Sega Genesis
Released in 1995 by EA Sports
Grade: B-
It’s the college brother of Madden 96, but really plays like a combination of Madden 95 and Bill Walsh College Football 95. It’s smooth and easy to pick up, but it’s too friendly to the offense.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the third of four college football games released by EA for the Genesis. Bill Walsh 95 seems to be the most revered of the bunch, but I have a slight preference for the final installment, College Football USA 97.
Praises and gripes
As with most EA football games, this game has easy control, simple playcalling, and a lot of good chaos happening on every play.
The players look choppy but move nicely. They often feel like they’re gliding, usually for an extra few yards.
Offensive linemen hardly ever do their job right. Pass plays see a chaotic pileup of pixels closing in on the QB, who needs to roll out before throwing. The balancing effect for this is that you can always heave a long bomb and have a good chance of completing it if you steer your receiver right (or switch to the wussed-out auto catch setting). On the bright side, passes don’t hang ridiculously long in the air like they do in Bill Walsh 95.
Run plays are better engineered. The option plays are easy to execute and can pick up big yardage. Running backs regularly bounce off tackles with the spin move, which is unrealistic and unfair.
On top of that, this game seems to have short yard markings on the field in relation to the players’ size and movement. What feels like an 8-yard pass will actually gain you 16 yards.
And you’ll even catch passes in the luckiest of ways. Twice in a row my receiver was hit as he caught the ball, which fluttered in the air and then landed on him as he was half-dead on the turf for a miraculous catch. Sometimes passes are batted around and then caught by a teammate you weren’t passing to.
In case you aren’t following along, this game is too easy on the offense. And worse, your go-to offensive tactics are limited to (a) a bunch of Hail Mary passes or (b) a bunch of run plays. You don’t have much to gain from the short to medium passing game.
So, it’s fun, but it doesn’t have lasting power. Even with two difficulty settings and a whooping 108 teams, it’s not likely to be a rewarding experience in the long run.
I didn’t even complain that the default settings have penalties being called left and right. You need to dial them back in the menus.
I wanted to love this game because it plays so smooth and avoids some of the issues from other games in EA’s 16-bit football offering, but it’s got issues all its own.