How did YOUR love for football games begin?

[TheCreep]

Boy oh boy I'm one interactive football fanatic! I remember my first video game football experience with some handheld gizmo with red dots for players.

The upgrade to electronic football sets afterwards was great. We used to buy puddy/clay and model paint to implement superior detail to all players. We'd mold clay over the RBs, OL, LBs, etc for different body types/sizes, refinish with the paint and add wristbands, gloves, facemasks (had to use threading needles for accuracy, lol) the works. Actually explains where my obsession with equipment options started huh. (Can I get my Ion schutt, and fix the facemasks please)

Around the same period, I received my first computer for Christmas. The good ole commodore 64, which introduced me to a new type of football. Straight video game interactive style. Started a relationship that is still going strong to this day.

[4th and inches was my first title. Every team was red and blue, lol, but it also gave me an outlet for my obsessive attention to detail, lol. If you could type it, you could add it to the game. Next came tv sports football developed by cinemaware which, if I'm not mistaken actually housed some of the guys that would go on to help create the 2k franchise. You could tell, the presentation for that time period was astounding. It had the pregame announcer and fictional sponsers. You know the "brought to you by, ???" type of thing before the game started.

Next came the sega genesis and the introduction of Madden Football. Changed the way football titles were played and I've been a fan ever since. Its been a long and fun road. From the first Madden, Joe Montana (with the speak and spell play by play,lol), Gameday, QB club, 2k, you name it I've run through it, lol. There's been some garbage and there's been some gems ya know. Not gonna burn you all out in one sitting. Thats the history.

Hope you enjoyed the read. What about you?

[PocketScout]

I was ten years old and went to my cousins house for a few weeks. He had a football game called Front Page Sports Football. It had a read manual, you could control EVERYTHING!! I was never happier. For the next 7 years I bought every version of FBPRO that was released. Even the recalled 99 version.

I have longer for a game that I could export stats with ease. I love numbers and they were right there. Now we finally have online dynasty exports and I can not describe how over joyed I am. It has been 12 years of having to hand record stats, I love the NCAA series but man has it sucked so bad. Now it has come full circle and my entry into football simulations (FBPRO, first game was Tecmo on NES) and I still wish the NCAA series has all the data export abilities that FBPRO did. Atleast things are getting better.

Edit:
For that matter we even had online dynasties back in 1993. I always loved playing in the college based leagues. There were was a full gameplan editor. You could basically have a full setup of what to call on any down and distance. It was simply amazing. I still wish NCAA would catchup to some of this. Maybe by 2013 these "New Ground Breaking" features will make there way into the game.

[UniversityofArizona]

played some kind of football game back in 1998 then ignored football largely for a number of years till my wildcats went to their first bowl game in a while so i bought ncaa 09 to commemorate it. been buying the games ever since

[Buffalo Gold]

I have great memories of super tecmo bowl. There would be about 5 or 6 of us, and one guy would always host the party. He was in a band, and would commentate the games on his PA system. We would always run a tournament, with 20 dollar entry. Furthermore, he would record the games, and break down film, show highlights etc.. Many brain cells were lost along the way. Good times indeed...

[Spanky]

Tecmo Super Bowl baby!

Read a preview about it in a magazine and thought it sounded too good to be true. Then, December 1991, saw it on the shelf at Toys R Us. It was $54, pretty steep for an NES game. Considered waiting for a sale, but decided WTF and bought it.

Turned out to be a most excellent decision.

First night I had the game I played until 7 a.m., since I was off of work the next day. Played the hell out of it for the next several months, thought it was absolutely awesome to have a football game where you could play full seasons and have full stat tracking with real teams and real players. It was so cutting edge, especially for an 8-bit system.

I remember winning Super Bowls with the Oilers and the run and shoot, and the Browns with a conservative, ball-control offense. Before that, I went 16-0 with the Chiefs, only to lose in the AFC Championship.

Tecmo Super Bowl was the first inductee in my gaming Hall of Fame. An easy first ballot selection.

[boilerfan1509]

Temco Super Bowl.....when you scored a TD and the Cheerleader jump.....you could definately see the pixelated underwear under her skirt.


That had me sold.....that and the AWESOME feeling seeing your injured player RUN from the hospital (in full uniform) back to the game.

[Eddert]

Tecmo Super bowl. Me and 3 friends played season after season of that game. Where every year we each played a different team. We kept stats by hand of our records. It got to the point where by the end I could easily go 16-0 with Colts and win the super bowl. I loved that game to death.

[bruinkid626]

Went to my cousin's house to play his xbox. He has Ncaa 04 and I played it all day long. Didn't even watch football at the time either.