It's good!
Any American football simulator is going to have to go hard to beat the classic of the genre, John Madden, but surprisingly enough, this effort from Microprose does a pretty good job of recreating the thrills and spills of the sport. In many ways, it's very much a standard simulator, but it scores a lot of points for simply getting everything right so if you are on the lookout for another game in this field, this is a safe bet for a good time. It's based around the 94 season and you have all the usual options for playing with the real teams from the period or you can go and create your own fantasy lineups and play how you want to. You can play through an entire season or just pick up and play a single game, while on the pitch you have the option to watch things from a purely strategic perspective or get down and dirty and take control of your team. You can also tweak a huge variety of settings, like wind direction, stadium type, weather conditions and temperature and it's interesting to see how these all affect how you play. As far as American football sims go, this is top notch stuff. There's more than enough detail to keep even the most rabid of fans happy, while the controls are intuitive and fluid, making controlling your team a breeze. A particularly nice touch is the option to switch between strategic and action gameplay, with both methods of play providing high levels of excitement and tension. The visuals too are top notch, with well animated characters and nicely detailed environments. All in all, this makes for a fine sporting sim that is well worth checking out.
