John Madden Football '93

The Good
Madden 93 for its time is a great game and is still pretty fun to play today. The game contains all of the NFL teams of the day and all the right numbers for each player.

The gameplay itself is also pretty solid. The controls may take some time to learn if you do not have the instructions but a quick look on the internet and the controls will become second nature.

The Bad
Madden 93 is a very bear bones game by today's standards. The game contains no season mode and only a playoff tournament (which oddly contains no Super Bowl), though it does give a pretty comprehensive half time and post game summary, including 3rd and 4th down conversions, passes completed, total passing yards, rushing yards, and even a scoring history.

The graphics aren't much to look at, even by SNES standards. All the players look exactly the same with an odd tan and cream skin color and this only starts to become a problem when it comes to the passing game, where its hard to keep track of which player is where. Also due to the overhead camera, sometimes it can be a little hard to tell exactly how far you have moved, and in a 3rd and 1 situation it will sometimes make or break the whole game.

A few other complaints are that the game only offers 5, 10, and 15 minute quarters, so if players want to plug in they better be prepared to play a good length game. Another slightly more annoying one is that you don't get to see other team stats until you already get started on a game, which can be hassle-some for exhibition games.

The Bottom Line
For Madden 93's time, it did pretty much everything right and gave all that it needed to give. Age has not been kind to this game and may make it seem a bit dated, but the fundamentals are still well in tact and work as good as they ever did, creating a good, solid game experience.

The Good
The gameplay, graphics, strategy, and control are excellent. It's just classic football on a game console. The graphics are very detailed and clear cut - the players may be on the small side but for a football game it's the best way (later versions sport players that are just too large and slightly fuzzy which makes distinguishing individual players difficult). The field looks great and all pertinent information such as the teams, score, down, yards-to-go, and play clock are in clear sight. Selecting and reading the plays are very clear (which becomes a bit of a problem in later versions of Madden). Control is top-notch and there are many different plays. I especially like the offensive and defensive audibles chart and those plays are executed as described - pretty darn cool for a early 1990's football game! The learning curve isn't too bad and once you start playing a game you can really get into it. Equally fun game playing against the computer or a human.

The Bad
Not much to dislike. Probably not having enough variety in sound effects and seeing more of a stadium crowd (ie. when you're in the red zone and about to score). But those are minor issues when you get into the game.

The Bottom Line
Very fun if you like football. It's very exciting when you complete a long pass and you're running toward the end zone with a defenseman closing in on you, OR, you manage to just scrape by on a 40 yard field goal attempt, OR, you win the game in the last minute of the 4th quarter with a long bomb or field goal. It's a great game - get it and play it!!!