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The Best Retro Themed NFL Video Games

  • PRG

American football is incredibly popular here in the United States and is growing in popularity year on year outside of these shores. It’s not just the on-field action for which people love the game. The hype of the Super Bowl, the riches promised by alluring NFL spreads, and the endless content created about the game all contribute to football’s growing appeal.

One type of content that is ever popular amongst fans is the humble video game. In recent years however the growing commercialization of titles like Madden has left players like us feeling a little bit left out and nostalgic for the great games of yesteryear. Games that weren’t just remakes of the previous year’s titles and games that weren’t produced solely to power micro transactions.

Yes, we’re talking about cult classic retro football games. If, like us, the world of modern sports gaming has left you cold, enjoy 10 minutes of nostalgia laden escapism by joining us as we pay homage to some of the best football games of years gone by…

NFL2K

The Dreamcast is an underrated console. When it first appeared on the market over 25 years ago it represented a monumental shift in graphics and processing power. The most popular consoles that preceded it were the N64 and PS1, both of which were good, but not as good as the Dreamcast.

Unfortunately Dreamcast’s ambition to make gaming more affordable would be their undoing with profit margins being far too low for investors. That and the fact that the PS2 was released just shortly after, somewhat stealing the Dreamcast’s glory.

Despite that, it holds a special place in our heart as it was the console that we first played NFL2K on. Released in 1999, NFL2K was visually stunning for the time period and provided the blueprint for some of the amazing football games that were to come over the following decade.

(NFL2K was not just fun to play, but it helped to pave the way for some of the games that would follow in the noughties.)

NFL Blitz

Realism is the thing that games developers go after nowadays. Back in the noughties though when NFL Blitz came out, video games were all about having as much fun as possible and this game is the perfect example of that.

First released in 1997, NFL Blitz can effectively be summarised as a regular NFL game with no rules and gratuitous violence. Ultimately the league decided that the latter was too damaging to their brand and made the game tone that aspect down, which did lead to its decline.

Before that though we had a golden age where you could play no rules football and perform professional wrestling moves on your opponents. For that, we’ll be forever grateful!

(Playing this as a kid was amazing.)

Joe Montana Football

This title was released six months before I was born, so personally I can’t claim to have spent hours and hours playing it. I can however recognise that in the pantheon of retro football games, Joe Montana Football is right up there.

Released in January 1991 on the Sega Genesis, Joe Montana Football was the game that got the ball rolling in terms of successful football sims. First of all, it was a game that bucked the trend by having a super famous player on the cover – a sure-fire way to get people to buy it.

Then in terms of gameplay, it had a way lot more fun and entertainment than any other football title that had gone before; one of the best things about this game was the ability to absolutely wipe out an opposition player after the whistle had gone.

Whilst graphically this game wasn’t great, it was the first football sim that combined realism (to the extent that was possible in 1991) with fun, which made it a whole lot more playable than any of its competitors.

(Before you recoil in horror, remember this game was made 33 years and 6 Presidents ago!)

In Summary

Retro games aren’t going to pass the modern eye test. Graphically they are poor and in terms of gameplay, there are an awful lot of bugs to adapt to. But we don’t play retro games for those things, we play them to have fun and indulge our nostalgia.

If you’re looking to do either of those things, then you can’t go wrong with any of the three games reviewed above. Although if we had to recommend one to play right now, it has to be NFL Blitz, purely because there’s nothing like it on the gaming market anymore.

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