Day 20, Game 20 - Tecmo Super Bowl

So after last night's post talking about a bunch of old games I played as a kid, I was feeling quite nostalgic today. That, on top of it being Championship Sunday for the NFL, I was in a old school football game kind of of mood. So what game did I grab to play? Tecmo Super Bowl, of course, for the NES.

(There was a SNES version a couple of years later by the same name, to eliminate any confusion.)

Did you know that Tecmo Super Bowl was the first sports video game to have license agreement with both the league (NFL) and the players union, meaning they were the first to use actual team names and real life players names in the same game? How cool is that?

Coincidentally, it was also the first sports video game that I played the absolute crap out of. As a kid, my parents couldn't/wouldn't buy me the game, so instead, I rented it from Blockbuster. I remember playing it once, taking it back, realizing how much I loved it and went to rent it back - only to find out it was already gone. It was several weeks before I found that sucker back on the shelf, so when I got my hands on it again, I didn't let go. I must have re-rented that game over and over again for two months straight, if not more. No joke.

To whomever the poor sap was waiting for me to return it ... I'm sorry. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. That game was freaking awesome.

Tonight I played a few games, and dominated as usual. If you could play a career mode, I would have been playing this game for 21+ years now, straight. The playbooks are simple, the plays are easy to run, and the defense is straight vicious if you pick the right play to  defend. But the best thing about this game, which I realized for billionth time, is that great running backs are impossible to stop, no matter what.

And by great running backs, I of course mean one guy: BO JACKSON.

As a kid and a sports fan, Bo Jackson was the man. But as a gamer, in this game, Bo Jackson was a god. And still is. See for yourself. (This isn't my video, by the way, but one I found on YouTube, and is the perfect example to what I'm talking about.)

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Man, I can't wait for the Super Bowl now. Even though I pretty much hate both teams playing, it is the Super Bowl after all. Sure, it might not be as great or as exciting as a game of Tecmo Super Bowl, but it is still the biggest sporting event of the year.

Even without Bo Jackson in it.