Did they do it? No. Interestingly, the developers have ended up creating a far worse game compared to the previous titles in the NFL Quarterback Club series.

All of Acclaim's sports titles have had one thing that has brought them much attention, and attracted gamers to their titles: extremely nice looking graphics. Having registered the 'Hi-Rez' trademark for their graphics engine, NFL Quarterback Club 2000 is probably the best looking sports title that they have produced yet. It all runs at a sharp and crisp high-resolution and the detail on the characters is so incredible that it can only be paralleled by the Dreamcast's premiere sports game, NFL 2K. These finger licking good visuals come at a nasty price, however. At the default detail setting the frame rate isn't able to keep up with the action and starts to dip straight into a canyon below. It does nothing to make the game unplayable, but it is annoying and quite the nuisance, nevertheless.

There is actually a way to tweak the graphics' detail, but it really is unnecessary. Within the options menu is a detail setting that can be switched from the normal high detail down a few notches. For a little entertainment, try switching it all the way down and playing the game. The players on screen are downgraded into these little lego people - block heads and all. The frame rate is very fast at this point, but the game looks like crap, so is it worth it.

The visuals are something that can be dealt with and if the rest of the game was great it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, the rest of the game is just as bad if not worse. You get the normal assortment of options in which to play the game, which include season, exhibition, tournament, playoffs and the pro bowl. To help get a feel for how the game worked, I jumped into a small exhibition game and leapt right into the action. Boy, was that a wrong move. Right from the start I realized that the interface was a bit more complicated than I was used to. After getting pounded by my opponents for the first half, I ended up leaving the game in favor of practicing and finding out what all the different moves were. Looking at the control scheme, it is easy to see that the developers had gone all out with your control over the individual players. There's even a button dedicated solely to intercepting the ball and one that you must press in order to successfully catch a ball. Is all that really needed? No, I don't think so. All it does is overcomplicate things and make the player confused.

Something that caught my eye while I was playing through a game of NFL Quarterback Club 2000 (and what I later found on the introduction splash screen) was the inclusion of a small, minor detail that I haven't seen in another football game to date (at least not authentically): the 'Riddell' logo on the helmets. Riddell, for those who don't know, is the company that produces most of the helmets for the NFL, and if you were to watch a real game you'd find the Riddell logo on the actual helmets. Nice touch.

This is a Nintendo 64 cartridge, so when I popped in NFL Quarterback Club 2000 I expected that I wouldn't have to sit through any loading screens of any kind. You can imagine my thoughts when after turning on the game I found a 'Loading' screen come up out of nowhere and stay for a few moments. It is short, it is not a big deal, but it puzzles me why it is there. One other problem I found was in the 'stadium selection'. As you move the cursor from one city to another there is a small screen on the left that shows a preview of the stadium, and by pressing the 'Z' button you can zoom in and check it out. Moving from stadium to stadium it took a moment or two to load up (again, there's that annoying cartridge loading) and at times it wouldn't even bring up the right stadium, it'd just keep the one I was on before.