[Courtney]

Tecmo Super Bowl



vs.

Super Mario Bros.

[Mikey]

PACK IN!

PLUS... it was the system, not the game, that revolutionized the industry.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Damn this is tough...

[Mikey]

Super Mario Brothers didn't do anything that a dozen other games couldn't have done - that being, showcase the brand new, cutting edge, Nintendo Entertainment System. Hell, SMB was not only a PACK IN, but it had ANOTHER GAME ON THE CARTRIDGE!!!

Tecmo Super Bowl changed the rules for sports gaming. Gone were the days of 10 Yard Fight and Baseball. In addition to the NFL license, Tecmo introduced season mode, week by week stat keeping, injuries, substitutions, a badass soundtrack, and CUSTOM PLAYBOOKS! It was fucking Madden before Madden became mainstream!! Tecmo paved the way for not only the Madden NFL series, but it also did the same thing with its pretty darn good NBA game, as well. One could argue that without Tecmo Super Bowl, EA Sports doesn't exist today, because they wouldn't have had the concept to build upon. Tecmo was YEARS ahead of its time, and still plays remarkably well to this day.

[National Champion Chris Cole]

I think the picture you posted is from Tecmo Bowl not Tecmo Super Bowl.

[Lucky]

Sept 22, 2008 14:56:10 GMT -5 Mikey said:

One could argue that without Tecmo Super Bowl, EA Sports doesn't exist today, because they wouldn't have had the concept to build upon.

It would probably be a pretty shallow argument since the expansion of sports games was just natural and if Tecmo Super Bowl didn't do it something else would have. Its the same as a truly revolutionary thing being added to some games that wouldn't have just naturally come along when the technology improved enough to allow it or someone was willing to do the work to make the money. The more recent additions to sports games like scouting amateur players for future drafts and running full minor league systems strike me as truly revolutionary things while simply making the game more true to life was just inevitable.

Which isn't a knock. I loved Tecmo Bowl too and enjoyed playing it in college as a simple alternative. But I never really got the obsession people have with it with all the Madden games. I mean, I like that Madden '95 game (or whatever) that I had and would spend an entire snow day playing or something. But things just improved and I'm not sure what I could get from that game that I can't get from Madden 2008.

I failed to understand Byrne's weird "pack in" argument before and I still do when Mike is presenting it. SMB is one of the most widely loved games of all time. The Tecmo Bowl games are some of the most widely loved sports games of all time. SMB appealed to every one. My Mom actually used to play it and I've never seen her even look at a game that wasn't Solitaire otherwise. SMB was simply a force of nature that was so powerful it even made these things seem like good ideas.

[AngryDan]

I don't know a single person that has never played SMB. In terms of influence, SMB blows away Tecmo Super Bowl.

I like them equally gameplay-wise, so that sways the argument for me. Unless they make a Super Tecmo Bowl movie starring Bo Jackson as the fastest man alive.

[Habs]

Now after reading Mike's post, I was all TSB, but Lucky has me all thinking again...

[punk/core]

Sept 22, 2008 14:56:10 GMT -5 Mikey said:

Super Mario Brothers didn't do anything that a dozen other games couldn't have done - that being, showcase the brand new, cutting edge, Nintendo Entertainment System. Hell, SMB was not only a PACK IN, but it had ANOTHER GAME ON THE CARTRIDGE!!!

Because a dozen other football games couldn't have done what Tecmo Super Bowl did?

The side scrolling. The power ups. The large amount of unique characters. The warp zones. The controls. The music. Every damn detail of this game has been emulated time and time and time again. It was the first; it revolutionized the fucking industry. But all it did was "showcase the NES"?

[Mikey]

The "pack in" thing was a joke. And I thought it was a good one. ABUSE OF PACKING!! YOU!! TELL EM, ARN!

BUT... had SMB not been the primary game included with the NES, would it ever have had the wide range of appeal it had?? Sorry, I don't exactly see people flocking to the stores to buy the game about the fat plumber guy jumping into bricks and eating mushrooms. But maybe I'm just different about these things.

[punk/core]

I think it definitely would have still done well. It was released in 1985... think about what everyone was playing back then. There was nothing on the market with SMB's depth.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Sept 22, 2008 16:17:18 GMT -5 Mikey said:

The "pack in" thing was a joke. And I thought it was a good one. ABUSE OF PACKING!! YOU!! TELL EM, ARN!

EXALT

[salmonjunkie]

My SMB pack in was by itself.

And let's not forget that NES owners had a choice. NES with SMB or NES with Duck Hunt, Gyromite, a gun, and a robot. So not everyone got SMB with their NES. But they ended up getting it anyway.

Punker's right, there was NOTHING on the NES that was as deep and dynamic as SMB was when it came out. Here are the games that the NES was launched with. 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Donkey Kong Jr. Math, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan’s Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Mach Rider, Pinball, Stack-Up, Tennis, Wild Gunman, Wrecking Crew, and Super Mario Bros.

