NES RATING #18 - John Elway's Quarterback

... John Elway's Quarterback ...

Developed by:  Leland Corporation
Distributed by: Tradewest
Released: March 1989  

John Elway's Quarterback is a football game (alledgedly) that gives you a top-down perspective of the field and a sad perspective on life.  What was a perfectly playable arcade game turned out to be a bottom-of-the-barrel as NES football games could get.


The graphics are the game are absolutely miserable, with generic red & blue teams playing each other, numeric-integers posing as solid objects on the scoreboard, and just a dull, ugly look to the entire game.  Your team is always blue, no matter who you pick.  Your opponents?  The red team!  There are no names for the players and no reason for you to think you're being "your" team, even if your team is lucky enough to be included.

There is no music in the game.  Brilliant.

The sound effects are loud screeching noises and the annoying "CHARGE!" song (which is a baseball/hockey staple, not so much football!) coming every 45 seconds or so.

Play control is equally abysmal.  There's no simple "select a receiver and throw" method with the flick of a button, but rather you hold down B and line up an arrow to throw to your receiver.  Just lazy and aggravating.  Running is nearly impossible, as is returning kicks due to the slow movement of the runners.

A long-time ago, a young QB named John Elway put his name on an abomination of a football video game.  Pop this in to see how bad it is, then throw it in the fireplace minutes later.
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Rating:  F