Tecmo Super Bowl

One of my all-time favorite video games is Tecmo Super Bowl. I had the original one for the NES (with such unstoppable favorites as Bo Jackson and QB Eagles). I also owned later versions for the Super Nintendo. To unwind at the end of my semester, I downloaded a SNES emulator for my computer and played through a season of NFL football.

I used the Kansas City Chiefs through a season for the first time. The rosters in this game are accurate for the 1993 season, so the Chiefs have late-career Joe Montana at quarterback. The prevalence of good quarterbacks in this game is amazing: Montana, Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, John Elway, and Warren Moon are all in the Hall of Fame, and Brett Favre (early career in this game) will be. Randall Cunningham is not as unstoppable as he was as "QB Eagles" (some player's names were not able to be used due to licensing arrangements - in this game, Montana is "QB Chiefs") but he is very good. Several other QB's in the game enjoyed long NFL careers. Since the game focuses mostly on passing, it probably overstates some QB's abilities, but that makes things more fun.

After winning a playoff game against the Cleveland Browns (QB Bernie Kosar), I switched the game to auto mode to see how the remainder of the season would play out. The Chiefs advanced to the Super Bowl without me, but fell just short in the big game. Steve Young returned from injury to lead the 49ers to victory by three points in overtime.

Anyway, I played far too much Tecmo Super Bowl today and yesterday, but every so often it's fun to take a trip back to my high school days, and this is an easy way to do it.