Not only was there nothing else in the home market like SMB, I'd argue to say there was even nothing in the arcade that was as so. No SMB, no Alex Kidd, no Sonic, no Crash Bandicoot, no Super Mario 64, no Metroid (where the FUCK are the Metroid games on this showcase anyway? - Especially Super Metroid?), no Kid Icarus, no Mega Man, no motherfucking KARNOV.

Last of all, influence shminfluence. We're voting for the game we like more. I love both of these games, but SMB was my fucking life when I was 10 years old.

[Mikey]

Your life sucked. That's right, I said it.

[salmonjunkie]

lol, i suppose it would have been better if I kept up with that AYSO soccer, but I sucked at that, but was pretty damn good at SMB. Gotta go with what you're good at.

[Lucky]

Yeah, I just don't remember any of those games with similar formats to SMB being there before SMB. SMB was just different and that's always been the story with Mario. Other games might follow its example and be fuller experiences but Mario always seems to be the game that looks and feels like something entirely different. Until Mario I was playing Pitfall or something.

Of course I have no idea if it would have done as well without being so closely tied to NES purchases but I think you're underplaying it a ton. The game has great appeal. Its not like it was just some crap game that we all played because we had no choice. People WANTED to play SMB. Reducing it to an unappealing game about a fat plumber jumping into bricks and eating mushrooms kind of ignores the history of games. The little elf killing goblins with swords was less silly? The tiny robot guy with a gun for a hand fighting other robots? The hedgehog spinning around worlds? I still don't know what the fuck Kirby was. Games tend to have really stupid premises and its only recently that the non-sports games started to be about the non-silly ideas like rape and murder. And even today people can get excited about something that sounds silly but just turns out to be a really fun game.

I actually am pretty sure I had a 3-in-1 pack in with SMB, Duck Hunt, and some Olympic running game because I got my NES with the POWER PAD! Or maybe it was Duck Hunt/running and then SMB was a separate purchase. I don't remember and I gave away all my NES stuff in college (except for that stupid power pad that no one wanted and I finally threw out this year).

[Mikey]

The fact that you had a POWERPAD in the year 2008 should automatically eliminate you from further voting in this showdown.

I'm not trying to knock SMB here. It's a timeless game and was the best of that bunch (despite the inability to go backwards!!) Excitebike was pretty damn cool, as well. Probably also a case of me not getting a Nintendo til '88, by the time the evolution had already begun. But I ended up ownin at least two dozen NES games - and unlike Tecmo, SMB rarely got touched after the first two or three months. I played Tecmo for three years, right til I got a Super Nintendo, and its successor on THAT system.

[Lucky]

And I don't mean to be knocking Tecmo. My college roommates loved that thing and it was a large part of the reason that they had an NES hooked up in our dorm. It was a fun and cool simple football game that had a nice balance between "real" without being too involved to just play a game with and "fun and simple" without being too arcady and losing the feel of football. Tecmo was cool. I just always thought that it loses a lot more from the dozens of NFL games that have followed than SMB has from the Mario and Mario-like games that followed.

EDIT: If the Power Pad DQs me what does still owning this do?

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Moose?

[Lucky]

No, so you can put your pants back on.

[Jack Quinn]

wow, I didn't know I had that! Sweet!

And really, if this were Tecmo Super Bowl III I would really have a hard time with this one. TSB3 was to the Tecmo series what SMB3 was to the Mario series, at least on the NES. It was the epitome of the games, in my opinion. To start though, I have no problem giving SMB the nod over the first TSB

[Tommy]

This is worse than Owen/Sting.

Tecmo Super Bowl was the first with a customizable playbook, real season-long stats (well, QB rating was fucked up, but the rest were right), and the ability to save without having to do anything. You turned it off and it saved. Not to mention it was the first game (after Tecmo Bowl) with the NFLPA contract, so every player was legitimate (Except QB Eagles), and you could sub your line ups. Gameplay was fun and relatively easy, and you could have as good of a gameplay experience solo or with 2 players. You didn't have to wait for the game to be over to play.

This is ridiculous. You can beat SMB in 15 minutes. It takes a week or two to finish a season. This is fucking retarded and I hate all of you that voted for SMB.

[Mikey]

What he said.

Plus, Moon with Jeffries, Duncan, Givens, and Hill was fucking unstoppable.

[AngryDan]

For the sake of argument, I just decided to play both games. It had been a few years, so I wanted to see how I felt about them today.

Played Mario, got through it in about 20 minutes. There's not too much replayability with it, it's always the same.

I was still undecided until my roommate came in during Tecmo Super Bowl and we started 2 player. I'd play 2 player Tecmo Super Bowl over 2 player Madden any day of the week. I forgot how awesome of a party game it could be.

I'm changing my vote to Tecmo. And that's purely based off of current enjoyment...but I'm still conflicted.

[Byrntrigan]

Sept 22, 2008 14:08:46 GMT -5 Mikey said:

PACK IN!

PLUS... it was the system, not the game, that revolutionized the industry.

Mike, your argument interests me. Where can I sign up for your newsletter expressing your views? ;D