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''Madden NFL 98'' is a 1997
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
. It features
John Madden John Earl Madden (April 10, 1936 – December 28, 2021) was an American football coach and sports commentator in the National Football League (NFL). He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, who he led to eight pla ...
on the cover. It was the last version of the ''Madden'' series to be released for the
Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...
,
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
and
Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...
platforms, as well as the last Madden game to utilize the 2D sprites for the players and referee, on 3D playing fields. The game's development focused on improving the ''Madden'' series'
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
. This aspect earned the game critical acclaim, with some reviewers considering ''Madden NFL 98'' a new landmark for A.I. in football video games. The
Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It ...
had the best team overall in the game with a 95. The worst team overall was the
Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...
with a score of 71. The
Dallas Cowboys The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...
, the
New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...
and the Green Bay Packers were a 3-way tie for the best offense with a perfect score of 100. There is also a 3-way tie for the best defense in the game between the
San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...
, the
Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) West, which they rejoined in 2002 as ...
and the Green Bay Packers with a score of 97. The
San Diego Chargers The San Diego Chargers were a professional American football team that played in San Diego from 1961 until the end of the 2016 season, before relocating to Los Angeles, where the franchise had played its inaugural 1960 season. The team is now ...
had the best special teams in the game with a score of 96. Publisher
EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" ...
licensed the Super NES and Genesis versions of the game to
THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initi ...
, who published it for those platforms. The PlayStation version of the game is playable in the collectors edition of
Madden NFL 2005 ''Madden NFL 2005'' is an American football simulation video game based on the NFL that was developed by EA Tiburon, along with Exient Entertainment and Budcat Creations, and published by EA Sports. The 16th installment of the ''Madden NFL serie ...
with updated rosters.


Gameplay

''Madden NFL 98'' introduced touch passing to the series, which allows players to control the speed of a pass by how hard they push the button. Control can be switched to any football player at any time. The PC version of ''Madden NFL 98'' allowed players to download the latest NFL rosters from EA's website, thereby keeping the game up-to-date.


Development

In response to a longstanding criticism of the ''Madden'' series, that the AI is too vulnerable, the development team made improving the AI their main emphasis with ''Madden NFL 98''. The AI architects dubbed their new system "Liquid AI". A version for the
Panasonic M2 The Panasonic M2 is a video game console platform developed by 3DO and then sold to Matsushita, a company known outside Japan by the brand Panasonic. Initially announced as a peripheral chip for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, it was later un ...
was in the works, but never released due to the system's cancellation. A version for the
Game.com The Game.com is a fifth-generation handheld game console released by Tiger Electronics on September 12, 1997. A smaller version, the Game.com Pocket Pro, was released in mid-1999. The first version of the Game.com can be connected to a 14.4 ...
was also planned, with
Tiger Electronics Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as ''Brain Warp'' and the Br ...
as the developer, though Tiger producer Allen Richardson admitted that the game would be difficult to do on the Game.com due to the 16
megabit The megabit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information. The prefix mega (symbol M) is defined in the International System of Units (SI) as a multiplier of 106 (1 million), and therefore :1 megabit = = = 1000 kilobits. The megabit h ...
size of the cartridges.


