Zen and the Art of Tecmo

- Alex

I'm just gonna lay this one out plain. Tecmo Super Bowl (in all its variations) is the best video game. I don't play games as much as I used to, but I've spent my time playing the Final Fantasy series, Mario Kart, the Zelda games, Bomberman... all have their merits, but no game has inspired as many stories as Tecmo. I finally met Ross's friend Ken last week at his bachelor party... the first thing I said to him was "dude, we should go play some Tecmo". Ross had told so many stories about him, I figured we needed to go throw down for Tecmo supremacy. Sadly, we didn't get the chance, so I'm just gonna claim the title on my own. If any of you suckers want a piece of me, you know where I live. Haha.

You can all sing the little start noise, can't you? Admit it, we have a problem.

I can divide my Tecmo years into three spans: high school, college, and post-college. Each had its own distinct qualities and stories. So without further adieu, let's get to it:

I wouldn't even want to guess how many months we spent playing this game in high school. In our defense, a lot of the time a lot of us just went over to wadE's and studied while the other guys were playing (plus we at his food, the infamous "buffet"). Nevertheless, we played a lot. Hey, you grow up in SPAMtown and don't drink and see what you come up with. Yep, tecmo, cruising the one ways, eating... *sigh*... such a simple life. But I'm rambling...

The main players in high school were wadE, Wade, myself, Jason, and Eddie the ignorant Nebraskan. We used to tell Eddie that the big "N" on the Nebraska helmets stood for (k)Nowledge. Hee hee... wadE always picked the Houston Oilers for a team, and insisted on calling every player on the team "Bubba". wadE also threw his controller a lot, and just generally needed some anger management. He also had a very plodding and conservative style of play (much like his approach to everything - you don't get known for drawing walks in stickball as a kid for nothing) which is pretty much guaranteed to get you "screwed" (as wadE called it... repeatedly) in Tecmo. Wade and I used to fight over who got to be the Atlanta Falcons, and aside from that, I couldn't tell you much about how Wade played. Eddie used to pick the 49ers all the time because of Tom "Former Nebraskan" Rathman, and since the 9ers were the best team in the game he'd have killed us all if he played a lot... but he didn't, so it worked out ok. Jason (and this will come as a shock to no one) played a free-wheeling style of game and beat himself as much as he beat us, but he could beat anyone.

Punt Kick?! Punt! Kick! I wish I could make up something as good as Punt Kick...

Personally, my style of play was really straightforward. I took the quarterback who threw the highest ball, and threw it to the best WR I had on the team... every time... and let the Tecmo Magic run its course. On defense I just took Deion Sanders, played goalline defense to stop the run, and covered everyone else with Deion. They made that guy way too good. I mean seriously, there's no way Deion sacks *anyone* in real life... But hey, it was my style, and it worked. Aside from always losing to San Fran when we played a season, I could beat anyone.

Name something you never saw in real life...

A quick word on the game itself. The graphics are awful. Even in the newer versions, they just trotted out slightly cleaner looking variations on the same crappy themes. As far as the gameplay goes, it's no great shakes. You have 8 plays, and even if the defense covers everything, the play can still work. (This is what wadE calls getting screwed, by the way). If you break into the open, all you have to do is weave back and forth drunkenly, and the defense can't catch you. It's nothing like real football at all. I think that's what makes it great...

Seasons change, but Tecmo graphics never do...

I don't really remember to many of the details of the high school span... except for the now-legendary stickball bat story. We were playing, and it was wadE vs. Jason... suffice it to say that Jason, with the help of some of that impossible to explain Tecmo Magic, "screwed" wadE out of a game late, and most likely threw a little taunting down as well. It happens with us, usually it's really funny, kinda like wadE telling Jason to "eat it" every time before he nukes him up playing Bomberman. In any case, I guess this time something in wadE snapped. He left the room, angrily... and Jason and I didn't think anything of it. We went to the buffet, loaded up on swiss cake rolls and cheese balls and all the other crap I don't want to think about the quantity of which we ate... returned to the TV room and switched on some TV. Soon we became aware of a thwacking sound we couldn't quite place... we tried to peer out the windows, and from the angle of the house we could barely see wadE, taking a stickball bat to his garage door. We giggled, went back to watching TV, eventually wadE came back in, and now we can all laugh about it. Still, I don't usually bring this story up unless wadE's drunk. Hehe.

