Game Review - ABC Monday Night Football (SNES)

ABC Monday Night Football is (as the title indicates) a sports game released by Data East. Originally released for the PC, ABC Monday Night Football was quickly ported over to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991 (as well as released for a number of other platforms).

Being a sports game, ABC Monday Night Football doesn't really have a plot. The only "plot" elements a game of this type possesses consist of the various teams and sporting aspects of the time period (in this case, those around 1991). Despite its classic and dated nature, I quite enjoyed the people involved in the game.

The graphics in ABC Monday Night Football are frankly bad. While I can't speak to those of newer generations, they are terrible even for the time period; sprites are a little fuzzy and not-in-focus, and when characters are running or in motion (quite often in a sports game!) they're not really recognizable as regular players (more like wooshing blurs). Audience in this game looks similar to that of many other sports games of this time period; it basically consists of a ton of colorful pixels, and nothing more. The fields are rather bland, as well, offering nothing in the way of a vivid environment.

Audio in ABC Monday Night Football is okay at best. The music is rather repetitive and the game offers very few soundtracks, possibly a limitation of the SNES cartridge (though I've played many games with fine amounts of sound tracks on the SNES...). Music during the game is simply nonexistent, and sound effects are rather bland, as well. The only redeeming quality of ABC Monday Night Football's audio are the voice overs

ABC Monday Night Football's learning curve is simple enough; the controls are basic and easy. The entire game revolves around use of the D-Pad and two buttons; one to run, and one to spin (which helps with dodging a sack).

The difficulty of this game is pretty lackluster, and revolves around one's willingness to play such a bland game combined with one's preexisting knowledge of football. Being a football girl myself, this game was quite simple to understand, but quite hard to play (due to being junk).

In closing, I'd give ABC Monday Night Football a 1/5. Not only are the graphics nothing to shake a finger at, the audio is bad, and the gameplay is dull. While the teams available are okay, the variety and fun just isn't there. I suppose if you had a group of buddies together on a Saturday night with nothing else to do this game might have been okay, but nowadays you can just pop Halo in the Xbox and take off.