Developer: Iguana Entertainment Publisher: Acclaim
Released: November 10, 1999 5/10 Rated: E
If your mediocre sports title still manages to sell upwards of a million copies, I won’t hold it against you for taking a “baby steps” approach to your next yearly iteration. Iguana doesn’t reinvent the franchise’s gameplay in following up their successful debut on the N64, despite reviews of the time also noting its lacking gameplay. Still, this iteration is easily the only one out of the four on the 64 that I would place above the Mendoza line of “playable,” it’s just also kind of sad to think this is the peak.
So yes, gameplay is not as consistently miserable on every play. The running game is finally usable, and perhaps even more so than passing. Much better animation on an all around even better looking game than the year prior helps massively in this department, as runners no longer look to be taking back bumps upon first contact with the closest defender. The presence of anything more than a frame or two of animation before the ball carrier snaps to the turf makes just about every play feel a lot more legitimate, even on a loss of yards.
Passing is still lacking, albeit a bit more consistent on balls that should be caught actually being hauled in, at least depending on who your receiver is. There’s still a bit of a dice roll on proceedings, however, and I feel like defensive pass interference has been introduced as a crutch to bail the game itself out of falling victim to its own chaos. It keeps the game moving, but is naturally no way to program a football game, and is massively frustrating for the defense, especially players merely trying to take control of their cornerbacks and having them railroad a sprinting receiver in the process.
While NFL Quarterback Club ‘99 makes no huge additions in terms of its already feature-rich package from the previous year, the excellent presentation that helped shift all those units is upgraded further, both by a year’s worth of polish and even decent use of the expansion pak. Player models and field textures have just a smidge more detail, and, as I mentioned, the animation is actually pretty solid. A good looking game and the series’ best on the system by a decent amount, though as we’ll see, the potential to keep things rolling is massively wasted, with the market share justifiably ceding to EA in the process.
Additional Information
Saves: Controller Pak
Compatible With: Expansion Pak, Rumble Pak
Players: 1-4
Print Guides: None
Aggregate Critical Reception (GameRankings): 78.08% based on 13 reviews
Other Releases: EU, December 1998
My Streams
Commercials and Print Ads
