Tecmo Bowl
Tecmo Bowl is a video game released in 1988 by Tecmo, Inc. It was the first of several successful Tecmo American Football titles. The game was also ported to mobile phones in 2004.
[edit] History
Before the NES launch, Tecmo had gained notoriety for the Ninja Gaiden series and the Tecmo Bowl arcade game. The latter was distinguished by a large two-monitor cabinet, support for up to four players, and the ability to break tackles (which was unique among American football video games at the time). It was not a big success in the arcades, but a sequel was released in 1989.
Tecmo released Tecmo Bowl for the NES in order to introduce it to a wider audience. It featured a horizontal playing field, in contrast to the vertical field of earlier football games like Bo Jackson's Football, that allowed an interesting two-dimensional view of the teams and players. The playbook consisted of only four offensive and four defensive plays, allowing players to learn the game easily.
Despite being more realistic than other games of the era, like Ten Yard Fight, Tecmo Bowl still had some faults. For instance, any pass thrown to a covered receiver resulted in an interception, and it was unrealistically easy to block field goals and extra points.
[edit] Teams
Tecmo Bowl contains twelve teams, each equipped with four plays. Most teams have two running plays and two passing plays. The exceptions being San Francisco and Miami who have three passing plays and one running play.
Tecmo, Inc. was not able to get the NFL's consent to use real team names, so the teams are identified solely by their home city or state. However, each team has the correct statistics and players for its real-world model.
The teams represented in the game are the Indianapolis Colts, the Miami Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, the Denver Broncos, the Seattle Seahawks, the Los Angeles Raiders, the Washington Redskins, the San Francisco 49ers, the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants, the Chicago Bears, and the Minnesota Vikings. The reason behind the selection of these particular twelve teams is not known, though some guess that the Tecmo programmers attempted to include the most dominant teams from the era.
