What's your favorite football video game (not text sim) of all time?

[Kodos]

I think NCAA 14 may be mine. Haven't liked a Madden during the 360-PS3 era. Just played Madden 15 PS4 for the first time last weekend. Liking it so far, but need a lot more time with it to be able to see how it stacks up. I imagine this will get a flood of NFL 2k5 votes... Probably Tecmo Bowl too.

[Marmel]

Early 2000s NCAA football. It had to be like 2003, Timmy Chang's Jr or Sr year at Hawaii. That was one fun offense to play.

[molson]

The last one I played was Madden '94, so that one.

[cartman]

4th and Inches.

Now get off of my lawn.

[Kodos]

For Madden, I'd vote for 2003 (the one with Marshall Faulk on the cover) or 2005/2006.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by cartman

4th and Inches.

Now get off of my lawn.

Rusty Naylez!

My vote is for Tecmo Super Bowl.

[JeeberD]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

My vote is for Tecmo Super Bowl.

This.

I would treat it like a text sim, almost. I would put all the teams on computer control, then run season after season and manually keep track of team records, player stats, etc. I think my parents threw out the binder I kept with probably a couple hundred seasons worth of data in it after I left for college.

Oh, and I guess I had fun playing it, as well.

[RainMaker]

The Madden that had Eddie George on the cover I played an absolute ton of with roommates in college. Like we had 5-10 year leagues going.

[timmae]

Intellivision NFL Football. Early '80's... Me, my dad and my uncle would play that game during their lunch breaks and at night. Awesome memories of that 5 on 5 cgi masterpiece

[Easy Mac]

Either NCAA 98 or 99. Whichever one had the recruiting system where all you had to do was tell it the type of player you wanted and it would recruit the player for you. Like you wanted an option QB or regular, possession or fast WR,...

[lighthousekeeper]

4th and inches. probably my most highly anticipated christmas gift ever. i still remember sneaking into the closet where the xmas gifts were hidden, just to drool over the package day after day. i loved that game. joe dakota ftw.

[Logan]

Another vote for Tecmo Super Bowl.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by timmae

Intellivision NFL Football. Early '80's... Me, my dad and my uncle would play that game during their lunch breaks and at night. Awesome memories of that 5 on 5 cgi masterpiece

Heh! We used to play the hell out of that game. I think we only ever played one quarter games because full games took forever.

My entire offense was based on the screen pass. I called two plays: 9-8-2-2 or 9-7-1-3. I would roll my QB up or down, if my opponent covered the QB, I'd pass the ball to the receiver on the opposite side of the field.

[DaddyTorgo]

So FM is ineligible?

[RedKingGold]

How could we be 10 posts in, and Front Page Sports Football not yet be mentioned?

[SackAttack]

Mutant League Football Sega Mega Drive Genesis - YouTube

[SlyBelle1]

Originally Posted by lighthousekeeper

4th and inches. probably my most highly anticipated christmas gift ever. i still remember sneaking into the closet where the xmas gifts were hidden, just to drool over the package day after day. i loved that game. joe dakota ftw.

You can play the game in all its glory through this new site that has an emulator right within the browser.....this site also has a lot of the other football games from the past like madden, microleague, dikta, montana, etc.

4th & Inches : Accolade, Inc. : Free Streaming : Internet Archive

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

So FM is ineligible?

Does it have players you can control? If not, ineligible.

[HomerSimpson98]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

Heh! We used to play the hell out of that game. I think we only ever played one quarter games because full games took forever.

My entire offense was based on the screen pass. I called two plays: 9-8-2-2 or 9-7-1-3. I would roll my QB up or down, if my opponent covered the QB, I'd pass the ball to the receiver on the opposite side of the field.

HA! Is that the one you could scroll your defensive guy off the screen to the left and he would magically show up on the right side to make a pick???

[EagleFan]

Originally Posted by RedKingGold

How could we be 10 posts in, and Front Page Sports Football not yet be mentioned?

Not sure it meets the criteria. Never once controlled a player, nor wanted to. Loved coaching and making plays. Easily my favorite football game but I read this thread as being for games that you controlled the on field action.

[NobodyHere]

Blood Bowl...



..is a game I wish could be on this list.

[Scoobz0202]

Madden 98 on Playstation

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by RedKingGold

How could we be 10 posts in, and Front Page Sports Football not yet be mentioned?

I think the multiplayer sports games are generally going to be mentioned more, only because those were more memorable gaming experiences for most people.

In high school, Tecmo Super Bowl is without question the one I'd give the nod to. We had a group of eight friends that we'd get together with once a month on a Saturday. One of the guys would set up a round robin season where we'd have four TV's going in the same basement. We'd keep records and then seed out a playoff amongst the top four teams. We'd play for 10 hours or so. Was a lot of fun.

Also, some of the NCAA Football games were great as well when I was in college in the mid-90s. They added multiplayer season modes. We'd play through a whole season with 8-10 human controlled teams. Great times as well.

[Eaglesfan27]

NCAA 14 for me. I loved NFL 2k5's gameplay but the franchise mode had a lot of issues.

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by cartman

4th and Inches.

Now get off of my lawn.

Man, I thought I was watching Iowas offense.

[Izulde]

Tecmo Super Bowl, and nothing else comes close.

