Graphics: 2
The graphics are so primative, my guess is that they could have been pulled off on the Atari 2600, to some degree. The playing field is solid green with white lines. Regardless of what team you select, your team will always wear the same colors. The player animation is choppy, not to mention that the players are too small to really understand what's going on.

I only gave a 2 as opposed to a 1 because the graphics don't glitch up unless you have a dirty cartridge.

Sound: 1
The sound could (and should) have been much better. When the football is flying through the air, a single tone rises in pitch as the football ""rises,"" and falls as the football makes contact with a player.

The noise of the stadium crowd sounds more like muted static. When a player is tackled, all you hear is a single, short ""thunk"" sound. It's so bad that I actally laugh at it.

Gameplay: 1
The crappy title screen comes up. You select your teams. The game begins. If you are the offense, you have one of 9 plays to use. If you are the defense, you have 6 defending options.

After you pick your play, you start controling your onscreen athletic dots. A first time player will have a hell of a time trying to figure out how to pass the ball. You have to hold a button down, which sends a cursor onscreen. You need to move this cursor as if it were controlled by a mouse, and stop it over the player that you wish to pass the ball to (which lets your opposing team know exactly who to go for before the ball is even thrown). If your player actually gets hold of the ball, all you can do is push the ""up"" key, which heads you towards the end zone, and hope for the best. You can try to dodge the other team, but it really isn't much use. Eventually, at least 5 dots from the other team will land on top of your dot, sending off a crappy whistle noise, along with 5 ""thunk"" noises as the players land. Now you start the process over.

That should sound boring and frustrating. If it's not, here's some more goodies to consider:

Each quarter is set for 12 minutes. The clock is only visible between plays, and it's not very helpful there either. I don't know what unit of time the clock uses to count down, but it sure as hell isn't seconds. Every quarter lasts about 3 minutes.

Here's another one: There is absolutely NO way to pause this game. Once you start, you won't have a chance to take a break until the game is over.

Each team has one guy on steroids. If you want an easy victory, all you have to do is select a certain play (I don't remember which one..it's been a long time), point your ""throwing cursor"" directly at the top of the screen, and let the ball go. A man on your side of the line of scrimage will sprint to where the ball will land, and he will do it at a speed whose real-life equivalent would probably be somewhere around 60 MPH. When this guy has the ball, you're unstoppable. This guy runs 4 times as fast as all of the other players. You can run circles around the other team, sprint back and fourth from one end of the field to the other, and never be touched. However, this is pointless, and gets boring quickly. Plus, this easy cheating method only adds to the cheapness of the game.

Overall: 1
I suppose you can take comfort in the fact that you never bought this game. If you did, I'm very sorry (seriously). The entire game feels shoddy and half-finished. My guess is that this was a prototype that was only for development purposes, and some idiot from marketing rushes in saying ""we've just pushed the deadline back by six months. Whatever you have, compile it, slap on a logo, and put it in a box."" We all know what happens when video game deadlines are rushed (Think ""GameDay 2001"" for Playstation 2). It's a vary sad game, whose only redeeming element is the mirth derrived from its suckiness.

If John Elway wasn't pissed off when this game came out, he must have been getting paid huge royalties or something, because this game is humiliating to be associated with in any way, shape, or form.