E3 2001: NFL Quarterback Club 2002

Back in 1997, Acclaim had the foresight to swing a deal with the NFL to acquire the exclusive rights for the first year of the Nintendo 64's life span. This resulted in Quarterback Club having the real teams and players while Madden did not, which helped move copies of Quarterback Club 98. Iguana developed the hit-and-miss series until the 2001 version, which was developed by High Voltage Software. Acclaim is back at the developmental helm this year, and it's hoping to revive its tarnished football series .

If previous installments of the Quarterback Club franchise are any indication, Quarterback Club 2002 for the GameCube should have a healthy amount of gameplay options. A season mode with full statistical tracking is a given, as is a head-to-head exhibition mode for up to four players. Acclaim has reportedly begun the process of bringing Quarterback Club online, but the inclusion of the feature will be dependent on the availability of the GameCube network when the game is released. Acclaim has already started to patch up some of the holes that were created in the Quarterback Club franchise over the past few years. The GameCube version will include the quarterback challenge that has been missing since the series jumped to the 32- and 64-bit platforms. The QB challenge is a set of four minigames that pit you against the league's top quarterbacks. The events include hitting a series of moving targets at varying distances and hurling the pigskin through tires.

Acclaim has tweaked the defensive play-calling interface for QB Club 2002. Calling a defense requires three inputs. First you must choose the size of your down linemen, then you must choose the coverage for your secondary, and lastly you must choose the particular players you want to send off the corners or up the gut on blitzes. The offensive play calling will follow the same procedure found in previous QB Club games: First you choose a formation, and then you choose a play.

The player models in Quarterback Club 2002 will be composed of 3,000 polygons apiece, and they already feature nice details such as loose-fitting jerseys and texture-mapped faces behind their face masks. The stadiums will be constructed of 23,000 polygons each, and they'll all feature fully animated crowds and skies. Additionally, the helmets will reflect the environments, and dynamic texture maps will be used to simulate dirt accumulating on jerseys as the game wears on. Acclaim has a large team working on the PlayStation 2 version of Quarterback Club 2002, so it's doubtful that the GameCube version will offer a huge advance on the graphical front. But Acclaim stated that it is taking its time developing the game to make sure it gets it right.

Quarterback Club 2002 for the GameCube is currently scheduled for release alongside the launch of the GameCube in November. We'll have hands-on reports on Quarterback Club 2002 from the E3 show floor at the end of this week.