John Elway's Quarterback (NES) Playthrough
109A playthrough of Tradewest's license-based 1989 football game for the NES, John Elway's Quarterback.
This video shows two games. I begin with a "properly played" game as New England against New York. The second, beginning at 18:10, is played as Cleveland against New York and exploits an amusing and ridiculous bug.
John Elway's Quarterback for the NES is a conversion of Leland's 1988 arcade game John Elway's Quarterback Attack.
(Not to be confused with "Quarterback Attack with Mike Ditka," Digital Pictures' impressively good FMV football game. Check that one out here: https://youtu.be/h4QEEA1hBS8)
If you go into John Elway's Quarterback expecting a game befitting the legacy of its titular NFL all-star, you're going to be disappointed. If you go into it expecting a reasonably fun and competently made football game, you're also going to be disappointed.
But if you're looking for Rare's worst NES game, congratulations! You've found the soiled mattress at the end of the rainbow, and you see that unwholesome stain? The one emitting that sour smelling vapor? That would be John Elway's Quarterback.
Here is a quick list of its most notable features:
-There are 14 teams with no functional differences between them, and they all look the same. Player 1 is always blue, and player 2 is always red.
-The AI is a braindead doormat. It takes a focused effort to lose against it.
-You can redo any play without penalty by calling a time-out before the play ends.
- The playbook is more window dressing than anything else. If you're on offense, pick the bomb or shotgun plays. On defense, pick zone. That's pretty much it.
-There's a game-breaking bug that can easily be triggered over the course of normal gameplay. Here's the trick: on the playbook screen, put the cursor on the normal/reverse option and let the timer run out. Immediately pass the ball to one of your receivers, and like magic, that player will suddenly be endowed with superhuman speed.
I think that list sums everything up nicely. Try as I might, I can't find anything positive to say about John Elway's Quarterback. It's broken and ugly, and I wouldn't recommend playing it.
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No cheats were used during the recording of this video.
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