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When it comes to football video games, no franchise is as well-known or as popular as the Madden NFL football series from EA Sports. In fact, the Madden NFL Football series is the most successful interactive sports game in the world, as it has sold more than nine million units in the history of its franchise across multiple platforms. Last year's version of Madden, was rated as the top selling game for both the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1996 according to market research from The NPD Group. Despite its obvious success, Madden NFL 97 was viewed as a step back for EA Sports as many gamers were disappointed with its gameplay and total lack of a competitive AI. With Madden NFL 98, EA Sports has brought back the fantastic gameplay that has made this series so popular and has brought it to the next level by giving it the best computer artificial intelligence of any football game ever released.

EA Sports is known for packing their games with loads of features, options, stats and custom settings, so it is not a surprise to find out the Madden NFL 98 is loaded with many great features. In fact, with Madden NFL 98, EA Sports has gone a step further than all of their previous efforts in this department. In Madden NFL 98 you get all 30 current NFL football teams, 85 All-Time and Super Bowl teams, plus numerous secret teams. All of the teams have strengths and weaknesses based on their real life counterparts and the current NFL teams have rosters that include many of the players that the teams had coming into training camp this year including many rookies.

Just like you have come to expect in Madden football games, Madden NFL 98 features a wealth of gameplay options. To begin, you are given the following options: Exhibition, Season, Custom Season, Tournament, Fantasy Draft, Front Office, Game Options and Backup Options.

The exhibition option allows you to play a game between any two teams of the hundred plus that are available. You can have yourself a rematch of last year's Super Bowl, Super Bowl's of the past or even pit current teams against past greats. Once you choose the exhibition mode, you are given the options to choose the home team and away team, the stadium that you want to play in, the quarter length (3 min, 5 min, 10 min, 15 min), the weather (Fair, Rain, Wind, Snow, Night), have modified rosters on or off, view the all-time records and to view the credits of the game. The all-time records keeps tracks of statistics such as the Longest Pass, Most Rush Yards, Most INTs to the highest QB rating of CPU and human controlled players. In the exhibition mode, up to eight players can play head to head.

If you choose the season option, you get to play out the current 1997 NFL Football season with the current NFL Football teams. In the season mode you are given the following options: Play Week (play or simulated any of the current week's games), Team Schedule (view the schedules of any of NFL teams), Team Standings (current records and standings of all NFL teams), Injury Report (listings of injured players for each NFL team), Season Statistics (individual stats, team stats and team rankings), Player Awards (offensive and defensive players of the week) and Front Office (trade players, signs player, release player, reorder roster and create player).

The statistical tracking in Madden NFL 98 is one of its many strong points. As far as individual stats are concerned, everything is tracked for passing, rushing, receiving, defense, kicking, punting, kick returns, and punt returns. Every single important statistic for any of those categories are also tracked. And the statical tracking for the teams are equally as good and detailed, as everything is tracked from simple stuff like total yards, total yards rushing and passing to the team's third and fourth down conversion percentages to the amount of touchdowns and field goals you get while in the Red Zone. Not only are the statistics deep and complete, but they are displayed via a very user friendly interface and are not hampered by any major loading times.

Another very important feature in which Madden NFL 98 excels in, is the team management features. With the Front Office option that is both in the main screen and the season options, you have the ability to trade players, sign players, release players, reorder rosters and create players for any of the NFL teams. This means that if you are one of those football freaks that must have each team as accurate to the real current NFL rosters, it is possible with Madden NFL 98.

The custom season option is very much like the regular season option, but instead of using the current teams and the 1997 NFL Football schedule, you have the ability to create a league full of any combination of the 100+ past and present teams available in the game. Once you choose the teams, it is essentially the same as the regular season mode.

The tournament option allows you to either have an 8 or 16 team single elimination tournament. In this mode you can select any of the hundred plus teams and statistics are kept for both players and teams in the tournament.

