Does Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff continue the trend or get lost in its pixelated past?

The short answer is... Yes. The longer answer really depends on the expectations you bring to the game. The game really doesn't update much, in fact besides some minor improvements in the graphics the game has been largely unchanged. So if you're looking to take an old school classic on the road, you'll most likely be happy with what you find. But if you're brand new to the series or are looking for an updated classic well... you'll probably be left feeling a little taken advantage of.

Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff stays true to the classic game, making zero technical updates and only a passing glance at updating the graphics. As a fan of the classic game this put me in a great place to jump right back into the game that I had left YEARS ago. Just like riding a bike, I was using and abusing the AI since most of the exploits of the original remain.

It's what I enjoyed about the game that actually is going to limit it's appeal to people. This really is just a retro title ported to the DS, for better or worse. Since that's all I look for in a sports game, for me it was totally fine. But for the typical sports game fan this game is severely limited in it's scope as to what's available to pull off.

In case you've never played the game before it pretty much goes down like this. You have 8 plays to choose from when you're on offense. The defense picks from the same list of plays by trying to guess which play the offense picks. If you do, then the defense rushes and sacks the QB. Other than that the play unfolds as normal. It's pretty simplistic. It carries over into other areas as well. For instance, on defense whatever character you choose to play as before the snap is the character you're stuck as. So if you're no where near where the play goes down you're shit outta luck. On offense you eligible receivers run off screen with little arrows over their heads, and once they run off screen you have no clue whether or not they're covered.

It has a season, single game, and all star game game modes and includes the ability to edit all team names and players. Since the NFL license is missing you can change the names and uniform designs to reflect reality if you want to. You can play against the AI or over the DS Wi-Fi connection to pair off against friends.

That's all there really is to it. There's no jukes, jives, dives or touchdown dances. You tap the button to run faster (maybe) and that's it. This game is really as simple as it gets, and on it's surface that may seem like a bad thing. But like I said at the beginning it's really what expectations you bring to it.

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