ABC Monday Night Football is a 1989 American football game developed and published by Data East. While the game was licensed by ABC, it was not by the NFL, resulting in fake teams and players being used instead. It was first released exclusively for DOS, but later came to the Commodore 64, Amiga, and SNES in 1990, 1991, and 1993 respectively.
ABC Monday Night Football Premise
©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.
With any football game, you generally have an idea of what you’re going to get. Despite being released n 1989, ABC Monday Night Football is no different. The game allows you to play through the regular football season and even allows for two-player matches so you can compete against friends.
Between each break, you get to choose how you’re going to approach the next play with an in-depth tactics system. While for some, the tactical side didn’t make up for the often odd tendencies of the match engine itself, there’s no denying that its presentation is pretty impressive for the era.
ABC Monday Night Football Main Characters
©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.
Ultimately, football is a team sport. This means that barring a cover athlete, any football video game will never have a true main character. That’s just the nature of the game.
ABC Monday Night Football isn’t officially licensed by the NFL. This means the game couldn’t use real players or team names, hurting immersion for fans of the sport. The game does a solid job of creating names that are close enough (for example, the Kansas City Chiefs are now the Kansas City Cyclones), all while using the same team colors for each. In the absence of a main character, we can show you the full roster of teams available in the game.
- Anaheim Turbo
- Atlanta Monsters
- Buffalo Cupids
- Chicago Surfers
- Cincinnati Dragons
- Cleveland Warriors
- Dallas Swimmers
- Denver Snowmen
- Detroit Bolts
- Green Bay Armor
- Houston Bisons
- Indianapolis Rays
- Kansas City Cyclones
- Los Angeles Rockets
- Miami Sharks
- Minnesota Samurais
- New England Cobras
- New Jersey Olympians
- New Orleans Tritons
- New York Stars
- Philadelphia Justice
- Phoenix Fighters
- Pittsburgh Belles
- San Diego Spacehawks
- San Francisco Honeybees
- Seattle Ninjas
- Tampa Bay Beasts
- Washington Knights
ABC Monday Night Football Titles in the Series
©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.
While ABC Monday Night Football was released over four years over its various platforms, it was ultimately a one-and-done series. With the Madden NFL games (previously known as John Madden Football) taking over the scene with its full licenses around this time, it essentially strangled out the competition. No matter how good the gameplay is, it’s hard to compete with the thrill of playing as real teams and players.
Two games from ABC Interactive were later released, titled ABC Sports Monday Night Football and ABC Sports Monday Night Football ’98. Despite these both being based on the same ABC sports show of the same name, they have nothing in common in terms of developer or publisher, making this a completely separate series.
In a way, it’s a shame that no further attempts were made. Competition is always good, especially for a yearly release such as Madden NFL, where it would be too easy as the dominant force in the genre to lack innovation from year to year.
- ABC Monday Night Football (1989)
ABC Monday Night Football Cheat Codes
©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.
The unfortunate reality is that in the base game, there are no cheat codes for you to use at all. All is not lost, though. Developed by the community, there are several Game Genie and Pro Action Replay codes that you can use for the game instead.
To use these codes, you need to be playing the game on an SNES emulator. They won’t work on any other version of the game. Find the Cheats section of your chosen emulator such as Mesen, and enter the cheat codes there. You’ll likely be prompted to select which type of code you’re entering – make sure you’ve pressed Game Genie or Pro Action Replay, depending on the code.
Without further ado, here’s the selection of third-party cheats for ABC Monday Night Football.
ABC Monday Night Football Game Genie / Pro Action Replay Cheats
| Game Genie Cheat Code | Pro Action Replay Cheat Code | Cheat Code Effect |
|---|---|---|
| C932-A409 0732-A469 DC32-A4A9 FD32-A7D9 | If you hold X, you can no longer be tackled by diving tackles. | |
| C932-A4D0 0032-A400 DC32-A460 7D32-A4A0 4732-A7D0 | If you hold X, you can no longer be tackled by normal tackles. | |
| 7E11A6:?? | Game clock minutes modifier – replace ?? with the value of your choice. | |
| 7E11A5:?? | Game clock seconds modifier – replace ?? with the value of your choice. | |
| 7E1182:?? | Team One points modifier – replace ?? with the value of your choice. | |
| 7E118C:?? | Team Two points modifier – replace ?? with the value of your choice. | |
| 7E119D:?? | Yards to go for a first down modifier – replace ?? with the value of your choice. |
ABC Monday Night Football Cheat Code FAQ
©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.
Does ABC Monday Night Football Have Achievements?
No. All of the game’s releases came well before achievements were commonplace in gaming.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Screenshot from ABC Monday Night Football.