College was pretty much the same story. I mean seriously, when you go to college in a cow town, what are you gonna do when you don't want to study? (And I didn't.) So we played Tecmo. Ross and I played tons of games on his little 9" TV, and were pretty much equals. Then Tecmo came out with a version for the Super Nintendo, and suddenly the whole hall was playing. Ross, myself, wadE, Disco Dave, Kevin, Jeff... the list goes on and on. I was hyped because this version even let me put Deion as return man. What else could a boy ask for? We played several seasons, and while none of them were really notable, it was a blast. wadE went with his trusty Bubba Oilers, Ross with his Vikings, year in and year out. The rest of us rotated around... I even took the Raiders one "year" and put a WR at RB and ran around everyone until Tecmo put the clamps on the running game late in the year like it always does. That's the other thing about Tecmo - In week 1 you can score on every play. In week 16, you need a miracle to score on a running play, only half a miracle to score on a pass. In any case, one of the defining college stories comes again from our angry friend wadE.

wadE's playing Disco Dave, and the story is the same as before... except that this was one of the games where everyone seemed to be in our room watching, and normally Dave would have had no shot against wadE. Tecmo, however, had other ideas. Suddenly Dave was getting all the breaks, and before you could say "stickball bat" Dave had emerged triumphant, and the room was a mass of taunting over how anyone could have lost to Disco Dave. wadE, this time, chooses better weaponry. With one of his trademark frustrated roars, wadE pulls out a ginsu knife and starts hacking at his desk. We all laugh, until he chases everyone out into the hall, taking about two steps after Dave, and then apparently coming to his senses. I knew wadE wasn't really after anyone... so I was still sitting there laughing when he got back. It was funny as hell, although I suppose some people would tell it differently. I don't even bring up this story to wadE.

(Of course, he'll be reading both of these now here in this public forum. Umm... pray for me, would you all? Thanks.)

Prelude to a tie

I'd say Ross and I have played to a stalemate over the years. Actually I'd say he's a better player than I am, but we're still about even since Tecmo likes me enough to let me get cheap wins enough for us to be even. So I think it's fitting that we played the only game that never ended. The All-White Pro Bowl. We had nothing else to do one night (of many), so we engineered the Pro Bowl rosters to include only white players. Needless to say, the teams weren't too talented... although there is a certain charm to a team when Tom Waddle is your go-to guy. In any case, we played our normal game, and I believe it was tied with time running out... when I tried a flea-flicker from midfield. Ross caused a fumble... and the ball just sat there. No one picked it up, both teams just formed one gigantic scrum around the ball and it just sat there. I bet we watched it for about 15 minutes before we decided to turn the game off and never do the All-White Pro Bowl again. Some things just can't be topped.

wadE and I played a few more seasons the summer we lived together, but by and large I thought that the Tecmo chaper of my life was over. How wrong I was...

A few years out of college I walked in to Will and North's place to find them playing... Tecmo. Yeah, baby. Within days we were playing full seasons. Thankfully, I lived 5 minutes away, so when North called and ordered me to come over so he could get his game in before bed, I could oblige. I'd like to talk those guys up, but really... I owned them. It was very entertaining though. Will always played the Bears and had a weird thing for Brad Muster, who he called "Mustaros the Infiltrator". North played a better game, but was always the Giants, and I think he only beat me once. I generally tried to take the worst QBs I could find and just throw, throw, throw. I had one great season with Dan McGwire (you've probably heard of his more famous brother (or maybe it's half-brother))... another with Dan Marinovich ("can't spell Marinovich without 'Marino'")... but the best season of all was with Mike "Air" Pagel. I sang a little song whenever "Air Pagel" did anything at all, and just basically made a glorious annoying ass out of myself. It was great. My favorite variaton on the theme was to run the QB sweep while singing the "Ground Pagel" song... this drove North nuts when I did it to him.

Ground Pagel! ... Hee hee

Sadly, this best of all Tecmo seasons ended with all of us losing to the computer in the playoffs. North had made this tin foil crown, and we hung it on the SNES, and haven't played a season since. Which is only fitting, because when Tecmo decided you were gonna lose, you were gonna lose. There's no other game like it.

All in all, no other game provided such rich rewards for such minimal gameplay. Thanks to our friends at the Internet Archive, I tracked down the list of lingo that we notated. I'll paste it out below, but you can check out the page itself here - there are lists from other insane people like us there too.

Ahh Tecmo... the game that spawned its own vocabulary. Here's the list. I'm out. Peace.

7/28/02

Goat League:

This League now spans the United States Players now reside in Arizona, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. Ross and Ken broke hundreds of records in Arizona, Alex and Wade in Minnesota. Ross joined Alex and Wade in Minnesota, along with others (Kevin, Dave, Jeff, and anyone else who could play) while Ken brought Tecmo to Massachusetts with Mike, Chris, and Doug and again anyone else who would play. Someday this league will be united for the most amazing season ever.

