In both Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl on the NES, Bo Jackson - a freak athlete in real life - was so untouchable, his legend lives on.
It might not have been the first sports game ever - that accolade surely belongs to Pong - and it wasn't the first football game, either. But the one that stands the test of time, resides in our memory banks, and is remembered fondly is Tecmo Bowl.
And one of the biggest reasons for that - and the cheapest player in the entire game - was Bo Jackson, aka "Tecmo Bo."
Bo Jackson as a Raider in that game against Seattle. Photo courtesy thekingdome.com.
Now, "Tecmo Bo" wasn't a fluke. The real-life Bo Jackson is up there in the pantheon of the best athletes of the 20th century, an amazing football and baseball player who would be a hall-of-famer in each sport if he hadn't succumbed to a nasty hip injury just six years into his pro football career. He won the Heisman Trophy his senior year at Auburn, formed an insane backfield with Marcus Allen with the Los Angeles Raiders, and became a scary-good outfielder for the Kansas City Royals.
He was big and fast and strong and insanely good. He ran straight through former star college linebacker Brian Bosworth on Monday Night Football in Seattle. He is the Chuck Norris of pro and college football - with his own hip being the only thing that could stop him.
So naturally, if you're going to make a sports video game, a guy like Jackson has to be an incredible player - but "Tecmo Bo" was insane. That video at the top of the post is one of many on YouTube that highlight the fastest player in the game at his best. Another video shows a player scoring 10 touchdowns in a game with Bo.
Bo Knows, indeed.
It's not just about how good Bo was; it's about how good he was, in those sports games, in the context of all of sports games. Sure, there were other crazy players in Tecmo Bowl - Christian Okoye, Lawrence Taylor, and Jerry Rice all spring to mind - but Bo was the best. There have been many ridiculous athletes in sports games since then - Mike Modano was in NHL 94 or 95, if our memory serves correctly, and so was Ken Griffey Jr. in the Nintendo baseball games when he was still in Seattle.
The quick and simple yet addictive gameplay of Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl set the table for games like NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, and Tecmo Super Bowl - being the first game to marry the NFL and NFL Players' Association licenses in the same game - set the standard for most any sports game worth its salt now.
And Tecmo Bo was the one to thank for all of it. You can, indeed, get a Tecmo Bo T-shirt; that's a sign of how important his virtual representation was to sports video game and general sports culture.
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