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Note: This review was written at the time of release for this game; therefore my writing style and references may be a bit off.

Once upon a time, the closest thing we had to a good football game was Tecmo Superbowl for NES. While Tecmo was a fun game, and had great stat tracking, it left some people with a bad taste in their mouths with the arcadey feel. Then came Madden for the Genesis, a football game that would satisfy gamers craving for a true football simulation, yet still maintain the gameplay consoles sport games are known for. Single handily EA, with their superior versions of Madden on the old Genny, led Sega to a big piece of the 16 bit
pie. In May of 1995 Sega launched their next-generation system Saturn. Many bought the Saturn with the idea that EA would follow Sega into the next generation. The release of the great World Series Baseball, made gamers Imagination run wild of what a Saturn Madden would look like. Gamer awaited with bated breath for the release of Madden 96, that release never came. EA had trouble coming to grips with development of the next-generation systems and that resulted in a Madden 96 with lots of fmv, lots of  loading, and crappy gameplay. While the cancellation of Madden 96 made a lot of people disappointed, it was the right thing to do. Nearly a year and half after the Saturn's release and still no quality football games available, Gameday for the PSX led the Playstation to an early lead in the next generation war, and it looked like Saturn would never get a good football game. Luckily Madden 97 comes in to save the day. 

This years Madden goes back to its roots. The gameplay is better than ever. Successful running must be accomplished by following you blockers, and making quick cutbacks to avoid potential tacklers. While your running your equipped with a vast artillery of moves. You have the stiff arm/ speed burst which works effectively when trying to cut around to the outside or to get away from the defense just when your going to get tackled. Unlike previous Madden's there is no break away speed, in other words no matter how much
you juke or speed burst, you'll never be able to break a 99 kick return. This is sort of disappointing and takes way from some of the excitement of the game, but in the end it provides an opportunity to play more defense, so its not such a bad thing. Your other move while running is the spin move. A move which would allow gamer's in previous Madden's to cheese their way to victory. As you see in previous Madden's any good runner could spin off most tacklers, and spin away into the endzone, especially notorious for this was Chicago 85' and Walter Payton. Luckily or Unluckily, the spin move has been made completely ineffective, and while cause you to get flatten by the defense if you even attempt it. Over all the running game has been tweaked to perfection, with its only flaw being the lack of breakaway speed.

The passing game has also been revamped, with the doing away of the passing windows, and the game finnaly being optimized for the use of the 6 button plus controllers. You know have 5 eligible wide receivers and the ability to throw the ball away. The key to successful passing is learning your routes and when to throw the ball. Depending on the time that you throw the ball in your pattern, the receiver react different. Usually if you throw the ball early the receiver will be cutting to the middle, and if you hold onto the ball the
receiver cuts outside or runs downfield.

Defending has been changed the most from previous Madden's. Long gone are the days where you could rush the quarterback and tip the ball at will. In this years edition it is best to patrol the line of scrimmage with a line backer, to cover the run, and then dropping back into coverage if its pass. Interceptions are made by cutting in front of the receiver and jumping for the ball. Defensive players have some disadvantages though. They take longer to cut back than offensive players, and lack a speed burst. The latter is evened out, because the lack of brake away speed. Once you catch the offensive player you have the choice of two tackling styles, the more effective dive, or the hard hit, which is vulnerable to missing.

While the gameplay has been fine tune for great playing against a human opponent, against the computer, like in previous Maddens, your in for a cake walk. The cpu as usual is vulnerable to a few plays you can run over and over. This maybe disappointing to some, but if you bought Madden to play the CPU, well then why the hell did you buy Madden?

While the gameplay has been done rather well, the update to the next level of graphics isn't quite there yet. The players are made of sprites which look okay, but still not great, and they don't have player numbers on the back of their jerseys, something even the 16-bit Madden's did. The stadiums look great, and are the graphical high light of the game. EA has made an effort to add some fluff to the game, but they haven't quite gotten it right. The fmv before
regular season games are OK, but the little half-time show serves no purpose. Its just James Brown saying, "lets look at the stats" and then you go back to the game, there should of been an option to turn this off. Also lacking is the sound, Madden color commentary is fine, and funny at times but Pat Summeral doesn't say much and when he does it sounds horrible. Crowd noise also seems to be down, the crowd never really gets excited, unless they chant DEFENSE! DEFENSE! Which is all fine and dandy, but they never get
excited when the team scores a touchdown. This is amplified by the lack of touchdown or stadium music. When you got a whole CD for your use, you expect it to be crammed with as many sounds as possible, but no..hopefully next years version will have team fight songs and a enthusiastic crowd. An other little thing that irks me is the lack of measurement on close plays. In previous Madden's you went to a close-up of the ball and the first down marker. This year nothing happens, and the game goes on, its weird when you get a close play on 4th down, and turn the ball over with out a measurement, very anti-climatic.

Madden 97 helps EA in their long road back from last year's disaster. The game has the most solid gameplay since Madden 94' , and attempts to make a graphical improvement 16 bit Madden's. With a little more tweaking this game could be something else. As it stands this Madden is the best ever, but far from the perfect football game.

Game Pictures

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