What would you think of a football game where you couldn't create new players or design new plays? A game where injuries never occurred and fatigue had no discernible effect? Where scores regularly reached 50 or 60 points during five-minute quarters? Unfortunately, this list of unlikely features is what NFL Quarterback Club 97 is all about. Quarterback Club's look is, um…interesting. The players' motions are very realistic, but are almost totally indiscernible in the mess of giant pixels that is supposed to represent their bodies. Audio isn't much better, featuring a few passable grunts, tackles, and crowd chants that come through loud and clear, but are delivered with little to no variation.
Playing Quarterback Club is a breeze thanks to a well-designed "Madden-style" interface. Choose a formation, pick a play, and go to work. In order to fully control your onscreen players you will need to use the keyboard or a Gravis as there are always seven to nine actions (in addition to what you're already doing) that can be performed during play. Several options such as juking left/right, jumping, and faking a pass simply aren't available if you are using a standard joystick or gamepad.
The main limitation of Quarterback Club is its painfully unrealistic design. In the real NFL, teams just aren't all assigned a playbook as limited as one that appears in Quarterback Club. No matter which team you choose in this game, you will receive the same uneditable playbook, which means that all teams basically end up playing alike. In the real NFL, players do get injured and tired; Quarterback Club players, however, do not suffer from exhaustion or injury. Players can't be added, removed, or edited, and trades are a joke. You can trade the star player from the No. 1 team for the lowest scrub on the worst team with no problem at all. The scoring system seems more suited to basketball than football. While I haven't seen too many real football games where the scores reach nearly 100, it's a common occurrence in Quarterback Club.
Overall I found NFL Quarterback Club 97 dissatisfying. I demand realism of my football, and NFL Quarterback Club 97 just doesn't supply it. The weak graphics and mediocre sound don't help an already weak title. Recommended only for sports fans who don't care anything about the way the game actually plays, a group I imagine is fairly small.
