Sega Genesis
Released in 1992 by EA Sports
Grade: C
This game has only minor improvements over Madden 92. It’s still plagued with passing windows and a slow pace from play to play.
Where it falls in the series
It’s the third of eight Maddens on Genesis. In my opinion, the series isn’t worth playing until Madden 95, once they did away with passing windows and sped up the gameplay.
Praises and gripes
A lot of the basic ingredients are in place here. You call plays, you have a good idea of what your players are doing, you can control them well. The action moves a bit slow, but it’s still satisfying and it looks cool. Back in 1992, this was as realistic a game of football as you were going to get.
The gameplay is wrecked by passing windows, which appear at the top of the screen on pass plays, covering the area of the field where all the receivers are. It’s stupid. The best option is to memorize the play diagram, let the play develop, then activate the passing window and throw the ball as quickly as possible. This tricky method wouldn’t work if it weren’t for slow gameplay and a bias toward the offense.
There’s no avoiding the idiocy of the passing windows on defense, however. You can’t play pass coverage as a DB once the passing windows appear.
The playcalling process moves a bit faster than in Madden 92, but it’s still too slow. EA was dedicated to realism, so you’ve got players substituting in and out of the game and other needless details that just take up time.
The game is still overly friendly to offense. Receivers catch everything thrown at them, and running backs can break tackles with ease. Beating the CPU is a piece of cake.