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American Football isn't exactly the most popular game in the UK and yet somehow the Megadrive-owning public seem to have a particular fascination with video-game representations of the sport.

Joe Montana NFL Football on the Mega-CD is the latest entry and, guess what? Yes, it's presented in much the same manner as the award-winning John Madden Football. Basically, you choose a play for your team to perform in an atetmpt to get the ball to the opponent's end of the pitch. Score a touchdown and glory is yours! Huzzah!

The question is, can the Mega-CD's superior processing power and custom audio/video capabilities better the mighty Madden series of games?

A translation of American Footie. Joe Montana is a mega quarterback for San Francisco.

Make choices from the playlist given. Control a footballer to carry these plays through, and make it to the opposite end.

We don't blame you if you haven't got much of a clue about the rules of American Football. However, as you might imagine, the aim is basically to get the ball to the other end of the pitch and score a 'touchdown'.

When you're in 'possession' of the ball, you have four 'plays' in order to move the ball ten yards down the pitch. Accomplish this and you're given four more plays to repeat the process. If however you don't achieve that, 'possession' is given over to the opposing team. To quite Star Trek's own Mr. Spock: "Fascinating".

In the commentary box sits the legendary quarterback, Joe Montana, replete with "million dollar arm". Between plays, he occasionally causes a monitor to materialise on the pitch and uses it to transmit vital hints 'n tips to the player. This is displayed in full-motion video, and is quite amusing.

Joe Montana CD is the latest game released for the Mega-CD to make use of its impressive custom ASIC graphics chip. The chip enables the Mega-CD to perform sprite-scaling and rotation, as seen in coin-ops like OutRun and After Burner. In this game, the entire pitch and all of the players are displayed in this mode, allowing for very realistic panoramic views of the pitch.

On the title screen, players elect to take part in exhibition matches or an entire NFL season. A variety of NFL teams from Dallas to San Francisco are on offer, each with their own strengths and weaknesses (same impressive-looking bar graphs are supplied here to help you weigh up the pros and cons of each team).

You'll be pleased to know that on Season Mode, you can save your progress onto the Mega-CD's built-in memory so you can leave a tournament and "come back later".

Mr. Montana isn't the only 'professional' sitting in the commentary box wearing a stupid headset. No, two more pros are sitting there just waiting for play to finish so they can comment on it in an exciting, American manner.

Funnily enough, while play is in progress, their headsets don't work. Only when a player is choosing a play are they allowed to speak.

Since their combined vocabularies are evidently quite small and they make a strange clicking noise just after they stop talking, you might be relieved to learn that you can turn the commentary off.

With the Mega-CD's superb graphics and audio capabilities, this game could have been amazing. Some of it is very impressive. The graphics, although very blocky close-up, move smoothly and the sprite-scaling is cool.

The idea of a full-motion Joe Montana supplying you with hints and tips is also well executed. However, basically, the game just isn't up to the standards set by John Madden Football 92 - which remains the best American Football sim money can buy (Yes, even better than Madden 93 and Madden 94). The gameplay here is a lot more confusing and less responsive than Madden's, making it, by far, the inferior game.

The commentary is basically rubbish - there's always an annoying click at the end of the comment and it's all spoken as you choose a play - why not when the action is actually occurring?

Overall, not a bad American Football game, but Madden 92 is better and cheaper.

We're in agreement in the commentary box on this one. Joe Montana deserves credit for trying to use the Mega-CD's special hardware, but the end product is still quite weak. The graphics are very blocky, jerky and prone to glitching, and worse still, the indistinct players make the game quite hard to play.

A swarming mass of pixels with each play makes it hard to react and find openings. The teams themselves sometimes lurch between overwhelming standards and sloppy play, so who knows who is going to win?

Another good effort is the commentary, but the amount of repetition is surprising when you consider those 500 megs the programmers had at their disposal. Plus, getting it after you've completed the play doesn't have quite the same buzz.

Like the previous Montana games, there's a strong whiff of disappointment. But will Madden's CD triumph yet again? Stay tooned, sports fans!

Presentation 77%
P. The full-motion video of Joe Montana is nice...
N. ...But the game's lack of options and sucklike puts this in a lower division than Madden's.

Graphics 80%
P. The pitch moves very smoothly and the sprites are quite animated.
N. The graphics look blocky and crap close up. No variety in pitch colour schemes.

Sound 70%
P. Some nice rock soundtracks on the intro screens...
N. Otherwise, sound is a bit sad. The CD commentary gets boring very quickly.

Playability 78%
P. Nice 'n easy to get into...
N. Although the controls are not that responsive and play is confusing as a result.

Lastability 73%
P. Quite a few teams to face off against and a two-player mode...
N. But only if you can be bothered to persevere with the frustrating gameplay!

Overall 74%
A decent enough simulation of American Football, made more noticeable by its fancy gimmicks, but John Madden Football 92 is still by far and away the superior American Football simulation.