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 Football, casually speaking
| The lessons of Tecmo Super Bowl |
 Tecmo Super Bowl. The very name conjures happy memories for Generation-X era gamers. It is a product that caused a stir in both "casuals" and "hardcore" gamers alike. Calling the product "monumental" or "innovative" in its time would be an extreme understatement. Few gamers, be they sports gamers or casuals with even a passing fancy for the NFL, could forget the first time they put the cartridge into their NES systems.
Fast-forward 19 years. Tecmo Super Bowl is still considered a "Holy Grail" of football goodness. It's a product that the industry looks back upon as a rare sports title that captured the public and made non-sports gamers feel like they could play video football and have a great time doing it, as well as give the seasoned NFL fan & gamer something to really like as well.
But, alas, no such product exists today. As a gamer who would easily be considered a "hardcore football gamer" I must say that I'm quite happy with Madden 2010 on my XBOX 360. I know the various type of coverages, audibles , hot-routes, ball-carrier moves, and reads to make as a video quarterback. Simply put, Madden 2010 does what I want it to do. It delivers a solid, knowledgeable football experience for me, the hardcore football gamer.
However, no matter what Madden does, it is such an evolved product that it is not a game that the average gamer can dive into, knowing little about football, and have success or a welcoming experience. Sure, you can dial the difficulty down to near Pop-Warner level, but the controls, schemes, offensive options, etc.. all leave the first time/casual football gamer scratching their head for the most part. To be fair to EA, they have tried things like the variable difficulties assigned by the "Maden I.Q. Test" as well as making the Wii version more "casual feeling/looking". But few would agree that they hit the sweet spot in casual football gaming.
This is where Tecmo Super Bowl excelled.
However, a revival of TSB, from Tecmo themselves, is highly unlikely. Internal problems at Tecmo of Japan as well as EA's stranglehold on the NFL license have all but killed any chance of a return of the updated product in a modern console form.
Despite that, various developers have desired to pick up the same core TSB audience with their own casual football games that they feel are aimed at the type of audience that TSB drew into the fold.
Unfortunately, those developers have seriously missed the mark with their products. This is despite them having the blueprint for success to reference and apply to their own product. Clearly, EA and Midway have wanted the Tecmo-like audience with their respective products, but have seemingly fallen short when it comes to acknowledging what made TSB the legendary product it was.
So what made Tecmo Super Bowl such a great title?
As a 37 year old gamer, a proud Gen-X'er, I've compiled my own list of "must-haves" for EA to finally make secondary, casual NFL product in the vein of Tecmo Super Bowl.
Here's the list.
* Do not "talk down" to your audience by making your product ridiculously over the top. Casuals are usually gamers who haven't a lot of time to game. That doesn't make them stupid, nor does it make them all 10 year olds. Make the product about real football. That includes 100 yard fields, 22 players on the field at once. Forget the 1 man offensive lines (Madden Arcade) or 3 man offensive lines (Midway's Blitz products). All that does is cheapen the experience and turn off both the casuals and hardcore gamers. Sure, Midway's "Blitz" series has always been over the top with killer hits, but to many gamers, the "big hit" is only fun when the big hit is rare, or requires skill to execute properly. (i.e. not every tackle.) Lastly, as it pertains to "talking down" to your audience, this includes axing the obligatory "Big Head Mode." I don't feel I have to explain that further. It must be mentioned that in 1991, Tecmo Super Bowl WAS a hardcore football game. Sure, that seems laughable now, but no other console football game had it's stat tracking, full season play, injuries, sortable player stats, substitutions, up to 28 players controlling teams in your season, league leaderboards, and players getting hot & cold streaks. All while the product maintained a huge amount of casual and non-football gamer appeal.
* The game must have 22 players on the field at once. As stated above, 1 man lines or 3 man lines are not going to cut it. Look, even the casuals want an NFL experience (though less complex). That includes an accurate number of players per side. Tecmo Super Bowl, again, got that right.
* Real NFL team uniforms are a must. This should be a lesson learned from EA's foray into the ill-fated NFL Street series. All football gamers want to play with their favorite stars in their accurate uniforms. Period. Even if it is a quasi-cartoony presentation. (Madden NFL Arcade did get this part right).
