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NFL Football Series

Joe Montana Football GG CS-G BS-G

NFL Sportstalk Football GG Passwords CS-G CS-MD CS-MDJ BS-G BS-MD

NFL Sportstalk Football 2 GG Passwords CS-G CS-MD BS-MD

NFL 94 GG CS-G CS-MDJ BS-G

NFL 95 CS-G BS-G

NFL Prime Time 97 GG CS-G BS-G

NFL Prime Time 98 CS-G

NFL Prime Time 98

Cartridge Top Label

Cartridge Image

Title Screenshot In Game Screenshot

Excerpt from Genesis Game Guide by The Scribe

NAME:             NFL Football series (7 titles)
AUTHOR/VENDOR:    Sega
RELEASED:         various
TYPE:             Sports (football)
LANGUAGE:         English

PREMISE:          Sega's in-house pro football sim - a YACEG series that
                  went with Joe Montana as its spokesman until the 1996
                  release, when the decision was made to use Deion Sanders
                  instead.  The second, NFL Sportstalk Football, was the
                  very first videogame to feature a running commentary, and
                  was the subject of a special feature on the British
                  television program Tomorrow's World.

IMPRESSIONS:      The series got progressively better as time went on, and
                  by the end could rightly be called a decent competitor
                  to the Madden NFL series.  I find its auto zoom mode
                  quite irritating, but that's a personal pique.

VARIATIONS:       Joe Montana Football (1990, an obvious port of the 8-bit
                    Master System game - old and forgettable)
                  NFL Sportstalk Football (1992, also called Joe Montana 2,
                    Joe Montana Football 92 - Sega's first football game
                    to employ its "Sports Talk" feature, which gave you
                    phenome-based running commentary during the game)
                  NFL Sportstalk Football 2 (1993, also called Joe Montana
                    3, Joe Montana Football 93 - first use of the zoom
                    feature which focused in on the action immediately
                    around the ball handler during gameplay)
                  NFL 94 (1994 by Double Diamond Studio, also called Joe
                    Montana 4, Joe Montana Football 94 - the series finally
                    starts to play like a decent football sim, featuring
                    an overhauled game engine and making good use of
                    digitzed sound samples)
                  NFL 95 (1995 by Double Diamond Studio, also called Joe
                    Montana 5, Joe Montana Football 95 - little more than
                    a rehash of the previous year's release with some more
                    tweaking of the game engine)
                  NFL Prime Time 97 (1996, aka Prime Time NFL, NFL 97,
                    Deion Sanders Prime Time Football - Joe Montana's
                    endorsement is ditched for Deion Sanders' in this
                    highly regarded YACEG)
                  NFL Prime Time 98 (1997, aka NFL 98 - little changed
                    from its predecessor)

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"NFL Football Series" | Login/Create Account | 6 comments
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Definately a great selection (Score: 1)
by Hiryu on Thursday, June 28 @ 17:57:22 EDT
(User Info) http://www.romfinders.net

Sega sure knows football! I used to always play joe montana football games, and I loved the sports talk ones. Sonic even makes some cameos! If you need a football fix, these are your games to play. I give em a 9.

[ Reply ]

Re: NFL Football Series (Score: 1)
by Mr_KHaKi (ToNe@YoMommaHouse.com) on Monday, June 25 @ 08:25:54 EDT
(User Info) http://www.tonism.cjb.net

I love this game ('97 & '98).
It kicks Madden's butt anyday!

This is a pretty comprehensive game with fun gameplay.
There's nothing better than returning the kick-off and yelling "See ya!!" at the 10 yard line!

For a 16-bit game I was pretty amazed about the features! Look at all the stats.
Never had more fun playing armchair football since the days of Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES. (you remember)

[ Reply ]

Re: NFL Football Series (Score: 1)
by DryGin on Saturday, October 05 @ 23:16:52 EDT
(User Info)

From this game to NFL2K2, Sega football games have been consistently better than any Madden game. Madden games are all hype. Sega football has always been king.

[ Reply ]

Re: NFL Football Series (Score: 1)
by Neon on Monday, December 30 @ 03:34:41 EST
(User Info)

I have to agree with the previous comments. This game is much better and fluid than the EA Madden crap. Graphics are nice, but the backgrounds look tired on any screen bigger than 13 inch. Looks sweet on the Nomad. You can relocate teams to pre selected cities, and create players. Gameplay settings are very customizable and loads of stats. There's a 'taunt' option where you can hear players talk trash. Cute, but stupid.
All in all, it's a tough call between the Sega series and Quarteback Club.

[ Reply ]

Re: NFL Football Series (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Sunday, July 13 @ 19:28:20 EDT

In general, great site, but there are some mistakes about the NFL series here. First off, you have some pix backwards. The in-game screenshot for NFL 92 and NFL 93 are backwards, NFL 93 had the more "realistic" looking players though they both used the same basic motion captures along with NFL 94.

Also, NFL 95 is not based upon NFL 94 at all. The basic series started with Joe Montana. Then a completely new engine was created for NFL 92 (aka Sports Talk Football). This engine was used again for NFL 93 and NFL 94 but had great improvements each year. In fact, NFL 94 is the best football game ever released for the Genesis, IMO, while NFL 92 is very basic and both it and NFL 93 are too imbalanced in gameplay to be any good. NFL 94 also featured specific offensive playbooks based upon the real NFL teams at the time. The playbooks literally had a least a thousand variations including shifts, motions, and variable passing routes (something still not seen in newer generations of console games). On the field, it finally got the balance of speed and strength right on the offensive side allowing for a decent combination of running and passing. You could also choose your view of the gameplay, either behind the offense/defense, sideline, 3/4, and even an option to zoom in either before or during play! This game engine, mainly based upon the excellent NFL 94 edition, was also used for Sega's College Football's National Championship I and II, though unfortunately they removed the live play-by-play from part II for some unknown reason. I would rate CFNC I as the second best football game for Genesis overall after NFL 94. Both CFNC I and II added four player support with the multitap but had dumbed down play selection. On the field, though, they played as smoothly as NFL 94.

After these games, Sega created a completely new game engine for NFL 95 through NFL 98 which apparently was an attempt to make a game "more like Madden" but was in fact far inferior to both Madden and NFL 94. All of the advanced features found in NFL 94 (advanced playbooks, large motion captured players, zoom, player chosen play angles, even the live play by play) were all gone in NFL 95. If you look at the box shots on this site, you can even see where it says "all new" on NFL 95's box. The in-game shots don't show it but the smooth mo-caps from NFL 94 are gone for this edition, too. The view is more top-down and only from behind the offense with smaller players and no zoom features. All of the speed, balance, and great features from NFL 94 are completely gone, replaced with an average at best Madden clone.

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Re: NFL Football Series (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 14 @ 17:32:30 EDT

i loved the original JMF!! i didn`t care too much for the follow ups. i really wish sega would`ve stuck with the original game engine. i think the first game had so much potential and then they just changed the entire game.

I swear all they needed to do was add more plays and improve the defensive backs AI and it would`ve been better than Madden. the long ball worked to often in this game and this is why i still gotta give Madden the edge in the 16-bit department.

but like Joe says in his game "great game!"

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