My love for Tecmo and statistics is going on 24 years now.
My best friend (and neighbor), got Tecmo Super Bowl not long after it was released in 1991 when we were in junior high. We’d both played Tecmo Bowl the original, and liked it, but this blew us away with it’s depth. All the teams, all the logos, all the players! Well, almost all. My brother and I got ourselves a copy not long after, and played season after season – individually, simultaneously, cooperatively and head to head. Our pops even got into the action as well, playing complete seasons with us on occasion. He wasn’t great competition for us, though he won more than a few Super Bowls playing solo seasons.
Time of course rolled on and my brother and I graduated from high school, though we continued playing matchups on winter and summer breaks from school. We still try to get a few beers and matches in when we’re together in the present, around children and all of our grownup responsibilities. We’re pretty evenly matched, so most games are at least entertaining.
The online scene
Check out this Tecmo Elite gem from Bruddog
It was around late 2000 to early 2001. I had just graduated college in June and my first job provided very little work to do, so I had lots of time to surf the web. I did some searches for personal TSB records and stumbled across the pioneers of the online Tecmo scene. What’s this? You can play games online vs other people? Whoa! I was all over that!
I joined OTFL P4 as a newb, as the first 3 tiers of the league were already full, if you can imagine. The lag was terrible in most games, but we still enjoyed it. I had fairly limited success, though I had my moments. Some things don’t change!
In the early 2000’s, I also ended up playing in OTFL P3, as well as a short stint in the fledgling HSTL, among other miscellaneous, now extinct leagues. Though like several of us, I had an idea of how things should be done differently and decided to start my own league. It was called Tecmo Elite – it used contemporary players, rated based on latest season performance. There was a redraft every season with limited “keepers”, so it was semi-dynasty. It managed either 6 or 7 seasons and ran smooth for the most part, though the amount of time put into it, combined with the ever present malcontents and drama queens, burned me out. I decided to call an end to the TE run. Soon after, in the midst of a family crisis in which I couldn’t focus on games, I withdrew from remaining leagues, hung up my controller and disappeared from the scene. It was late 2005.
The return Though I still played yearly with my bro, and ran an occasional single player season to try and beat one of our old established records (like that one ->), the itch to return to the online scene struck me early on in 2015. I was amazed to see that many of the old time players were still around – some back after a hiatus like myself, and some who never left. I was also impressed by the advances in league website functionality, such as the systems built by brooks and TDO. The additional stats gleaned from Tecmo save states through the research of Bruddog and others was great as well.
I still enjoy playing the games themselves of course (even as my skills have deteriorated), though my love for working with and displaying stats in creative ways, is what inspired me to create this new site. It’s built on the foundation of brook’s database and back end coding – so much props to him for this outstanding base. The amount of time I’ve spent compiling player cards, creating graphics, writing styles, templates, queries, etc. was pretty ridiculous, so I do hope you enjoy the finished product. I plan to add a few more features down the road, after I give myself a little break and enjoy just playing games for awhile.
Though I still played yearly with my bro, and ran an occasional single player season to try and beat one of our old established records (like that one ->), the itch to return to the online scene struck me early on in 2015. I was amazed to see that many of the old time players were still around – some back after a hiatus like myself, and some who never left. I was also impressed by the advances in league website functionality, such as the systems built by brooks and TDO. The additional stats gleaned from Tecmo save states through the research of Bruddog and others was great as well.