Super Tecmo Bowl

Like so many other D&D geeks, I also enjoyed playing video games. At some point several years ago, I learned about the Nintendo Toaster. If you Google that specific phrase, it leads you to a Nintendo that has been turned into an actual toaster (you might have to blow on the bread and smack it against your leg to get it to work but that is not what I am here to tell you about).

But that got me to thinking about some of my favorite

old games. Back in '95 (God, it's been 30 years), my roommates and I wore out our copy of Super Tecmo Bowl. The coolest thing about the game had to be the "Edit Game" feature. You could take a team and delete all of its players amd replace them with your own. That meant you could make 20 or so custom characters.

We had chosen "Da Bears" (an even older reference dating back to the mid-80's) and did exactly that. All of the new characters were named after our D&D party. Our center was a gnome berserker named Algar Longschnozz, Raven was a wide receiver, Romulus was a kicker, Kysek was a running back, and Ra'ziir was quarterback.

The custom guys were pretty scrubby when you first made them, but at the end of every game, based on how well they had played, you would receive points to spend on the skills (Quickness, Ball Handling, Power or Stremgrh, and so on). The better the character performed, the more points they were awarded. The more points you spent on abilities, the better they would perform, earning more points to improve more skills to perform even better to earn more... I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.

Before long, our characters were literally Unstoppable. Defensive linemen would rack up 20+ sacks per game, special teams would run back every kick for a touchdown. Receivers would catch a pass in double coverage, shake their tacklers, and score every time.

They were so good that we began to abuse the other teams. We would elect to receive the kick-off, run it back for a touchdown, score the 2-point conversion, recover the on-side kick and run that in. We'd repeat this sequence of plays over and over again, leaving the shattered electronic corpses of our defeated computerized opponents in our wake.

We broke career-spanning records in single seasons - All-Time Rushing, Passing, Touchdowns, Sacks, Interceptions, you name it. We won more consecutive Super Bowls than I can recall. 

Was the game unbalanced? Quite possibly.

Were the graphic simply awful compared to anything with John Madden's name on it? Yes.

Was the playbook incredibly simple with a limited number of plays to pick from? Absolutely.

I don't remember who owned the NES. I don't remember if we even had any other games.  But I do remember it the most enjoyable football game I have ever played.