''Madden NFL '94'' is an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

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 ...

released for the Sega Genesis and

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 ...

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...

. It is the first game in the ''Madden'' series with an official

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

team license, as well as the first ''Madden'' game that allows players to play a full regular season (via a password system). However, the game is not licensed by the

NFL Players Association The National Football League Players Association, or NFLPA, is a labor union representing National Football League (NFL) players. The NFLPA, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C., is led by president J. C. Tretter and executive director DeM ...

, so all of the players are identified by number only (the game would get the Players' Association license in the next year's edition). It is the first ''Madden'' game to use the "EA Sports – It's in the Game" audio tag. It also introduces the "Flip play", "Play-call mode", "Pass-catch mode" and "Bluff play" options to the series. This is the first ''Madden'' title to pause the action and rotate the screen during punts, kickoffs, and turnovers, rather than instantly reversing P.O.V. to the opposite side of the field, which could be disorienting to players. The field can also be rotated to view plays from any angle in instant replay. This is also the first ''Madden'' game to have Super Bowl teams available for play without any special codes. Due to an error, the entire rosters for the New York Giants and New York Jets are reversed. For example, the quarterback for the Jets is #11 (

Phil Simms Phillip Martin Simms (born November 3, 1955) is an American former football quarterback who spent his entire 15-year professional career playing for the New York Giants of the National Football League (NFL). He is currently a television sport ...

of the Giants) while the quarterback for the Giants is #7 (

Boomer Esiason Norman Julius "Boomer" Esiason (; born April 17, 1961) is an American former professional football player who was a quarterback in the National Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons, primarily with the Cincinnati Bengals. He was selected in the ...

of the Jets). This error affects at least the copies for SNES available during the Christmas shopping season of 1993. Certain versions of the game are labeled as "Limited First Round Editions".

Reception

The game was a bestseller in the US, and made number 15 in the UK.

IGN ''IGN'' (formerly ''Imagine Games Network'') is an American video game and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa distri ...

rated the game 75th on their "Top 100 SNES Games of All Time." They also wrote that instead of playing generic players and teams like its predecessors, the developers had use of the NFL license that players can play official players and teams with enhanced gameplay. They concluded their review opining Madden NFL 94 is: "Arguably the best Madden released in the 16-bit era, and maybe the most retro-nostalgic installment in the entire series."

References

External links

* 1993 video games EA Sports games Electronic Arts games High Score Productions games Madden NFL Multiplayer and single-player video games Sega Genesis games Super Nintendo Entertainment System games Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Brian L. Schmidt {{Amfoot-videogame-stub