Reception

''Madden NFL 98'' was positively received, with the overwhelming majority of critics agreeing that the new "liquid AI" had eliminated the longstanding ''Madden NFL'' series problem of "money plays" that could be used to successfully run the ball in any situation, making the game more challenging and the final scores more comparable to those of real football games. Kraig Kujawa of ''
Electronic Gaming Monthly ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' (often abbreviated to ''EGM'') is a monthly American video game magazine. It offers video game news, coverage of industry events, interviews with gaming figures, editorial content and product reviews. History The m ...
'' called it "the smartest football game I've played", and Gary Cutlack of ''
Sega Saturn Magazine ''Sega Saturn Magazine'' was a monthly UK magazine covering the Sega Saturn, a home video game console. It held the official Saturn magazine license for the UK, and some issues included a demo CD created by Sega, ''Sega Flash'', which included ...
'' said the new AI "Makes the game a lot harder, but a well earned victory is much more satisfying, don't you think?" '' Next Generation'' dissented with the majority, contending that while the AI was improved from the previous installment of the series, they had managed to find some "money plays". However, other aspects of the game were widely praised as well, particularly the lively audio commentary, realistic animations, and wide selection of options. Several reviewers made particular mention of the new "fantasy draft" option. By far the largest source of criticism was the use of sprite-based rather than polygon-based players. While full polygonal football video games were unexplored territory (the first fully polygonal football game, ''
NFL GameDay 98 ''NFL GameDay 98'' is a video game developed by Sony Interactive Studios America and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation. It was the first football video game to feature 3D polygonal graphics (it took longer for football ...
'', was released the same month as ''Madden NFL 98'', and ''
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
'' acknowledged that polygonal graphics are a much greater drain on processing power in football games than other genres, due to the large number of players), most critics felt that the ''Madden'' series, as the leader in the football genre, should have advanced into it by this time. ''Next Generation'' in particular felt that the ''Madden'' series had unequivocally been dethroned by its failure to beat ''
NFL GameDay ''NFL GameDay'' (stylized as ''NFL GameDay Morning presented by Lowe's'' (Sunday regular season mornings only) or ''NFL GameDay Morning presented by Intuit TurboTax'' (playoff and Super Bowl editions only), ''NFL GameDay Live presented by G ...
'' to fully polygonal graphics, concluding that "despite some problems, at least the gameplay is solid – a distinct improvement over last year. However, it's too little too late, and stacked against the jaw-dropping ''GameDay'', good is no longer good enough." ''GameSpot'' countered that "Although some might scoff at ''Madden 98'' not using polygons like its chief competitor ''GameDay 98'', these player sprites are well animated and detailed.", and pointed out several impressive graphical features accomplished with the sprites. Arguing that the excellent gameplay and AI outweigh the graphical shortcomings, Kujawa deemed ''Madden NFL 98'' "the best PlayStation football game", while his co-reviewer Dean Hager, like ''Next Generation'', held that ''GameDay 98'' had edged it out with its polygonal players. While most reviewers did not compare versions, ''
GamePro Gamepro.com is an international multiplatform video game magazine media company that covers the video game industry, video game hardware and video game software in countries such as Germany and France. The publication, GamePro, was originally la ...
'' noted that the Saturn version has greater pixelation than the PlayStation version and uses an antiquated "gliding sprites" method of animation. Despite this, the Saturn's much smaller library of football games (Sega's only answer to Sony's ''NFL GameDay'' was the critically panned '' NFL '97'') left critics with few reservations about declaring the Saturn version of ''Madden NFL '98'' the best football game on the system. In the same issue in which they reviewed the Saturn version (and just a month after reviewing the PlayStation version), ''Electronic Gaming Monthly'' ranked the Saturn and PlayStation versions as the 19th best console video game of all time, saying that the AI was the best of any football game yet. They also named ''Madden NFL 98'' a runner-up for "Saturn Game of the Year" (behind ''
Saturn Bomberman is an action video game by Hudson Soft for the Sega Saturn. The twelfth installment in the ''Bomberman'' series, it was first released in Japan on July 19, 1996, in North America on August 22, 1997 and in Europe in 1997. It is best known for i ...
'') and "Sports Game of the Year" (behind ''
International Superstar Soccer 64 ''International Superstar Soccer 64'' (officially abbreviated as ''ISS 64'', originally released in Japan as and then later adapted as ) is a video game developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Osaka in the '' International Superstar Soccer'' ...
'') at their 1997 Editors' Choice Awards.


See also

* ''
Madden Football 64 ''Madden Football 64'' is a football video game. It was the first game of the ''Madden NFL'' series to be released for the Nintendo 64, as well as the first Madden game to be fully in 3D. Essentially an upgrade of '' Madden NFL 98'' designed aroun ...
''


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madden Nfl 98 1997 video games Cancelled Panasonic M2 games EA Sports games Electronic Arts games Madden NFL PlayStation (console) games Sega Genesis games Sega Saturn games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games THQ games Windows games Stormfront Studios games Video games developed in the United States Tiertex Design Studios games Multiplayer and single-player video games