The Fantasy Draft option is one of the more unique options found in Madden NFL 98, as it combines the strategy of fantasy football with the action of Madden football. First you must select between four or eight players in the draft and then select human or CPU control for each team's draft. First, in random order teams will select their team's name and then in that same order each team will be able to begin choosing players from any of the NFL players available. Once the teams finish selecting their complete rosters, a round robin tournament will begin with those teams.

The Game Options include: Quarter Length (3, 5, 10, 15 minutes), Skill Level (Rookie, Pro, Madden), Injuries (on or off), Maddenisms (on or off), Commentary (on or off), Fatigue (on or off), User Records (on or off), Salary Cap (on or off), Trading Deadline (on or off), Sound FX (0 to 100%), Music (0 to 100%), Stereo Output (stereo or mono), Penalty Levels and Controller Configuration. With the penalty levels option you can adjust the frequency of calls for the following penalties: rough passer, rough kicker, personal foul, face masking, defensive pass interference, offensive pass interference, fair catch int., punt catch int., holding, false start, clipping, and int. grounding.

Even more options are made available when you are in the actual game. Once in the game you can call timeouts, view instant replays, change control of the teams, make substitutions, view the injury report, view the statistics, view the driver summary and scoring summary, plus change the settings of the game. In the settings option, you can change all of the settings that are available in the Game Options from the main screen plus the following: Player Displays (by name or number), EA's Instant Replay (on or off), Any Player Control (on or off), Camera View (madden, madden classic, sideline low, sideline high, shoulder, madden zoom, diagonal, and madden 1 player) and Offensive and Defensive Audibles. Of camera angles available, I personally found the Madden Cam to be the best, but the game plays well with any of them. The default cam is the Madden Zoom Cam.

Unlike the overly complicated control scheme in Sony's Gameday NFL 98, the control scheme in Madden 98 is much easier to learn while still giving you full control over your players. As the quarterback before the snap you can call audibles, view your receivers to the left and right, fake snap signals and snap the ball. Once the ball is snapped, you can call up the passing window and throw to any of the available receivers and thanks to the Touch Passing in Madden NFL 98, players are given complete control over whether the pass is a bullet of lofted. When running with the ball you can explode forward, spin, dive, jump/hurdle, stiff arm left or right and lateral to the closest player. And if your in control of a receiver awaiting a pass you can dive for a ball or jump and raise your hands for a high pass.

On defense before the snap you can either call an audible, choose to control any of the players or call for bump coverage or return them to their normal positions. And once the ball is snapped, you can switch control to another player, do a power move or tackle, dive to tackle, jump to block or intercept a pass or do a swim move. All these moves are very easy to do and will become instinctive only after a few games. Plus, in the Sega Saturn version of Madden 98, you have the ability to use the Saturn's analog controller for analog control of the players. With the analog pad, your players can side step, back peddle and do other little things that you can't do with the standard d-pad.

While the loads of options, modes, features and excellent control scheme are major aspects in what makes Madden NFL 98 so good, the single most important quality of this game is the phenomenal gameplay. To put it bluntly, the gameplay in Madden NFL 98 surpasses any other interactive sports game in existence. While last year's Madden had a horrible AI and was full of money plays like simple throws to the halfbacks and running with your quarterback, EA Sports has spent a significant amount of time into making Madden NFL 98 a very realistic football simulation.

The centerpiece in what makes Madden 98 such a realistic football game the concept called Liquid AI. With Liquid AI, instead of CPU controlled players being given a pre-set responsibility for a play, it enables them to dynamically flow and move to correct positions on the field in order to make a play. Because of this, a computer controlled player in Madden NFL 98 will read a play as it develops, check what other players on his team and the opposing team are doing and will react and change his assignment if necessary, much like a human would. This helps take away many of the money plays because if you simply call the same pass play over and over while throwing to the same receiver over and over, the defense is more likely to adjust to stop that play.

