Tecmo Super Bowl: The GOAT of NFL games

Perhaps the greatest part was the players. Kansas City Chiefs running back Christian Okoye was almost impossible to tackle because of his hit power rating, while Los Angeles Raiders back Bo Jackson was uncatchable in the clear. Check these YouTube videos out below and enjoy.

Even the great Tiger Woods has this to say about Jackson in TSB, per Jon Robinson’s piece on ESPN.com.

"“Bo Jackson was unstoppable in that game. My friends would play as the Raiders and run around the field and nobody could catch him. He could just run circles around everyone else on the field. Bo Jackson is probably the best video game athlete of all time, and you can’t think about the old ‘Tecmo Bowl’ games without immediately thinking of Bo.”"

To this day, there are TSB tournaments run all over the United States, with the main event held annually in Madison. Wisc. There is a little money handed out to the victor, but it is really about pride and bragging rights. It is underground and yet so popular, that ESPN and NFL Films did a piece on the event, as can be seen at the official website. Over at TecmoBowl.org, there is a website which is dedicated to keeping the game alive and well for fans of all generations. There is even a store when you can buy t-shirts which spotlight famous portions of the game.

Best of all for TSB fans, each year a new, updated TSB is created to be played on NES. You thought playing with Bo Jackson was awesome (and it was, big time.), give Jamaal Charles, Russell Wilson or Andrew Luck a shot.

Every year, a new Madden game comes out and people go insane over the tiniest difference. The new release immediately makes the old one obsolete. It’s a never-ending cycle and money machine for EA Sports, which knows the current generation of football fans will gleefully open their wallets to see the newest variation of a spin move created in 1997.

Ultimately, that must be why TSB has stood the test of time. While there were other incarnations of the game, the 1991 version was so starkly different. Nothing has ever been like it before or since. It was first, it was simple and it was imperfectly perfect.

During its inception, it was the greatest football game every created. Over 23 years later, it remains exactly that.