A Game for the Older Dogs

tecmo_bowl_kickoff_ds_mainBefore the John Madden franchise began its near two decade run as the king of the gridiron, “Tecmo Bowl” was easily the best football game available. Featuring real players and attributes, the game was a cult classic and was easily one of the most influential sports titles of its time, earning ports on the Super Nintendo and now, the Nintendo DS.

Released late last year, “Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff” is a tribute to the legacy of the series, but falls flat for a plethora of reasons that don’t quite make up for the ease of gameplay and fun the game still creates.

Without an NFL license, this game needed to be as close to perfect in order to break past the mediocre other offerings on the system. Luckily, for the most part, the game is exactly the same as its big brother on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The running game is as intuitive and real as it’s always been [well as real as a game that’s this dated can be] and forces you to follow blocks and find holes in order to get big yardage. The passing game is challenging and at times, so much that you may find yourself scrambling in the pocket faster than Michael Vick at a dog show. With interceptions coming extremely often, it’s safer to keep the long passes to a minimum, unless your receiver is wide open.

The only difference is the appearance of super abilities and skills, such as the rocket pass, which allows select quarterbacks to throw the ball faster and with a higher completion percentage. These skills take away from any realism the game could have had, but add an entertaining arcade feel.

While this may feel a bit different from the original game at first, over time, the game is a blast and great on the go in spite of the random times these abilities pop up. The games fly by and are fun, despite uneven difficulty. However, it is a blast with a friend over local and wireless Wi-Fi.

There are also plenty of things to do in the game besides the standard exhibition and season. Being able to edit everything from your team’s name and uniform, gamers can also choose player names and attributes, effectively allowing you to recreate the present day NFL or the league of your dreams. Through playing a season, you’ll get points that will help you build up your team, which affects gameplay drastically.

Prior to leveling up your team, you’ll have to play a smart game, as the CPU features better players. After a while, you’ll see your players develop though after a season or two, the CPU will be an utter joke. More experienced players may find this happening even sooner, hurting the game’s overall replay value and forcing them to find a friend or someone online to play against every time they pop this into their trusty DS.

All these small problems considered, “Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff” is a worthy addition to your DS library if you have the time and energy to edit your teams and either know someone who has it or happen to be a nostalgia hungry gamer trying to relive the days of Ally Sheedy, Tab and Tecmo Bowl . Everyone else may find that this trusty old dog is out of new tricks and ready for a date at the ASPCA.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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