Pro Quarterback

Genre: Sports Developer: Tradewest Publisher: Tradewest Players: 1-2 Released: 1992

Think of the greatest football memories you have ever had while playing the classic Sega Genesis football games – throwing that hail mary as time expires to win against your dad in Bill Walsh – racking up ridiculous amounts of yardage against Tampa Bay in Joe Montana – finding the dirty play in either Bill Walsh or Madden and racking up hundreds of points. Well, any memorable moments must have been erased when Tradewest created this three-and-out of a game. Pro Quarterback is quite awful, so lets put on our chinstraps and buckle down to it.

Well, you might say “Why is it so bad?” Well it all comes down to one thing – choppiness. You will turn the game on, pick your teams, pick your plays, etc. and think the game isn’t all that bad. But start playing it and you will find out it might be one of the worst football games ever made. It has the frame rate of a turtle running a marathon, and to make matters worse, all of the players look the same, whether they be linemen, quarterback, safety, etc.

Playing Pro Quarterback is just an insult to anyone’s intelligence, whether they are a sports fan or not. As soon as you turn it on, you better brace for impact more than a quarterback with six linemen running after him. Speaking of linemen running after the quarterback, the running in this game is perhaps worse than its irritating slowness. The movement looks just plain miserable, uninspired, and boring like the rest of this train wreck. It’s purely awful, sliding to new lows I have not seen perhaps in all of my gaming experience.

Perhaps the only redeeming factor of this failed attempt at a good football game is the play call screen. Note that I did not say the play calling, because the play calling is also bland, uninspired and predictable – no interesting names, no intriguing plays, just the regular old draws, sweeps, screens and fades. Come on – this is bordering on the worst football game I have ever played. However, the little animation it plays in the center of the screen is okay.

Of course with the game being as bad as it is, it doesn’t have an NFL license – a shortcoming that I am willing to live with since many good sports games don’t have one or many of the required licenses – Sports Talk Baseball, Mario Lemieux Hockey and Joe Montana Football are all games that don’t have licenses that are at least solid titles. Pro Quarterback is just so awful, and it appears that no effort was put into any aspect of it.

And what does this game even have to do with a QB? There is nothing out of the ordinary – it just looks like they had to put a name on this piece of garbage. Speaking of garbage – even the so called “garbage can football” for the Atari 2600 is better than this sorry effort. At least then you don’t get annoyed by every single thing it that game, like you do with this one. Oh, have you heard the sounds in this? I mention them because they are piss poor as well. They don’t sound accurate either, and that just piles it on. How did this game get the green light?

Also, get this. The B button is the main button. Since when has the B button ever been the main go-to button? It has always been a button that cancels something, but now it is the main button. That is really annoying. Another thing is the weird windowless passing system that is similar to the beloved Tecmo Super Bowl, but it makes me feel bad to even mention that godsend of a game. Rarely will you even have enough time to look if you have someone open. Don’t even begin to think that you will be able to struggle much in tackles too.

This is my new worst football game, of all that I have ever played, and it may even battle Family Feud as my least favorite game of all time. Don’t even look at this game and say “Oh, this might be fun, you can be a pro QB!” Don’t even think about even looking at this game. In fact, don’t even think about thinking about playing this game. Just don’t.

I would score things this way: “every other Genesis football game” – 56 and Pro Quarterback – 0, but you can’t score games with a 0.