If you’re under 30, it’s likely you’ve never heard of Tecmo Bowl, outside of the Bo Jackson commercial. Yes, there was video game football before Madden.

If you’re looking for a challenge, try playing with the Patriots on Tecmo Super Bowl. I may be wrong, but this is the first video game that I ever played that actually had the Patriots in it. They didn’t make the cut in the original, or in any of the other games I’d played to this point – so this was a big deal.

Of course, this game contains players from the 1990 season – the worst season in team history. The roster did feature three Patriots Hall of Famers: Bruce Armstrong, Steve Grogan, and Andre Tippett – but Grogan was just about done, and there wasn’t much else on the roster. They went 1-15. I managed a 4-4 start in my first go-round. I’d suggest going full screen.

Play Tecmo Super Bowl online here

You control the game with the keyboard (unless you’ve got a game controller for your PC).

The arrow keys serve as the directional buttons. I’d suggest going full-screen

The Z key is the A button, and the X key is the B button. The return key is the start button, and the shift key is select.

It is a little awkward on the keyboard. So I ordered the controller below to flip it back to the way I remembered it.

Enjoy.