Madden Football 64

Posted by:

howtoloseatvideogames

On:

October 6, 2026

Developer: EA Tiburon Publisher: EA Sports

Released: October 24, 1997 Rated: K-A 6/10

Though not faced with quite as many hurdles as other franchises in the step up to 3D, the first Madden title on the N64 still performs admirably out of the gate, delivering pretty much exactly what you’d expect in terms of content and presentation from the series based on its most recent entries on the Playstation and Saturn. That is, except for one crucial omission that may have been the genesis for the spiteful doomsday initiative EA would wreak upon the sports gaming universe when their own place at the mountaintop was threatened. That is, of course, that this game does not feature the NFL license, the exclusive rights to which having been snapped up by Acclaim’s Quarterback Club for the N64 for the 1997-98 season, though it does offer the NFLPA license and therefore still includes accurate rosters, just no official team branding.

One thing about the real NFL that Tiburon didn’t need a license to recreate: the fact that Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum looks like a miserable place to see any sporting event.

In spite of this jarring omission – one that looms ominously over every second of gameplay – Madden 64 is certainly the superior football sim for the initial go-round between EA and Acclaim. Although its framing and presentation still reeks of the 16-bit era, something that EA seemed to have a tough time shaking as the millennium approached, the gameplay alone is what keeps Madden 64 ahead of the competition. It’s still fast, fun, and easy to pick up, being based on a solid foundation the series had established throughout the 1990s, with an altogether successful and smooth transition to 3D models. Though not as feature-rich as some of its immediate successors, the inclusion of a fantasy draft, customization modes, and variable speed passing all signify the development of the franchise and the genre as a whole in a positive manner as it settles into its new polygonal trappings.

Continuing Legacy

Playing or writing anything to do with this series always gives me the sad type of nostalgia. The Madden franchise still continues to this day, though rather than the tallest oak in a lush forest, it stands as a somber and ominous black monolith in a desolate, barren wasteland. EA’s own exclusivity deal with the NFL dates back to 2005, when the release of ESPN NFL 2K5 rocked the sports-gaming world, albeit more in the spirit of healthy competition rather than forced extinction, as Madden 2005 was no slouch itself. Rather than fight back with superior product, EA paid up to the league for an exclusive deal that continues to this day, while the lack of healthy competition has allowed the franchise to fester, with yearly releases somehow getting worse at this point – more broken, more predatory in their business structure, and more stale, as the strict self-imposed yearly release schedule prevents the nuclear option of a full rebuild. A shame, as few would argue that Madden titles of generations past didn’t offer at least somewhat consistently good gameplay and innovation to match the dominance of the brand.