What Football Video Games did you grow up with

[Pyle]

It’s not nostalgia - I still play it with my family. But back to your point - think about it - trying to guess the play is what real strategy is about at its core. Human players develop tendencies for different situations.

Ive played all the newer and fancier football games. They’re more “realistic” from a sim standpoint, but when the ball is snapped the human element is not nearly as influential as it is was in the earlier days of tecmo and madden. Tecmo always felt like you were directly competing 1-on-1 with the other player both before and after the snap. The modern games I always felt like I was just 1 of 22 players on the field, especially on defense. My impact on the outcome felt greatly diminished. I felt like a coordinator sitting in the booth instead of being right in the middle of the action.

Ok Tecmo-heads. Get your TSB 2018 on. Aaron Rodgers? Todd Gurley? Ezekiel Elliot? They're all here...

Downloads - TecmoBowl.org

 

[upperdeck]

with the felt football ... you really couldnt control much

you had control if you learned how to trim the brushes.. you could make players could straight left right or spin.

 

[Scooch]

I remember being blown away by this arcade game when I was 10...

NFL Football - Videogame by Bally Midway

Actual video footage of real games! Granted, the game itself wasn't great, you just selected plays and then the video took over. But for the early 80s it was pretty amazing technology.

 

[dollarbill44]

Super Tecmo Bowl was an all time favorite. More plays than Tecmo Bowl, it actually kept stats for you, the pre-cursor to all football games after it. Specifically the Madden series. Developers realized people want to play with the teams that they love, and try to make it to the Super Bowl through a football season. Really an amazing leap from Tecmo Bowl. I loved playing with Kansas City. Christian Okoye and Barry Word were bad men.


In college, it was College Football '98, and then the College Football's after that. Got to play with Syracuse and win national championships. Great game. Way too many hours playing in dorm tournaments.

Also loved Ten Yard Fight on the Nintendo.

This one is still the best overall. Madden brought incredible realism, but the learning curve was just to steep. The playability of Super Tecmo is unsurpassed. I still play it on occasion on my NES (yes, i still have it).

 

[GoCuse08]

I was going to come on here and say Techno Bowl but this was definitely my first football video game. Almost forgot all about it.

this was the best...spent a lot of time playing on this. My kids don't know how good they have it with their tablets and madden football, etc.

Anyone know how I could get my hands on one of these?

 

[Pyle]

Soooooooooo I actually forgot about this. It was at my grandparents house and I'd play with it every summer during my two week fishing trip. They didn't have the dice or instructions anymore so I'd just put the plays in piles on the floor and randomly pick 2 and turn the light on.

 

[cuse309]

I was going to come on here and say Techno Bowl but this was definitely my first football video game. Almost forgot all about it.

this was the best...spent a lot of time playing on this. My kids don't know how good they have it with their tablets and madden football, etc.

Anyone know how I could get my hands on one of these?

They aren't hard to find. I just googled "mattel electric football game" and saw them at target, walmart, amazon etc. all for around $20.00

 

[sufandu]

This one is still the best overall. Madden brought incredible realism, but the learning curve was just to steep. The playability of Super Tecmo is unsurpassed. I still play it on occasion on my NES (yes, i still have it).

I loved the early madden games for what I learned about real football. Back when video games came with actual instruction manuals, one of my madden games came with a full on book that explained formations and play design. I learned a ton from that.

 

[BomberOrange]

Not a video game, but a football game me and my buddies would play all the time. Actually taught me a lot about x’s and o’s when I was 12

 

[Roger N]

This may show some peoples ages, but was curious. When I wasn't playing football with friends, or at school, I was playing football on my Nintendo. What football games did you grow up playing? For those of you that grew up before the Atari Football game in 1978, you may include that vibrating shock hazard football game if you'd like.
I played mostly Tecmo Bowl on the original Nintendo. Once Madden 94 vame along on the Super Nintendo though...it was all over. I remember thinking that there was no way the graphics could ever get better than this:

I also remember being addicted to Bill Walsh College Football 95. Syracuse's option attack was unstopable by the way.
Bill Walsh College Football 95

I grew up with Bill O’Donnel doing the radio broadcasts of SU football. Syracuse had two tv stations 3 and 8. Later channel 8 became channel 5.

The only video I remember was
Captain Video and his video rangers

 

[chugg21]

Grew up with pretty much every football game on all systems from tecmo til about 2008 or so. After that it was strictly NCAA until it got killed. Nothing else compares to dynasty mode for me. Still have a ps3 copy of ncaa 2014 I can' let go of even after selling my ps3 like 4 years ago.

 

[nzm136]

I played games like Mario, and then Sonic and Street Fighter II.

With the exception of "Total Control Football" on the PC, football games were "eh" for me until the Madden w/ Daunte Culpepper on the cover.

 

[NJCuse97]

College Football's National Championship - Wikipedia

We lived to get home from class to our apartment on South to play this

 

[Pyle]

College Football's National Championship - Wikipedia

We lived to get home from class to our apartment on South to play this

I had Genesis Sports Talk Football which was basically the same game in a different skin, the digitized voice, the herky jerky camera motion, all of it, same game lol.

 

[TexanMark]

I received this probably around 1971 for my birthday...it was really not that exciting. I played it about 10 times with friends then it found a home under my bed.

 

[orange79]

I received this probably around 1971 for my birthday...it was really not that exciting. I played it about 10 times with friends then it found a home under my bed.

Ooh - I had that, and totally forgot about it. There was one combination of plays/position on the field that always resulted in a TD. HB option, maybe?

 

[TexanMark]

Ooh - I had that, and totally forgot about it. There was one combination of plays/position on the field that always resulted in a TD. HB option, maybe?

Except your friend knew your tendencies and blitzed which would yield turnover

 

[4evaOrange]

First football game I ever played was on PlayStation and it was madden 98 and damn I was a beast. I'll be playing it during the summer.

 

[Capt. Tuttle]

We were poor. I had claymation football.

 

[elimunelson]

My frat house at Syracuse played this in the basement for pretty much 3 months straight. There was guys who literally never left the basement and were surrounded by leftover Kimmel food, dip cannisters and stale beer.

To me the standard bearer of all sports games is this: