Tecmo Bowl was one of the first hard-core football video games available.

Because of the success and relative popularity of the original Tecmo Bowl, Tecmo would go on to make more games in the series. Super Tecmo Bowl added more plays and was one of the first console football games to feature any sort of hard-core stat tracking. The series appeared later on the Super Nintendo, the Genesis, and even the PlayStation, but by the time the PlayStation version was released, Tecmo had lost sight of what had made the series so popular by attempting to create a game that would compete with football simulations.

Despite that, fans of Tecmo Bowl have continually wanted to see a new release on the current generation of systems. Unfortunately, during a conversation with Tecmo at E3 2002, it was revealed that the NFL would not give Tecmo the license to create a football game, because the league felt that NFL Blitz had already filled the gap for arcade-style football games. But with the emergence of NFL Street, it seems like the NFL may be changing its tune and that a future game in the Tecmo Bowl series is a possibility.

Two running plays, two passing plays--what else could you need?

Before first-person football, play-maker controls, and even robust playbooks, there was Tecmo Bowl--a re-creation of professional football so simplistic and yet so incredibly fun that it easily has stood the test of time as one of the greatest sports games ever created. Just to give an idea of how basic the game was, each team had a playbook consisting of only four offensive plays. There were some slight variations on these plays depending on the team. What's even more mind-boggling is that there were no defensive plays to choose from, but at the same time, that's exactly part of what made Tecmo Bowl so entertaining.

It was almost like a simple representation of video game chess. If you happened to select the same play as your opponent, then the defense could automatically smash through the offensive line and go for the sack, or at the very least, cause a large number of yards to be lost. You were constantly guessing what play the opponent was going to pick as opposed to worrying about adequate run or pass coverage--it was all about going right for the player with the ball.

But Tecmo Bowl had a layer of depth that came to light only after you had played the game for a good amount of time and had a running back with the speed of a cheetah. When your opponent selected the same play, there was always a slight chance that you could still get some yards out of it, especially if you had a running back like Bo Jackson, Walter "Sweetness" Payton, or even Roger Craig. It was possible to weave your way past tackles and literally smash through defensive backs as they rushed toward the ball carrier. It was possible to perform a similar feat on defense with starting defensive players like Lawrence Taylor or Mike Singletary, who had enough speed to hit a player behind the line of scrimmage even if the same play wasn't selected.

In the end, the best way to describe Tecmo Bowl is to say that it was NFL Blitz before Blitz was even a faint glimmer in the eye of Midway. Like with Blitz, its over-the-top hits, simple play mechanics, and fast-paced gameplay made Tecmo Bowl a football game that everyone could enjoy, and to this day it remains one of the most enjoyable re-creations of professional football.

It didn't have actual teams, and there was no stat tracking, but Tecmo Bowl was still the best football game of its time. Up to that point, most football games had been incredibly slow, clunky, and just not all that fun to play. Tecmo Bowl's simplicity and fast-paced action not only made it more fun to play than most of the other football games available at the time, but also opened the game up to a much wider audience than most sports games attracted. While it's ridiculous to compare Tecmo Bowl to the current reigning champions of professional video game football in terms of features or visual quality, there's no denying that it still possesses certain attributes that make it fun to play even today.