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Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff Review -

Before Madden was the biggest name in football video games, a company from Japan dominated the gridiron landscape of the late 80s and early 90s. They were Tecmo, and their game was Tecmo Bowl, a two-button arcade affair that put names like Bo Jackson, Christian Okoye, and QB Eagles into the virtual athlete hall of fame. While the series has appeared and disappeared over its 21 year history, 2008 marks its latest entry with Tecmo Bowl Kickoff for the DS.

Are You Ready for Some Tiny Football?

Like an old friend you haven’t seen in many moons, Tecmo Bowl Kickoff greets you warmly, with some synth guitar riffs and only a handful of options including exhibition, season and all-star modes in single player. The familiar gameplay stylings of the series are kept wonderfully intact in this newest edition of the game. One button breaks tackles and selects receivers and the other button throws the pigskin; there are no complicated audible settings or hot routes here. It’s a test of your grit under pressure: can you cycle through to that open receiver 20 yards downfield before the middle linebacker in your face turns you into quarterback paste? What you get is pure, unabashed arcade football action with a sprinkling of stat tracking. Anyone who has ever played a Tecmo Bowl game will feel right at home, while newcomers won’t be overwhelmed. There is a new control scheme using the touch pad on the DS, but outside of being somewhat quicker in the passing game, you’ll want to stick to the tried and true face buttons.

So what’s new? Well for one, Kickoff allows you to customize every aspect of any team and player in the game. And with names like the Indianapolis Narwhals, you’ll want to do that ASAP. Team color, jersey style, helmet logo and city and team name can all be changed to whatever you see fit, though it would have been nice to get more logo options. Once you have the look, you can also edit player names and numbers as well as their attributes. In order to prevent every team from having the next Reggie Cobb (of Tecmo Super Bowl circa 1993 fame), players have a set amount of attribute points that can be put into one of four categories like running speed or running power. Additionally, each position gets its own special categories, like passing accuracy for QBs or interceptions for DBs. Taking a page from the new school of video game sports, player attributes can be earned by completing full seasons in single player and will be doled out at the end of the year based on overall performance.

Cosmetically, the game has received some new cutscenes that toss back to the Tecmo Bowls of old. Remember the two frame high-five between quarterback and receiver when you threw a touchdown pass? It’s still there in the updated new look. In addition to the classics, there are some new cutscenes that pop up during play based on the super moves available to the best players. In certain situations in the game, a player’s feet will be surrounded in a ring of fire, signaling that they can perform a game-changing play. Power backs will be able to drag tacklers a few extra yards, receivers can shake their coverage, and quarterbacks can throw with pinpoint accuracy. Each super move can be assigned to a player in the edit screen as long as you have enough skill points (also earnable in season mode), so players of all strategies will find a play style to suit them. Some may see this feature as game breaking, but I have found the opposite: it’s a nice way to get some momentum back when you’re down, or a certified nail in the coffin of a team you happen to be dominating.

Going Long

The biggest new feature is wireless multiplayer. Not just limited to local games, you can take Tecmo Bowl Kickoff online using the Nintendo WFC and challenge players around the world. When the brain-dead AI starts to make you wish for more challenge, hop on to the internet to take on a more dynamic, human challenge.

Despite the fun and success found on the little DS cart, there are some head-scratching mistakes. For one, the menu interface is downright confusing. Stats are laid out in the most unorganized fashion and editing players forces you to go through about three or four confirmation screens any time you make a change. And then there’s the glitch where you might accidentally start subtracting attribute points from a player and lose them forever (they don’t get put back into the player’s total point pool). Overall the game needed a UI specialist very badly. There’s also the small problem of not being able to quit games once they’ve started; the DS is a portable system and not being able to quicksave or quit at any time (like, say, when your bus arrives at its stop) is borderline inexcusable. Finally, the new music will have you muting the audio by the end of the first quarter of your first game. Unlike the jazzy beats of the original game, the nu-metal Kickoff remixes are awful.

Play as You Go

In this day of super HD home consoles and blockbuster, multi-million dollar video games, the elegant simplicity of games like Tecmo Bowl are understated. It’s never going to be the next Madden in terms of sales or simulation, but what Tecmo Bowl Kickoff does offer is fast, fun football action on the go and you owe it to yourself to pick it up, especially if you grew up with the series and want to bring a little nostalgia back into your life.

Article by: Justin Fassino