* Full season play and full stat tracking are a must. Yep, people forget that Tecmo Super Bowl was a battery backed cartridge with full season stat tracking, in-game stat tracking, player season leaderboards- you name it. In fact, it was about 7 years ahead of Madden in this regard. Gamers want to try to throw for 400 yards with Peyton Manning. They want to try to run for 150 with Adrian Peterson. They want to see these accomplishments tracked, and revel in them. However, when most devs think "casual", they also think that means they make a "one-off" gameplay experience, with no season play, progression, stat tracking, etc. Gamers still want that and always have. They want an NFL schedule. They want to follow their favorite teams through a season with some fast pick up and play action. Make it so.
* Simplifying the controls should not equate to simplified game. Again, this involves "talking down to" the gamer. Tecmo Super Bowl brilliantely allowed for you to throw to up to 5 eligible receivers while utilizing only TWO buttons on the NES controller. 'Nuff said. So don't insult gamers with having only 3 eligible receivers in a given play. On the flip side, forcing gamers to adopt the wonky, contrived control scheme on the Wii version of Madden 2010 is enough to make most casuals (and hardcores) use the game disc for a coaster. (edit: the game must be designed for a control pad. Period. Particularly if you want to reach most sports gamers, who also happen to own XBOX 360s and PS3s. This just in, most sports gamers avoid the Wii. To quote The Who, they "Won't Be Fooled Again." But hey, if anyone wants make a casual (yet deep) football game that utilizes the Wii Classic Controller, then by all means, do so. The motion wand and nunchuck just don't translate well into football, be it casual or hardcore. Golf? Yes. Football? Hell no.
* Allow for limited personnel subs. Follow the TSB pattern. And by doing so, allow for injuries. I recall my elation when Bo Jackson left the hospital before a big playoff for me in a TSB season. I was ELATED. Yes, casuals don't mind injuries, as they are part of the game. Nobody complainted about TSB's injuries. Everyone was just very happy to see the graphic of their injured player(s) running out of the hospital (in uniform...) before one of their games.
* Let the NFL stars be the stars of the game. Let's look at Madden NFL Arcade, for example. Is there much of an in-game discrepancy between, say, Peyton Manning and Brady Quinn? To the trained eye? No. However, when you played Tecmo Super Bowl, you could tell the difference between Bubby Brister and Dan Marino within two seconds of using them as your QB. Dan's release speed was incredible. He threw fastballs all over the field once you fired the ball to a receiver. With Brister, there was a more pronounced "lob", less in-air velocity, less accuracy, more drops on the part of the receiver. Then there was the really terrible QBs in Tecmo Super Bowl... such as the Colts' Jack Trudeau, who threw slow, low velocity passes which tended to allow the player controlled defender to have an easier time getting in the way of the catch. It's the little stuff like this that gives the game legs, and lets the stars shine in the game. This was particularly true of defenders in Tecmo Super Bowl as well. Controlling Ronnie Lott as the free safety on the 9ers was a thing of joy. He could cover so much field with his speed. Sure, the game made him even better than he was in real life, (which is hard, mind you), but you dreaded Ronnie Lott, as well as Lawrence Taylor. And then there was the running backs. Bo Jackson and Barry Sanders were gamebreakers with the ball, and you better concentrate your efforts to stop them. Defenders would also bounce off of KC's Christian Okoye if they didn't commit to a hard, diving tackle. In short, the differences between the players in Tecmo Super Bowl were super noticeable. If a "more casual" NFL game is to be made for mass appeal, this should also be the case.
* The game must be easy to play, but hard to master. Sure, concessions will have to be made, like limiting the size of playbooks (by comparison to Madden 10), but that doesn't mean the game should have zero AI and zero strategy. Give basic schemes and formations that depict the 3-4, 4-3, goal-line, Nickel, Dime on defense, as well as an equal smattering of offensive sets focused on the offensive stars of a given team. Make both defense and offense fun to play without making the features for both absolutely daunting to new football gamers. Perhaps even limit the controls to the face buttons of the PS3/XBOX 360/ and Wii Classic controller. (Four buttons). Tecmo Super Bowl did it with only two, so it is possible.
* The game must be fun.
In short, we have the casual football blueprint. We've had it for 19 years. Someone just has to recognize it, and bring that kind of casual NFL experience up to date. Here's hoping that the positive response to Madden NFL Arcade encourages EA to stick with a secondary NFL football product to appeal to gamers outside of the hardcore Madden fold, as well as expand that experience in the future. I know for myself personally as a Madden fan, I wouldn't also mind diving into a product that incorporates the old Tecmo Super Bowl goodness into a modern, updated NFL product.
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