Madden NFL 98 is the seemingly better sequel to Madden NFL 97. The reasons I say this are below but there are still plenty of flaws with this football game. When I complete Madden NFL 99's review tomorrow I will not make a comparison to Madden 98 to Madden 99 since there are so many differences between the two. However, without any further ado, here are the comparisons between Madden 97 and Madden 98.
1. Similar play structure- The players are about the same here, just a few minor details in terms of player models, numbers and such for Madden 98. The players however are still much of the same type model of player, and same type of game engine in terms of what plays work, what doesn't, etc.
2. Still same issues- Passing is immensely difficult in Madden 98 as it was in Madden 97. There are a few plays that work and it does well but that's all. It's incredibly frustrating to pass in the game. Running is actually alright and is a plus for most of this game. Defense is still fine and you can rely on defense for quite a bit of this game.
3. Still accurate stadiums- There isn't much that would have changed, aside from the Oilers moving from Houston to Tennessee. However they were pretty accurate on where they went as they went to Memphis, not Nashville to start. It was a good way to depict and create Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium and otherwise they did well for the rest of the stadiums.
4. Better Studio Presentation- This isn't like the every week pre-game like Madden 97, which may have been a bit much but to the season opener with James Brown, as well as the playoffs with him as well. The duo of John Madden and Pat Summerall still do offer their best analysis of the upcoming game which is nice.
Other notes:
1. Not Updated Rosters- I think they did this after the NFL draft rather than pre-season because there were players on every team that were not on the pre-season roster for teams. It's something that happened pretty intently before the seasons especially in early Madden games until the early 2000's. I don't necessarily blame EA but it's something that they do fix later on in later games, especially as they made jumps to next Gen consoles.
2. Pretty Accurate Team Ratings- These are honestly alright overall and they showcase good ratings despite the roster flaws. The Packers are still great, same with San Francisco. New England was slated to be a top AFC team and they still were pretty good. The Broncos were also great, and there weren't many surprises overall. Only major one was Washington in the playoffs but they were looked at as a playoff team in 1996/97 anyway so wasn't that shocking overall.
Negatives:
1. Presentation- It just is a very wonky and honestly not great presentation of the game. This probably is one of the few Madden games I would say that for but EA I felt dropped the ball in ways being monotonous on the pre-game between John and Pat because it was mainly the same thing over and over. This was a step back from Madden 97 I have to say.
2. Lack of Real Emotion- If someone told me that this game is dry on emotion I would absolutely agree. The crowd noise isn't there, the players really didn't have much emphasis and I should be glad that this gets better over time to be honest and that this was kind of an end to the bad emotion to the game/dryness to it.
Overall Rating:
Madden NFL 98 is a slight step above Madden 97 on the PS1, which doesn't say a lot to be honest. This game still lagged behind NFL Gameday 98 and honestly it needed more to save itself on that accord. However it fell short for me. There just isn't enough presentation, good enough graphics and really I felt this resembled what had to be a turning point for Madden overall. My rating is a 7 out of 10.
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