In the last installment, I carefully explained the impact Street Fighter II had on my life. The response was vast in scope and voluminous in nature. "More!" you cried. Today I oblige.
While the beer and guacamole-consuming public are in the grips of "football fever" a syndrome typically fueled by "actual games" with "modern teams" who play a carefully plotted game ripe with subtlety and real world importance (sort of), I am still completely in love with a little cartridge (nay, phenomenon!) known as Tecmo Super Bowl (alternately/commonly/incorrectly referred to as Super Tecmo Bowl).
To say this game has affected my life would be gross understatement. This game continues to define 15 year old friendships. This game has yielded some of the most glorious victories and most crushing defeats ever experienced (on earth). This game made me the man I am.
The game (in brief, for to explain it's intricacies would take many a page):
A football game for NES which incorporates all the teams, uniforms, colors, and player rosters of the time. This in itself was a huge innovation in football gaming technology. You have access to a first and second string (all real people, with individual portraits and statistics) and can sub players as you wish. Defensive players are there as well, but no changes or substitutions are possible.
The game is playable as exhibition or in the context of a season, for the game invents a full 16 week schedule and auto-plays all the games you don't want to. In other words, you can play one team through an entire season and post-season, and let the computer autoplay all the other games (for which outcomes and stats are generated), or you could conceivably play every single game in a season.
My history with the game:
Christmas Day, 1991: Ernest, my best friend at that time, calls gushing with excitement. He has received Tecmo Super Bowl for NES. His elation is barely concealed as he comments on the graphics with a now oft-cited and fondly remembered, "you can see the wrinkles on the ref's face!"
Needless to say I was excited to see the wrinkles on the ref's face.
We begin playing the game incessantly. Ernest's father ("Big Joe Beserker") even got really into it, and they played it and argued about it enough to have Ernest's mother take the controllers away as punishment. Over the last 18 years, Ernest and I only end up seeing each other a couple times year (first because we drifted apart (I partially credit Tecmo Super Bowl with rekindling our friendship five years ago) and now because we live on different coasts) but when we are together, we always play Tecmo Bowl.
Johnny Buffalo Balls Magrans and I also have a rich history with Tecmo, we started our friendship in highschool, with a tradition of me coming over to his parents house for Sunday dinner, a tradition that was enriched by our weekly Tecmo Bowl games. These days we typically only play when Ernest comes into town, resulting in brutal three man tournaments lasting far into the night.
How the playing has changed:
Amazingly (for a Nintendo game) it has held up not only for its nostalgia value (although that is quite high) but for the fact that our strategies and approaches have changed over the years. With many games of this era, one reaches a certain basic level of skill and then plateaus forever. The truly great games however show a subtlety of play and a strategic depth that defy this convention. Tecmo Super Bowl is most certainly one of these games. Over the last 17 years, our skill and understanding of the game has changed dramatically. We've discovered under-appreciated players and made them legends, we've learned the proper use of every defensive position, we've completely banned punts and field goals from the game, and perhaps most importantly, we've thoroughly incorporated gambling into the ritual.
Present Day:
We have a hotly debated "tier" system which proposes to rank the teams, then we revel in creating new matchups and different ways to bet on them. Although we long ago established a standard, needs-not-be-discussed "5-dollar a game" rule, in recent spates we've begun making numerous side bets on things like running yards and pass completion percentage. Other standards (of betting) that have evolved are the following: Shutout pays double, safeties pay 2 dollars, kickoff return pays 3 dollars, and a blocked extra point pays 10 dollars (these are quite rare).
As another testament to the amazing durability of NES games, we continue to play that original cartridge given to Ernest 17 years ago. At some point I took possession of it and eventually bought Ernest another via Ebay, which I then had signed by Tecmo-era 49ers running back Roger Craig at a book signing on Haight Street. Ernest responded by permanently affixing a Henry Ellard trading card to my copy.
I know I claimed to be ready to face an opponent in Street Fighter II, but have since realized that I am now only mediocre at that game. Tecmo Super Bowl is a completely different story...I am chomping at the bit to take you on. I don't care what team you pick, I don't care who you think you are, I will beat you and take your 5 dollars.
Also, as a sidenote:
Bo knows absurd dedication to a Nintendo game (this is not me, and I haven't accomplished this, though Ernest has at least come close):
it's certainly possible that I reached for the secret too soon,
rob
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