NFL Quarterback Club is one of the many games that I didn’t know existed when I was a kid. This is one of the few games that got a handheld release before the home console version. The Game Boy game was released in 1993, and then the SNES and Genesis got the game in 1994.
This game marks the start of Acclaim’s football series of video games. Back in the 1990s, it was much easier for publishers to get a license from the big four sports. There were a lot of sports games released in the 1990s. Some of them were one offs, and others were part of a larger series of games. Once EA got the exclusive rights to the NFL and NFLPA, most of these series came to an end.
Acclaim’s football games are a little odd. While they’re less schizophrenic than the Joe Montana football series, I don’t think this would’ve pulled me away from the Tecmo Bowl series. This series did benefit from EA refusing to make games for some consoles in the mid 1990s. I’ll get to that when I go over the other games in the series.
TLDR: Decent gameplay and odd graphics.
Narrative
Like most of the other sports games, there is no story here. This game doesn’t have a career mode, but it has a challenge mode. The big draw is the season mode, which was standard for sports games at this time.
Gameplay
NFL Quarterback Club on the Genesis is a fun game to play. There are quite a few game modes, and I like the passing system in this game. It has problems, but it is a solid game. Acclaim did have something with this game.
This game puts a heavy emphasis on passing the ball. While this is fine, it is a little odd that no one can catch. It’s just very strange that you have a wide open receiver, and he just can’t catch the ball. When they’re covered, they can catch. It’s just very odd.
I do like the passing mechanics in this game more than some of the other football games that I’ve played. It feels closer to a modern game than what the other football games were doing. If the accuracy was better, then this would be great! Things just feel a bit too random for me.
Running the ball isn’t too different from how other games do this. You can run the ball when you need to, but there is a heavy focus on passing. Special teams is pretty good. I didn’t notice any problems with accuracy or controls.
There are a few game modes. Most of them are what you should expect from a sports game in the early to mid 1990s. It delivered on what I was expecting.
Overall, the gameplay is fine. NFL Quarterback Club felt like it wanted to be an arcade style game with its emphasis on passing. The running game is there almost as an afterthought. It has the best passing system that I’ve seen from some of these other NFL games.
Visuals
Yeah, this game is a little goofy looking. Most of it looks like the game took inspiration from Madden, but there is some weirdness to it. Much of this has to do with how the players look.
The team logos, field, and weather look good. You can also see the crowd when you kick the ball. The field and end zones could look better, but they’re good for what they are. Having the team logos on the fields would’ve been an improvement.
The player animations look pretty good. While the players are a little slow, I didn’t notice spots where the game has more slowdown than normal. There also wasn’t any sprite flickering as far as I could tell. The scoring and end of game celebrations look good.
When I first looked at the game, I thought the players looked weird. It sort of looks like two groups of spacemen are playing a game. There are no jersey numbers, mostly because this game lacks the NFLPA license.
I really like how this game displays your passing options. Instead of putting each receiver in a box, you see the whole field. The eligible receivers have one of the buttons over their head, which makes this feel like a more modern game.
Overall, the graphics are decent for the time. I didn’t see anything that was glaringly bad, and it avoided many of the issues that other retro games have. While it isn’t as graphically impressive as other games, it is a good looking game.
Reviews at the Time
NFL Quarterback Club received above average reviews for the time. They weren’t great, but there wasn’t anything that was below average. According to MobyGames, the lowest scores were 67/100 for both the Genesis and SNES versions of the game.
7.5/10. There are a lot of game modes, which is good. Granted, you’re still doing the same thing in them. The graphics and gameplay are a little odd at times.
Pros
- Good Gameplay
- Lots of Game Modes
- Good sized playbooks
Cons
- Inconsistent passing
- Odd and Goofy Graphics
- No NFLPA license.
Conclusion
This game delivered exactly what I was expecting it to do. There is a heavy focus on the passing game, which felt a little odd because of how inconsistent the receivers were. I haven’t found a retro football game that had a great system for passing yet, but I’ve sure there is one out there from the early 1990s. Many of these games seemed to be stuck between being a simulation and an arcade experience.
Not having a license from the NFLPA was a little surprising. It felt like many of the other football games from the 1990s were able to figure this stuff out. It might’ve been that stuff like this was still fairly new, so companies didn’t think they needed one. The way the game is now, it feels like one of the NCAA football games from the late 2000s or early 2010s where you just had position and number.
This first entry was pretty good, and they will hopefully get better. The NFL Quarterback Club games would end up being exclusives on the N64 and then on both the N64 and Dreamcast. It’s an interesting footnote in the history of NFL games. It will be fun to track the ups and downs in this series.
If you liked this post, check out some of my other posts on sports games. Such as the Joe Montana Football Series and Tecmo Super Bowl.