Tecmo Bowl Throwback Review

[TheWatcher]

Quote: Originally Posted by swaldo

LOL, yea OS rated it the same as Madden 10. I bought it, it's fun but my all time favorite is APF2K8 which was rated much lower this this game In the new OXM magazine they rated 'Tecmo Bowl Throwback' a 4/10 ... + Great for old school fans who want the original. + Can shift between old & new graphics with a button press. - No NFL license (the original had it) - Bare-bones season mode. - Extremeley dated gameplay = frustrating football. A few control & gameplay upgrades would've make for a better experience. - Glitchy animations - Handfull of plays with results largely left up to chance. - Glitchy animations - Slow as mollasses ball carriers largely invalidates the running game. - Must cycle through all receivers.

That OXM reviewer isn't on his/her game at all. Yeah, I've given a number of criticisms to it myself, but none of them have to do with the core of what makes Tecmo Football, Tecmo Football. That just makes no sense.

But the worst of the criticism is "- No NFL license (the original had it)". Wow, really? To hold something against them that they have zero control over, is just foolishness. What a poor review

[dbeth]

That OXM review is a perfect case of reviewing something through today's eyes...forgetting what the game is/was about and comparing it to HD games that are supposed to be realistic.

I'd love to see their review of Pac-Man:CE: "This game sucks because you're looking from a top-down perspective and not from the first-person. Basic color scheme. Limited to four-direction control."

When did games lose the allowance to be fun without all the bells & whistles?

[swaldo]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheWatcher

But the worst of the criticism is "No NFL license (the original had it)". Wow, really? To hold something against them that they have zero control over, is just foolishness. What a poor review

If you don't have the NFL license then apparently it's fair to criticize if developers offer poor customization features. APF2K8 was slammed hard because of this - just like Tecmo it had a bare-bones season mode and player ratings could not be customized. At least 2K8 had the most advanced uniform design utility ever seen in a console and a much more robust playbook editor!

Maybe I'll buy an 8.5 review score if Tecmo had offered full uniform and player customization, along with a few tweaks to modernize it a bit. Until then, I don't think this game should be rated higher than a 7. It's a fun little game for $10 but it's certainly not the Holy Grail of football gaming. For heavens sakes, I want the ability to create the (0-14) 1976 Bucanneers in their popsicle uni's and pit them against the '89 candy cane Niners.

[TheWatcher]

Quote: Originally Posted by swaldo

If you don't have the NFL license then apparently it's fair to criticize if developers offer poor customization features. APF2K8 was slammed hard because of this - just like Tecmo it had a bare-bones season mode and player ratings could not be customized. At least 2K8 had the most advanced uniform design utility ever seen in a console and a much more robust playbook editor!

I agree that a uniform editor would've been great, but to make more of it than that we'd have to ignore some of the factors which more than likely prevented it...

From what I was told, when Tecmo Bowl Throwback was being made it had somewhere between a 150-350 MB limit for XBLA. It's since been increased by MS, but I'm sure this game was well into production before that happened.

Disc-based products like APF had gigs of memory to work with. While the few hundred megs of memory needed to put out the editor in APF would be considered small by disc-release standards, that same route would not be possible for a game being created under much heavier size restrictions like TBT was made under.

As for playbooks, well that again is an unfair comparison for some of the same reasons. The other thing is, Tecmo Football was never deep on playbooks anyway. But I'll venture to say that the average player in any football game doesn't use most of the plays in the game anyway as evidenced by some research numbers other franchises have reported.

[CreatineKasey]

Running game inept? See points like that completely invalidate the reviewer. I guess he never ran into Barry Sanders or Emmitt Smith. He can go back to World of Warcraft...

Fortunately there's a "trial" mode for XBLA games so people can figure out for themselves that review is garbage.

[Drocks]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheWatcher

I agree that a uniform editor would've been great, but to make more of it than that we'd have to ignore some of the factors which more than likely prevented it... From what I was told, when Tecmo Bowl Throwback was being made it had somewhere between a 150-350 MB limit for XBLA. It's since been increased by MS, but I'm sure this game was well into production before that happened. Disc-based products like APF had gigs of memory to work with. While the few hundred megs of memory needed to put out the editor in APF would be considered small by disc-release standards, that same route would not be possible for a game being created under much heavier size restrictions like TBT was made under. As for playbooks, well that again is an unfair comparison for some of the same reasons. The other thing is, Tecmo Football was never deep on playbooks anyway. But I'll venture to say that the average player in any football game doesn't use most of the plays in the game anyway as evidenced by some research numbers other franchises have reported.

Yeah, I think people need to realize that this is a $10 downloaded game, not a $50 disc that you're buying in the store. There really shouldn't even be comparisons made honestly. Just take the game for what it is, an ode to the past, with an HD spin. Can't wait to try it out on PS3 whenever they decide to release it....

[JkA3]

good review.

[JkA3]

pretty good review. I don't compare the review of 8.5 to Madden's in any way.