Strap on your helmet
and get ready for a football throwback gaming experience. Iron
Man Football is the first football game to feature amazing
state-of-the-art 3D graphics and animations on the Sony
PlayStation. Relive the glory days of classic football
where anything goes.
Bottom
Line: The major drawback to Iron Man Football is the lack of
NFL licensed teams. However, the game fills a niche as it
features classic football uniforms and play calling. In
addition, Iron Man would have been the first true 3D football
game on the PlayStation which would have ensured enhanced
gameplay. Although the game was cancelled within 2 months
of development, it is clear that the development team had the
skills and confidence to produce an exceptional football game.
DEVELOPER COMMENTS4
"There
was going to be a lot of story involved in the game; one of the
main ideas as I recall was to build up your team by barnstorming
around the country. It took me a while to realize that this had
nothing to do with airplanes and more to do with going on tour.
We had a good team technically. But to be honest, the game was
very ambitious. I had previously worked on both Unnecessary
Roughness and Madden (SEGA and SNES) but I didn't borrow very
much in the way of code. Of course the experience did help in
trying how to come up with the underpinnings of a football game.
Being ambitious isn't necessarily bad since you can always pare
back and you tend to put out a better end product.
It was a big challenge since the industry was transitioning to
3D and the PSX was new. Had the project not been cancelled
early, I'm confident we would have come out with a potentially
ground breaking product." -former programmer, Capcom Digital
Studios
"We had to do Iron Man football because Capcom was unable
to obtain an NFL license.
Iron Man was going to be old time football with all the real old
plays, one of our guys went to the football hall of fame and
copied all the plays, like razzle dazzle and statue of liberty…
Why it was
cancelled? One contributing reason was Bernie Stolar, the VP of 3rd Party Relations at SCEA,
did not approve the title because there were too many football games already
in the queue.
Please also note, what
you see is two months of work, we could have finished the game
by September for Christmas of 96 for sure." -former
producer, Capcom Digital Studios
"There were a
number of factors, somewhat external to the project, why this
particular title was killed. From a larger context, there were
certain business plans and support expected for all of the US
titles which were scaled back by Corporate. One of the factors
was the expectation that a large marketing budget and effort
would be required for Iron Man Football; more so than the other
titles (Major Damage and Werewolf The Apocalypse); another
project, as you know, had a license tie in which would be
leveraged for the video game title (Streetfighter The Movie).
It was an innovative concept and with a unique approach, had the
possibility to break out of the pack of the standard NFL
approach to football game concepts. The technical and art team
were very good, project management was weak on the project and
impacted execution. Could it have been completed on time and
before Football season? Difficult to say, but most likely would
have required a change of the PM to accomplish this.
Several members of the team were former EA employees and had
some experience and exposure to Madden, so there were 'blood
lines' that contributed to the focus and quality of the team.
There were a number of research activities carried out as part
of the concept development and design phase. Hall of Fame
visits, yes; audio recording at football games as well; and
research into other historical materials about football
pre-"modern era." The recent George Clooney Leatherheads movie
had echos of the game concept." -former VP Development, Capcom Digital Studios
