Developer: High Voltage Software Publisher: Acclaim

Released: August 24, 2000 4/10 Rated: E

I’ve actually always had a bit of a soft spot for High Voltage Software, as a few games they’ve made over the years like The Haunted Mansion, The Conduit, and the Hunter: The Reckoning franchise make up some of the sixth and seventh generations’ most underrated gems. That certainly isn’t going to prop up the review score on NFL QB Club 2001 and its acronym-embracing title, but I do give a little credit where it’s due as to their position taking over the two surviving sports franchises at Acclaim back in 2000.

Whereas All-Star Baseball must have been a breeze – an exercise in not fixing what’s not broken – inheriting the trash heap that the Quarterback Club series had become would have been nobody’s envy. So a valiant effort is made, in a lot of ways, but with time, momentum and enthusiasm all likely in short supply, it doesn’t amount to a whole lot in this last ditch effort to turn the tide before the next generation was in full swing. Mirroring a lot of the presentation choices of All-Star Baseball 2001’s success offers a good foundation for the look and feel and keeps the Acclaim Sports branding feeling more fresh than it had been in 1999. Unfortunately, there are a lot of gameplay tweaks that feel like overcorrections or shortcuts.

For one thing, while passing is back to a viable strategy once again, receivers actually able to catch the ball this time around, the feel of actually throwing the ball and waiting for it to come down is as uncanny as ever. There’s a weird lack of visual and audio feedback that is especially noticeable in a few areas like this, and in tackling as well, that make the game feel unfinished. It’s like playing a beta of a game that’s going to be good once all the bells and whistles are in place, except what you’re looking at is the finished product. 

It’s this weird, unfinished feeling that takes away a lot of satisfaction even when you’re successfully executing plays, putting up points, or making stops on defense. It’s as if the game plays this way in spite of you, once again because of that lack of true feedback from your own play and the general floatiness the game runs with. I found this especially noticeable with the way it feels like High Voltage allows QB Club 2001 to rely on both big, highlight reel plays and excessive penalties. The former trope is there to mimic a sense of actual excitement by simply having every defender blow their angle or just fail to wrap up a ball carrier, and no chance of any tailing defender catching up, as everyone involved in these plays moves at impossibly identical speeds once the chase is on. And it’s this weirdly lifeless, redundant facsimile of the things that make football so engrossing and unpredictable that probably sums up the Quarterback Club franchise and its run on the N64 – it fails to enrapture the player so consistently that it throws out any sense of legitimacy to beg for your attention well after any of you had any hope of achieving success organically.

Continuing Legacy

Acclaim would give the Quarterback Club franchise exactly one more try with NFL QB Club 2002 on PS2 and GameCube before bowing out to focus on their only true success in the sports game market: All-Star Baseball. Consistent competition in the football market by 2002 simply left them no place with EA’s Madden, Sony’s NFL GameDay, Microsoft’s NFL Fever, and Sega’s 2K series offering multiple better pro football franchises no matter the platform. And, of course, no matter who wants to, the NFL license is off limits to all competitors as long as EA and Madden keep up their exclusivity deal, with Quarterback Club and its consistent ineptitude offering no blueprint for success over 20 years later.

Additional Information

Saves: Controller Pak

Compatible With: Rumble Pak, Expansion Pak

Players: 1-4

Print Guides: None

Aggregate Critical Reception (GameRankings): 58.40% based on 10 reviews

Other Releases: None

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