mr. jackson if your nasty

February 5, 2004 7:39 AM

The legend of Tecmo Bo lives on (Salon link) along with the mysterious QB Eagles, Jerry Rice in his pixelated prime, and Lawrence Taylor stuffing field goals and extra points. Tecmo Bowl brought us some of the greatest video game athletes of our time, not suprisingly it still has a devoted following.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo (16 comments total)

I still say Roenick was no fair in NHL 93/94!
posted by Succa at 7:56 AM on February 5, 2004

Awesome article. That reminds me of a friend of mine talking about having a Spanish class with Tommy Frazier when Frazier was QBing the Huskers; I guess that Frazier would always hold forth about how it felt like an out-of-body experience to plug in that Walsh college football Sega game and play himself.

And QB Bills was every bit as good as QB Eagles.
posted by COBRA! at 8:07 AM on February 5, 2004

The Sports Guy's top 25 video game athletes are here.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 8:30 AM on February 5, 2004

Awesome links. Makes me fondly recall Joe Montana's Football on the PC and the legendary Baseball Stars on my old NES.

They don't make 'em like they used to.
posted by xmutex at 8:45 AM on February 5, 2004

I still prefer Tecmo Super Bowl to the original. I guess I'm not old skool :)
posted by ejoey at 9:26 AM on February 5, 2004

Dave Duerson. Tecmo Bowl All-World, he was.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:27 AM on February 5, 2004

Tecmo Super Bowl is one of the best video games ever, but if you ever actually made it to the super bowl and watched the halftime show, it was totally and absolutely not worth it. Was it? No, it wasn't.
posted by evinrude at 10:49 AM on February 5, 2004

I dunno. Double Dribble I think topped Tecmo Bowl, but not by much. Three-pointers from the corners all game long!
posted by xmutex at 11:02 AM on February 5, 2004

Those fan sites are more focused on Tecmo Super Bowl, my favorite as well, with barry sanders, montana, marino, reggie white, bruce smith. back then, i knew the players names, i just don't bother to keep up anymore.
posted by yeahyeahyeahwhoo at 11:04 AM on February 5, 2004

I vaguely remember a David Robinson basketball game for the Genesis in which one specific player had a 100% 3-point shooting percentage. Inbound the ball, shoot. Repeat. Sometimes I'm happy they don't make games the way they used to.
posted by Succa at 12:09 PM on February 5, 2004

The sure-fire way to beat anyone at Tecmo was to play as San Francisco. And make sure you control Rice on offense and Ronnie Lott on defense. Completely unstoppable.
posted by jpoulos at 1:38 PM on February 5, 2004

Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One-on-One!
posted by Fofer at 2:08 PM on February 5, 2004

Brilliant. Brilliant. I've forwarded these links to people I haven't talked to in a decade.
posted by mert at 3:34 PM on February 5, 2004

jpoulos: You so crazy! SF had no running game. SF probably wasn't even the best team in that game based in California. My friends and I found that each of the top teams (SF, Chicago, Phil., Buffalo, NYG, LA) had its advantages and drawbacks, and that generally luck is the deciding factor in many of the games between any of those six teams.

We also played a lot of NES Ice Hockey. Also a classic.
posted by evinrude at 4:26 PM on February 5, 2004

Tecmo Super Bowl, Double Dribble, even Larry Bird vs Dr. J One-on-One??? You guys bring a tear to my eye with all these fuzzy childhood memories.

Larry Bird vs Dr. J -- Remember breaking the backboard and the janitor comes along to sweep up and yell at you in robot language?
posted by BloodyWallet at 5:13 PM on February 5, 2004

jpoulos: You so crazy!

Well, shit. Maybe the guys in my dorm just sucked at it. :-)
posted by jpoulos at 7:16 PM on February 5, 2004