Tecmo Super Bowl

"The greatest football game there ever has been, and ever will be"

Michigan, 1991. A young, spry EdibleAntiPerspirant has recently learned the nuances of the game of football, and is searching for a good way to play it on a console. He finds Tecmo Super Bowl, a piece of gaming nirvana that remains unmatched today. Now it is 2005, and he continues to play this masterpiece regularly.

That, my friends, is a true story, and an example of how great this game is. Over a dozen installments of Madden have come and gone, but none ever reached the level of Tecmo Super Bowl. For you see, great graphics may be strong like a lion in the modern video game industry, but when face to face with legendary gameplay, they become meek like a mouse.

Tecmo Super Bowl supplies the thing everyone looks for when playing a game: fun. Perhaps not realism, perhaps not flashiness, but fun. Even if this includes players rolling into another time zone when hit, goalposts that act like pinball obstacles, and five minute quarters.

The gameplay is simplicity at its best. You press the "A" button to do pretty much everything except passing and diving, handled by the "B" button. There are eight plays to choose from, and there is a unique aspect of the playcalling: instead of calling its own play, the defense selects an offensive play. If the defense selects the same play as the offense, all eleven men on the defensive side of the ball will swarm the ballcarrier and likely stop the offense for a loss. Playbooks can be changed, and there is a wide selction of plays to choose from. The presentation is great for an old game: there are cool cinematics when a great play is made, and more during the season when your team wins a big game.

There are four modes from the main menu. You can play a Preseason game, where you can pick two of any of the 28 NFL teams from 1990 and pit them against each other. You can play against another human or against the computer, and there is also a COM vs COM choice as well as coach mode (you select the plays and watch the COM run them). You can also play a Pro Bowl, the AFC All-Stars vs. the NFC All-Stars. These two teams are customizable. There is also a Team Data selection, which allows you to peruse all 28 teams and players (and their attributes) and adjust their lineups and playbooks.

And then of course, there is Season Mode. This mode is truly fantastic as it was the first ever to keep track of stats for every player and team in the NFL over a full 16-week season and playoffs. It functions just like a real NFL season: there are 17 weeks in the regular season, and the top six from each conference go at it in the playoffs. At the end, the remaining team from the AFC and the remaining team from the NFC face off in the Super Bowl. The cartridge has a battery backup which saves your season in progress.

The music is corny at times, but very catchy, and it fits well with the action during the play. The sound is mostly beeps, boops, and a guy saying "hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut...".

My producer tells me I need to wrap it up, so I tell you that if you can find this game anywhere, buy it immediately, whether you like football or not. I have known people who never saw a football in their life that still liked this game. The rosters of this game and all its great players (Bo Jackson, Barry Sanders, Lawrence Taylor, Jerry Rice, Bob Nelson) will be etched in my brain until I get amnesia or die, and then even after that. It is likely the only game I will ever give a 10/10.

Buy this game. Buy it now!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/05