Madden NFL 98 is a 1997 American football video game developed by Tiburon Entertainment and published by EA Sports for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Stormfront Studios ported the game to Microsoft Windows, while Tiertex Design Studios ported it to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis, with the latter versions published by THQ. The game's development focused on improving the Madden series' artificial intelligence. This aspect earned the game critical acclaim, with some reviewers considering it a new landmark for AI in football video games.
Madden NFL 98 was the last installment of the Madden series to be released for the SNES, Genesis, and Saturn, as well as the last to utilize 2D sprites on 3D playing fields. The PlayStation version of the game is playable in the collector's edition of Madden NFL 2005 with updated rosters.
Gameplay
Madden NFL 98 introduced touch passing to the series, which allows players to control the speed of a pass by how hard they push the button. Control can be switched to any football player at any time.
The Green Bay Packers have the best team overall in the game with a 95. The worst team overall is the Baltimore Ravens with a score of 71. The Dallas Cowboys, the New England Patriots, and the Green Bay Packers have a three-way tie for the best offense with a perfect score of 100. There is also a three-way tie for the best defense in the game between the San Francisco 49ers, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Green Bay Packers with a score of 97. The San Diego Chargers have the best special teams in the game with a score of 96.
Development
In response to the longstanding criticism of the Madden series that its AI is too vulnerable, the development team made improving the AI their main emphasis with Madden NFL 98. The AI architects dubbed their new system "Liquid AI". A version for the Panasonic M2 was in the works, but never released due to the system's cancellation. A version for the Game.com was also planned, with Tiger Electronics as the developer, though Tiger producer Allen Richardson admitted that the game would be difficult to do on the Game.com due to the 16 megabit size of the cartridges.
Reception
Madden NFL 98 was positively received, with the overwhelming majority of critics agreeing that the new "liquid AI" had eliminated the longstanding Madden NFL series problem of "money plays" that could be used to successfully run the ball in any situation, making the game more challenging and the final scores more comparable to those of real football games. Kraig Kujawa of Electronic Gaming Monthly called it "the smartest football game I've played", GameSpot countered that "Although some might scoff at Madden 98 not using polygons like its chief competitor GameDay 98, these player sprites are well animated and detailed.", and pointed out several impressive graphical features accomplished with the sprites.
In the same issue in which they reviewed the Saturn version (and just a month after reviewing the PlayStation version), Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked the Saturn and PlayStation versions as the 19th best console video game of all time, saying that the AI was the best of any football game yet. They also named Madden NFL 98 a runner-up for "Saturn Game of the Year" (behind Saturn Bomberman) and "Sports Game of the Year" (behind International Superstar Soccer 64) at their 1997 Editors' Choice Awards.
Sales
Madden NFL 98 was outsold by Sony Computer Entertainment's NFL GameDay 98. Electronic Arts chief operating officer John Riccitiello argued that while this was an impressive achievement for Sony, it was not a major defeat for EA Sports: "Do I wish we had sold another 100,000 copies of Madden on PlayStation so we would have sold more in the quarter than [Sony] did? Sure. But I am happy that even though we were outspent seven or eight to one on television, we sold within 15% in units and 10% of dollars to Sony. And I'm virtually certain that if we'd have matched their spend, we'd have blown them out of the water."
See also
- Madden Football 64