10-Yard Fight

"The poorest sports simulation I've ever played."

I'm not sure why people decided to port a mediocre game from the arcade to Nintendo. The only thing I can think of is that it was easy enough. Instead of being given a score, you basically get to play a game with two thirty-minute halves, if you can put up with it for that long, against a team of your choice: high school, college, pro, playoff, or championship. Higher levels seem to make you slower(they don't do anything for the opponents. Go figure,) but the computer's X's and O's seem to be as silly as ever, so they don't seem to have pro coaches. I played my first game against a playoff team and scored on the fifth play--I'd gotten a first down but some bizarre bug in the game left no defenders following me, and after the last ten yards to the end zone I sped up significantly. Then I intercepted a lateral on the fifth play. This sort of thing influenced me to go less in-depth with this game than I do in most. How much, I will not say. I played enough to see that you get to play offense AND defense and have a selection of whom you control on defense. It takes about four plays to realize you want to control the guy closer to the ball.

As for gameplay, you can select a two-player game if you find someone you dislike(or preferably two people) or choose various computer levels. One button throws a lateral from the quarterback, the other throws a forward pass to the guy who has what passes for his hand raised. You can shake out of a tackle by moving around a bunch, but usually you'll be able to make enough yardage that you can eat up the clock without having to worry about defense, which is even more moronic than offense(just run at the guy with the ball!) although your defender actually has reasonable speed. You can also wait for the receiver in motion to stop where the (static before the snap) defense has a hole. It's an element of strategy, I guess. Kicking an extra point or trying for two is, surrealistically, tougher to figure out than creating a touchdown drive. Running is painfully slow on the tougher levels, which are the only way to get a challenge at all, really. Be prepared to hold a single direction down A LOT.

The graphics are downright lousy. Your people don't look like people at all, and it's fortunate that the player understands they have to be. In an effort to draw football players that have pads, a bunch of multicolored Marshmallow Men were produced. They do seem to have arms, which is a plus. The end-zones don't even look cool, and there's no noticeable crowd to add to the atmosphere. The biggest action occurs at an interception or touchdown where the man appears to be dancing. Ahh well, at least the graphic yard markers are accurate. The sound is excruciating as well. The arcade game wasn't anything special, but the sounds here are irrelevant and the distraction they provide may add to the shallow challenge if you are tired and grouchy and lethargic when you play the game.

I had been curious to see if this game were actually any good since I remembered the arcade game. It wasn't. In fact, it made me wish for the relatively nice features of a pretty rotten arcade game in itself and gave new depth to my perception of video game badness which although it does not parallel to comprehending different orders of infinity is pretty disturbing in and of itself. In trying to think of redeeming features for this game I suspected that it was perhaps a sneaky social message that football types aren't very smart or complex, but then it would also be insulting the poor suckers who wound up buying this game, so that didn't wash. Although to be fair football is the most difficult of the sports to put in action--in soccer, not all players are involved, and there are fewer players in other sports--this game really flops, especially since it had a precedent to improve on, tried, and failed miserably. It's far too easy, and I've seen a much better game made on the Apple in 1979(despite its playing the Notre Dame fight song *aigh*.) To say I wouldn't touch this game with a ten foot pole is accurate as a yard stick would yield stronger and more accurate blows to the hapless game cartridge(which would be a mercy killing. Maybe it'll be reincarnated as a *good* classic like Super Mario Brothers!) The most realistic part of it is the title--the whole game makes me feel like fighting. As far as bad games go this takes the cake--and believe me, that is one cake you do not want to taste, bub. I'm talking they wouldn't serve that stuff for free continental breakfast at a roach motel.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 11/14/00, Updated 11/14/00