Over the next ten weeks, we are going to feature a countdown of the top 10 most influential games of all time as judged by Consolesports.net.

This week, we are kicking off with...

#10 Tecmo Bowl

Tecmo Bowl
Nintendo Entertainment System
1987

 
Why is it influential?  Well, that's simple.  Before Tecmo Bowl, there were practically no licensed sports games of any kind featuring real athletes.  More importantly, sports video games featured teams and players that had no ratings, varied skills and/or abilities.  The step that Tecmo took may seem like a "baby step" by today's standards, but few sports game releases could set the trend that Tecmo did.  It almost single handedly created the "sim" genre..or any hopes of even having such a thing.  Sure, we look back at how arcadey it was 21 years later, but going from console sports teams that had no differences other than team colors...to Tecmo, which featured Dan Marino's quick release, Joe Montana's accuracy, Bo Jackson's legs, and Lawrence Taylor's rush.... and you can easily see why this game is simply legendary.  This was the first must have for NFL fans who owned an 8 bit NES.

And- it was one hell of a lot of fun.  A true classic, but merely a stepping stone for Tecmo Inc, which eventually would shock the world of sports gaming 3 years after Tecmo Bowl was released... but that's another story.

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