxboro with blue and red colors).  The jerseys have the same idea: no official logos, just the team colors. The jerseys and helmets don’t completely mimic their official counterparts in terms of style, either: Foxboro has straight red and blue. No silver to be found. Now, aside from what I’ve just described, almost everything in terms of menus and general aesthetic has been ported over from this game’s CD counterpart, Madden NFL ’98. This isn’t really a bad thing as I’ve played both versions (the latter can wait for its review), and never found the interface bad per se. Keep in mind, though, that I’m a “pick-up-and-play” type of gamer. I don’t really play seasons and the like.

Audio

Finally, on to the audio. Effectively, it’s a slightly stripped down port of ‘98’s audio. The menu music was nice, but it didn’t leave too much of an impact on me. Generic rock is generic, I suppose. The intro for this game is mostly unchanged from the CD version in terms of what you hear, but the intro itself is not a video recording. Instead, it is a less licensed version using the game’s native engine. Nothing more to really speak of here.

Gameplay

Gameplay is fun, though it’s nothing groundbreaking. You have the typical Exhibition, Season, and Playoff modes, as well as a Fantasy Draft mode. Here, you can draft players (Note: this game does have an NFLPA license) to any team you want. For example, the draft could end up sending Donovan McNabb to the Washington team. You can use these drafts anytime in Exhibition Mode. Aside from that, it’s just football.

Summary

While I won’t call this game a classic, it isn’t necessarily bad on its own merits, either. In my opinion, Madden 64 was just there to nail a game engine down for the other N64 Madden games. It’s simply okay.