Isn’t this a comedy site? WELL IT WAS THANKS COVID I HAVE THREE FN SHOWS A YEAR NOW SO I’M REVIEWING 31 YEAR OLD NES GAMES KISS MY GRITS
Hey everyone, sorry for the caps, but since I do about nothing in comedy, I’m reviewing games from my emulator! I bought a system online that literally has every NES game ever and now I never need to interact with anyone ever again, basically. Today’s review that no one will read because it’s from when Skid Row had a number one album? (Slave to the Grind still rips, eat my nethers, haters) TECMO SUPER BOWL!
TSB was the greatest football game until probably 1996 or after. It was the first game, at least on a console, with all the teams, all the players and stats. Delicious, delicious stats. Also, it actually had 11 players on each side. The first Tecmo Bowl was pretty cool, except the programmers couldn’t handle 22 players, all the teams, and oh yeah, there were literal unstoppable plays. The 49ers had a play that worked every time for a touchdown/first down. Oops. So I’m passing on that one.
TSB is not perfect, by modern standards at all. Due to limitations, the starting QB is on the kick return team wedge. This is probably the most unrealistic thing in a game ever. Imagine Tom Brady fielding an onside kick and getting injured for the year. Also, the defensive strategy for the most part is that you have no actual defense to run, you pick the play you THINK the offense will run (there are eight plays) and if you pick it, your defense magically breaks through the line and sacks the QB for a loss. If not? The offense is probably going to score a TD. Seriously, if you have Bo Jackson or Barry Sanders, you are unstoppable. The game has a slight glitch where you can go left and right and make the defense miss every tackle if your player is fast enough. It’s not uncommon to ring up 250 yards a game rushing with a good back, especially crazy since there’s five minute quarters and the clock doesn’t stop half the time. Plus the if you pick a running play to stop, your entire defensive backfield is all “Meh, we aren’t covering anyone.”
All that said, it’s a blast to play real teams (unless your team sucked in 1990-91, I’m a Steelers fan and the starting lineup of Bubby Brister, Merrill Hoge and Louis Lipps at 39 years old is not the best). The stats are amazing as well, it doesn’t track tackles, but everything else is pretty much logged. For all the flaws by modern standards, it was single handedly the most popular sports game in the 90’s. We still played it in my freshmen dorm in 1997 with Gameday and Madden out. The nice thing about the emulator I got is that someone let out hacks and I’m currently 10 games into the season but with 2006 rosters, which is awesome unless you’re playing the Chargers offense with Tomlinson and Gates.
All in all, it holds up, at least for a bit. You can set your own playbook, but only get eight plays once the game starts and half your team’s performance depends upon the mysterious player status which goes from bad, average, good and excellent with no rhyme or reason. If your RB or QB are bad, good luck, but if they’re excellent, you will score 50 points blindfolded. Half the fun at my age is seeing the old rosters and remembering how much I hated certain players and loved other ones. The 91 Steelers suck balls on offense, but playing with Rod Woodson and Greg Lloyd made me pee a little. 9/10.