Even though I found the computer artificial intelligence in Madden NFL 98 to be the best of any football game on the market, I found the differences in the difficulty levels to be solely based on increasing the pass rush of the computer's defense and increasing the computer's chances of getting an interception. On the Madden level instead of having a smarter controlled computer defense, you simply have one that will intercept more balls that are thrown into tight coverage and will give you a lot less time to throw the ball because of increased pressure on the quarterback. Besides that, the computer's running game is pretty weak. While you will occasionally have yourself a game where the computer gets off big running plays, in general you will likely find your defense ranked number one in stopping the run at the end of the season on any difficulty level. And even with teams that seem to have a strong running game and seem to be able to get decent runs on you, the computer will abandon the run too early in the game never allowing it to put up good rushing numbers.

Those faults aside, the play of Madden and the AI is pretty amazing. Going undefeated in Madden in either the Pro or Madden difficulty levels will not be an easy task and depending on the teams that are playing and the weather conditions expect a wide variety of types of games. For instance, one week you will find yourself in a tight defensive match up where you are unable to run or pass with any efficiency while the next week you might be able to put together 400 plus passing yards or even rush for 200 plus yards. In one particular instance while playing a season with the Seattle Seahawks. One week against the Kansas City Chiefs in the rain, I lost the game 19-13 while throwing a total of six interceptions and getting less than fifty total yards on the ground. The in the following week against the Oakland Raiders, I exploded for nearly one hundred yards rushing and threw for 492 yards while demolishing them 56-6. It just amazes me to how the games really vary from game to game, once you feel like you have discovered a way to crush the computer, you play another game and they shut down a play that you considered to be money in the bank.

Offensively, the running game is pretty challenging and pretty true to real life in many aspects. Unlike most football games where they key to running is speeding around the outside, you best runs in Madden 98 are made by running North/South. I've found that I can get my biggest runs by running in between the tackles and the bust the run outside once I have some room, which if you watch the football closely is the way most big runs are made. And there are many things that will affect whether or not you can run the ball well, such as the attributes of your backs and lineman versus the attributes of the defense, plus the use of your player's various moves at the right moments. Choosing to stiff arm, spin, juke or power rush at the right times and moments are very important in having a successful running game. But, if you have a weak line and running backs and you are up against a very powerful defensive line, nothing you do will really help you run the ball better.

The passing game in Madden 98 is extremely well done and is handled well from both the offensive and defensive perspectives. In most cases you will find yourself completing anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of your passes which is much like the real thing. It depends on whether you mix up your passing game and what types of passes you choose to throw. If you consistently try to force long passes, you'll find it harder to complete a high percentage of your passes, while if you mix it up throwing to a variety of wide receivers, tight ends and running backs, you'll find that you'll complete a higher percentage of passes.

And what makes the passing game so interesting is the great computer AI. For example, if you begin throwing and completing a lot of quick outs to your wide outs, the defensive backs will begin to cover them more tightly. Therefore, if you keep on doing this, the defensive back will likely step in front of one of the passes and intercept it. But, at the same time if you decide to change it up and send that receiver for a fly or deep post corner pattern, and the defensive back is covering you tight because of all the quick outs, it will increase your receiver's chance of getting past that defensive back and beating him deep. Another thing I have noticed about the passing game in Madden 98 is that I no longer call pass plays with the intention of just throwing the ball to a specific receiver, but instead I see myself looking for the open receiver knowing that it may be a different one each time the play is run.

The control and sensitivity of the passing is also better than ever in Madden NFL 98. For example, when your quarterback is planted, he is more likely to throw a harder and more accurate pass. Furthermore, when the quarterback is on the run or moving the passes will not be nearly as strong or accurate. And in instances where the quarterback is hit while in the process of throwing, the pass will likely be off target. It must also be noted that receivers are led with great realism and the need to lob a pass or throw a bullet pass will affect greatly your chances of completing the pass. Although, you still can get pass receptions by throwing a bullet pass into the receiver's back or have a pass intercepted that hits the defender squarely in the back.

