Playmaker Football unites three distinct modules into one seamless program. First, you'll go through the Team Draft to build the team you need to best run your styles of offense and defense. Each player on the thirty-man active roster (fifteen offense and fifteen defense) has five ability categories: Speed, Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Discipline. Each player can have up to one hundred points assigned to each of the five categories. As the head coach, you'll need to make sure that you have the players you need, whether that's a bone-crushing fullback for your power-running game or an all-world quarterback for your wide open pass attack.

Next you'll enter the true heart of the simulator – the Chalkboard Editor. Here you will build your playbooks, designing offensive, defensive, and special team plays. Each playbook can have hundreds of plays, allowing you to prepare for any contingency. You can try out each play on the Practice Field option, so you can check the timing on pass plays. Blocking schemes, coverage assignments, pass routes, blitz angles... almost every coaching option imaginable is included.

Once you have your playbook ready, it's time to play. Here you can let the computer call your plan for you (based upon detailed Artificial Intelligence settings that you build into the playbook), or take charge and manually make all the calls in real time. Overall, Playmaker Football is an excellent, very realistic and detailed simulation of the sport. It may not be as strong as XOR's venerable NFL Challenge in terms of computer intelligence, but it does come very close. Highly recommended.

Note: The site linked below is still active and provides a modern-compatible version on the Mac, Linux and Windows systems. Check it out!