Fairly decent. This year, Electronic Arts has switched to a polygon engine, which was basically a necessity since GameDay had it last year. The sound and play-by-play commentary is acceptable, but the player animations are stiff and unrealistic. While the motion-captured movements are nice, they hamper the game’s speed by taking too long to finish the animation, and the players just seem to move “wrong.” I am aware that many magazines and online reviews rate Madden NFL 99 as superior to NFL GameDay 99, but I have to go with my gut feelings: GameDay 99 is better... in every way. (To be honest, Madden has a much more realistic crowd sound, no where near as annoying as the GameDay games.)

Madden NFL 99 offers an Exhibition Mode (Practice), a Season Mode (Go for the Super Bowl!), as well as other options such as Traditional and Arcade setups.

There are various skill levels in Madden 99 and options to cater to virtually any skill level of a player. Some of the selections include Pro, All-Pro, and Madden.

The controls stay similar to last year’s version. Newcomers may want to familiarize themselves with the on-screen menus and/or the instruction books before jumping in to a “real” game. Madden NFL 99 is not a bad game by any means, but in my opinion, Electronics Arts is still playing “catch up” with the GameDay series. And with each year, the distance between the two games grows.