Other areas that Madden 98 excels in include the different effects that weather plays on game. In snow you'll find that your players take longer to accelerate and to make cuts, and that it seems to affect different players differently. The CPU also does a good job of play calling in most instances. When the CPU is ahead with time running out, the computer will wait until the play clock almost runs out before running the play. Also, when losing the computer will not run the ball much wasting time. Although, there have been instances where the computer would throw the ball while ahead when it just needed to run the ball a few times to close out the game, but for the most part the computer handles this situation correctly.

While the gameplay is easily the single greatest component of Madden NFL 98, EA Sports has also done a very solid job with the graphics of the game. The players in Madden 98 are 2D sprite based players that have what seems like hundreds of different animations for different circumstances. Players will make one-handed catches and pass deflections, when injured they will grab specific body parts based on what was injured, the referees make the signals for penalties on the field with the correct movements, after big plays receivers will showboat and taunt the opposing defense, defenders who make a big sack will often do a little sack celebration like swinging a bat or pulling out and firing their six shooters, and other little things such as players running into goalposts. And unlike the last version of Madden, the players in Madden NFL 98 have their actual numbers this time around.

The TV style presentation of Madden NFL 98 is really top notch. When a quarterback completes a pass, a receiver catches a pass, a running back gets some yards rushing or a defender makes a big play, TV like pop up screens will appear showing the current game or season statistics of the player. Plus, in instances where the player reaches a statistic milestone such as one hundred yards rushing, twenty carries, one hundred yards receiving or three hundred yards passing, Pat Summerall will announce it. These graphical pop up screens are one of the few areas where the Saturn and PlayStation versions of Madden 98 are different. While in the PlayStation version the screens are sharp and crisp, the translucencies in the Saturn version have a ragged look to them and are not nearly as nice looking. Otherwise, bother versions are pretty much identical in the graphics department.

The stadiums in Madden 98 are also very well done as they are fairly accurate to the real life stadiums and have texture mapped logos of the teams in the end zone plus other features such as signs at the backs of the end zones. Early season games will feature a baseball diamond in stadiums where baseball is currently being played at that time of the year (with the dirt affecting the game's control) and weather conditions have varying effects on the field condition. For example, in rain games you'll see more wear and tear on grass fields than in a clear game .

The graphics on the whole are pretty impressive, although it must be said that the animation of the players or overall graphical quality of Madden 98 pales in comparison to Sony's NFL Gameday 98, which has the best player animation of any sports game in existence. But, the graphics are still very good in its own right and the TV style presentation is exceptionally well done.

The audio in Madden 98 is another aspect of the game that is done very well. The sounds of the game such as tackles, whistles, crowds cheers and chants are exceptionally represented and the announcing by Pat Summerall is excellent. There is no real noticeable lag or load time with any of the announcement by Summerall, Madden or the referee and the sound blends perfectly with what's happening in the game. Plus EA has hired Red Cashion to make the calls for the officials adding another sense of realism to the sound quality of the game.

The sound quality is another area where the Saturn and PlayStation versions of Madden are different. The quality of the voices and sounds are basically the same in most cases, but the sound referee's whistle in the Saturn version sounds a bit muffled and does not sound as realistic as the whistle in the PlayStation version. Plus, the sounds of the players making contact are also a bit better in the PlayStation version, otherwise, the sounds are identical.

The bottom line is that Madden NFL 98 is the best football game available, period. The computer AI and gameplay are not perfect and can be improved, but as it is, no other football game for any system can match it in those two important areas. The graphics won't impress you as much as Sony's NFL Gameday 98, but if you're looking to play a game and not just look at it, Madden 98 is your only choice.

RATINGS

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Control: 9/10
Game Play: 9/10
Replay Value: 10/10

OVERALL: 9.5/10