[BillJasper]

Originally Posted by Izulde

Tecmo Super Bowl, and nothing else comes close.

+1

[rowech]

Pro League Football -- played the crap out of it and the college version.

[Julio Riddols]

EA has gone a looong way toward winning me back with NCAA 14 and the newest Madden release.

If Tecmo Super Bowl had a career mode though.. There would be nothing even close. What I think Tecmo did best that other games have yet to replicate is that the great players were truly great while the sucky players truly sucked. No other game has really captured that right yet in my opinion.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I still play the updated versions of Tecmo Super Bowl. It is amazing how people have hacked into the game to keep the game alive over 20 years later. Also, some versions include read option plays!

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

I still play the updated versions of Tecmo Super Bowl. It is amazing how people have hacked into the game to keep the game alive over 20 years later. Also, some versions include read option plays!

Ive been pretty impressed with them too.

[Tasan]

Probably Techmo Super Bowl, but I spent hours in XOR's NFL Challenge editing teams. I also spent a lot of time putting in my favorite teams in 4th and Inches. At one point I figured out how to hack NFL Challenge and actually edit team names and such.

[cuervo72]

The SNES version of Tecmo Super Bowl, which allowed you to play three consecutive seasons (and to edit a custom player into the game).

Had a lot of fun with Intellivision Football and 4th and Inches (had the GM disk!) as well.

[Balldog]

I am still very fond of NCAA 07 for PS2.

[stevew]

Tecmo 3 on Genesis.
Madden 93, the one where the Jets kicker couldn't make an XP
4th and Inches. I can't remember if I was Red Team or Blue Team but I loved it.
Cyberball in the Arcade

Whichever Madden introduced instant replay challenges...that lead to a lot of punches cause it automatically nullified a play IIRC

[saldana]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Mutant League Football Sega Mega Drive Genesis - YouTube

i loved this game...definitely the best ever to play against someone else...any time i was ever losing i just stopped trying to score and kept killing their QBs...as soon as all 3 died, I won by forfeit.

that and bribing the refs

[A-Husker-4-Life]

Front Page Sports Football 95

It was my FOF before FOF, I played in a MP league and everything.

[MJ4H]

Ultimate Football

[JPhillips]

Tecmo Super Bowl at home and John Elway Quarterback in the arcade.

[thesloppy]

I loved me some FPS, and also TV Sports Football on ye olde Amiga, though neither satisfied the arcade side of my football jones.

[Wolfpack]

Wow, that 4th and Inches video just piled up a truckload of nostalgia for me. Had the team construction add-on and everything. Tried to create various oddball teams (I remember creating seven-foot tall linebackers who weighed as much as a battleship, yet had the Speed! attribute) or even trying my hand at rating out real NFL teams.

Besides that, I'd have to go with FPS Football. Building my own world and teams and history never got old. I'd use WordPerfect or MS Word and crank out my own preseason writeups and all that. I remember having a running back for the California Earthquakes, Marvin Winters, who obliterated the rushing record in a 14 game season. I think he got over 2200 yards or something like that. Yeah, the simulation engine probably wasn't the sharpest, but who cares?

I also played Tecmo a fair amount, but I never owned a Nintendo, so it wasn't an obsession for me like it was for some others. Playing with real players was nice, though.

[ColtCrazy]

NCAA 14 would be my favorite college game. As far as Madden goes, the 2006 version was pretty good, though I will say Madden 14 is good enough that makes 14 a nice combo with NCAA.

Overall, though, Front Page had the best overall video game experience.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by saldana

i loved this game...definitely the best ever to play against someone else...any time i was ever losing i just stopped trying to score and kept killing their QBs...as soon as all 3 died, I won by forfeit.

that and bribing the refs

Don't forget killing the ref if you suspected your opponent was bribing him

[Alf]

The original "Football Manager" back in the 80s : Football Manager for Ataris T

The original : ATARI ST FOOTBALL MANAGER - YouTube
The series : History of Championship Manager - Football manager (1984-2012) & Maxim Tsigalko tribute - YouTube

[Alf]

dola : as you can see, THERE are graphics

[sabotai]

FPS: Football Pro ('94)

[nol]

NCAA 2K2 on the Dreamcast was the one I logged the most hours playing. I feel like it was the first sports console game that incorporated RPG elements to player development in the dynasty/franchise mode. Every offseason after recruiting, you had 4 points to be allocated between speed, strength, skill and endurance.

The other thing I remember is that the game was a "1" in my 1-10 scale for sports video games where 10 would represent "CPU-generated recruits/rookies make up the All-Star/All-American team after the first season."

The talent deflation was such that 75 overall became the new 100, which was fine gameplay-wise after 4 seasons, but it was pronounced enough that redshirting every single freshman on your team the first season pretty much guaranteed that your team would be top-5 in overall rating once those players were 5th-year seniors.

[Grover]

Tecmo Super Bowl.

[FBPro]

FBPro!!!

[sooner333]

Not sure it's the best, but my college roommates and I had a ton of fun with our NCAA 06 dynasty. Three of us had a team but each game had to be against a human opponent. Led to a lot of gloating when you controlled a weak team to upset your opponent using their team. It also led to multiple broken controllers on the brick floor.