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Video gamers unite
From Mattel to Madden: A look at video football
By Jeremy Johnson
jjohn308@mscd.edu

Video games have always been a way of escaping reality and living vicariously through digital images. Whether you’re killing zombies, stealing cars, finding magic mushrooms in secret sewers or fighting Dracula himself, video games have provided thrill-seeking experiences for otherwise mundane human beings swimming in mediocrity.

But the sports video gamer is a different breed. These people thrive on putting virtual greens, mastering breaking balls and sliders, and running deep routes to perfection.

I’ve personally enjoyed them all, but the latter has always been my forte. It started on my fifth Christmas when Santa brought me Mattel’s handheld LED-based Football. The game offered little more than LED blockers and an LED running back that could only run sideways and forward. There was no realism, but the entertainment value was undeniable. So much so, in fact, that Mattel re-released the primitive hunk of plastic in 2000.

Soon after came the ultimate old-school gaming entertainment system, the Atari 2600. While I thoroughly enjoyed such games as Combat, Frogger, Pitfall and Q*Bert, I was quickly drawn to sports games, my favorite being M Network’s Super Challenge Football. I remember a particularly staunch victory over my uncle Lester, in which he threw down the joystick, quit in a huff and stormed out of the house. We never spoke again.

Systems come and systems go, and so did video football games. In 1988, Tecmo, makers of the popular Ninja Gaiden, released old-school favorite Tecmo Bowl. Finally, there was a football game full of life, with players fighting tackles and leaping in the air for spectacular catches. The game was certainly void of any football realism, but the 8-megabyte days had finally bitten the dust.

Years later I found myself in college armed with only ramen noodles and a Sega Genesis. That year my roommate Ian and I discovered the joys of Electronic Arts Sports John Madden 1996. Between the two of us, Neil Smith and Hall of Famer Derrick Thomas amassed a ridiculous 58 total sacks in the regular season. Not only did my love for video football gaming grow, so did my love of solid defenses and blitzing formations.

These skills paid off years later when systems such as Dreamcast or the later Madden series delved deeper into offensive and defensive strategies, introducing pump fakes, line shifts and audibles into the virtual football world.

I may never have had the size to pass the pigskin or the speed to pluck passes from the sky, but I always loved football. These games gave me the opportunity to act on that love and gain a knowledge of the game more complex than tossing long bombs to deep receivers. Video games taught me offensive and defensive schemes and the importance of outside blockers.
My glory days on the field may have never come to fruition, but with a pigskin controller in my hands, I will always be a player at heart.