Moonwalk: The ultimate cap to a play; when a player reaches the end zone in a spectacular fashion and immediately does a moonwalk. (there are fast, slow, diagonal, and double moonwalks) Many Tecmo players claim that there is no such thing as a moonwalk, but that just demonstrates their inexperience.

Twisted ankle: When a defender makes a sharp cut while running full speed and suddenly slows down, he just "twisted his ankle" and takes a few seconds to recover full speed.

Invisible barrier. Only the ball, and occasionally a thrown player, can break the invisible barrier at the end of the end zone where players collide after scoring a touchdown (they run in place there).

Grappling: When two players are caught in the characteristic Tecmo arm in arm battle they are said to be grappling.

Tecmo thumb: A common problem in Tecmo players it occurs in two types: right and left. A player can get left Tecmo thumb on a long kickoff return as the thumb starts to gradually slip off the pad while weaving, a player can rarely recover after this occurs, and usually ends in a tackle within the opponents 10. More serious right Tecmo thumb, when too many games have been played against human opponents, the repeated pressing of the a button results in a very sore thumb, that can only be cured with rest and massage.

Weaving: The method by which long runs are achieved (also known as: The Patented Art Monk Weave) since defenders are so fast, long runs can only be achieved by weaving back and forth, dodging diving defenders.

Man, He's Dirty: Ross's first statement about the player on the cover of a newly-purchased Tecmo game.

"All-White Pro Bowl:" On super Tecmo 1, Alex and Ross created the all white pro bowl, which ultimately ended in a never-ending fumble/brawl, after a flea flicker by Alex was stopped by Ross using "the play" a fumble occurred and all the players gathered on top of the ball, which could not be recovered. This could not be re-created.

"The Super Bowl:" An infamous game in Tecmo Super Bowl with Ken as the Chiefs and Ross as the Vikings, the game reached overtime with the score zero-zero, after a very long overtime the game finally ended on Ken's safety of Ross when the quarterback had a "delay."

Delay: An extended period of time when a player (most often in the end-zone) presses the b button but the quarterback does nothing and ends up getting sacked. We think this is somehow related to coolness in Tecmo III.

"The run:" When Ross played with the Saints and ran for 77 yards with Vaugn Dunbar, only to have it credited to Wade Wilson. Thus making it the longest QB run of all time.

The play: When the nose tackle on circa Tecmo II is tackled just so he dives directly at the quarterback, sacking him immediately. This can only be avoided with Shotgun plays. The result of the play has yielded scores of 120 points, and season sack totals of over 90.

The Electric Slide: When a defensive player dives at a recently tackled or scoring player, and slides across the screen and out of the picture, almost as if on really wet Astroturf.

"The Ginsu incident:" After a particularly cheesy loss, which involved much laughing and taunting, Wade grabbed a Ginsu knife, hacked up his desk, and chased all involved parties down the hallway with a maniacal glare on his face. "Disco Dave" was scarred for life by this incident, and never returned to complete his Tecmo season.

"The Garage Door/stickball bat incident:" A related, earlier incident (ca. Tecmo II) where, upon a cheesy loss with much taunting and laughing, Wade proceeded to venture outside and beat his garage door with the modified broom handle used for a stickball bat.

The dead fish: One of the earlier cinematic scenes. During a jump ball, the defender would wave his hands in a futile gesture known as "the dead fish" while the ball passed harmlessly a few inches over his grasp, and usually into the waiting arms of the receiver.

"The tip:" The only recorded instance where a deflected pass was actually caught. It caused Alex to lose a regular season game to the computer, as the ball was caught by a large lineman who proceeded to run over the entire team on his way to the end zone as time expired.

The "Bubba" Syndrome: Wade's habit of nicknaming anyone who happens to play for the Houston Oilers defense "Bubba," or "Large Bubba." Example: "Large Bubba Childress."

The Wright Effect: Alex's shifting of Alexander Wright from Raiders wide receiver to running back. The move proved so successful that Alex virtually abandoned the passing attack - an unheard of, and since unduplicated phenomenon.

"The Traitors:" A strange and humiliating event occurred when a computer (as the Redskins) fumble was picked up by Jim Lachey in Ross's mid-season game, needless to say, Lachey took the ball all the way and upon scoring the touchdown , all of Ross's players cheered in the classic Tecmo two-handed bow.

Fourth-Quarter B.S.: When the Tecmo suddenly becomes unstoppable in the fourth-quarter, this results in a defeat if the game is close, and a shutout becomes impossible.