I mean, of course this game is pretty horrible. It accentuated the attitude, and ended in a sort of weird halfway zone between the attempted realism of Madden and the insane netherworld of Blitz.

You could continue to constantly tackle a player after the whistle to injure him (so, of course, that's all my friends and I would ever do). The most consistently effective play was a screen where the quarterback would run right as fast as he could, then turn around and float it to his waiting running back with perfect accuracy. It was that kind of game.

Still, I can't bring myself to pan it. My brother and I spent hours on it. We beat all of the records; we played perfect seasons. We did it all with the Vikings and Scottie Graham. It doesn't have the pedigree (and really, it doesn't have the execution, either), but in my opinion, this game is a sort of spiritual successor to the Tecmo Bowl franchise. That's got to count for something, right?