001 · 10-Yard Fight (Remastered)

• Original Audio file
• 0f1e946e31b4f91827b4d5fa43b77a49.m4a
• PART 1
• Mike: Welcome to NEStalgia.
• NESTALGIA MUSIC
• Mike: And this is the inaugural episode of NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. Today's game 10 yard fight, But first we should talk, about who we are
• Sean: Ohh no no you got It I I can't start this.
• Mike: That's a perfect introduction to uhhh Sean, so I'm Mike Esposito. I'm a producer over at Nickelodeon, but I love Nintendo probably since I was about four years old when we got a Nintendo 64. So that outdates me and clearly indicates that we are by no means NES experts! Instead we are people who are really interested in video games in general and wanted to explore the NES in order of release.
• Joe: I'm Joe Kostiw and I'm an aspiring writer, and Mike was pretty dead on with what I am too. As far as my video game experience, I grew up with my Nintendo, but I'm not uhh an NES expert.
• Sam: What’s up I’m Sam Smith, No relation to the artist and I'm a I'm a PA at Nickelodeon. I grew up with an N64 for a while before I got anything else and so I kind of I got a lot of nostalgia with that. Never played NES before, uh really before this. So this is kind of this is going to be a good time
• Sean: and I'm Sean. You do not get to know where I work. I started everything with the Super Nintendo. Then I kind of abandoned Nintendo for a while and stuck with PlayStation, Xbox. All that fun stuff until uhhh until recently. So I'm looking forward to playing most of these NES games for the first time.
• I will interject that this isn’t working and we can’t be expected to just remaster every single episode of NEStalgia just because the quality was shit back then. Joe will suggest commentary
• END OF PART 1
• PART 2 - Commentary
• We will listen to the episode and provide commentary. Eventually, I’ll suggest this isn’t working either because we just suck as hosts. We weren’t good back then and we’re not even good at providing commentary now.
• END OF PART 2
• PART 3 – NEW HOSTS
• Mike: And this is the inaugural episode of Nostalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. Today's game 10 yard fight, But first we should talk, about who we are
• Sean: Ohh no no you got It I I can't start this.
• Mike: That's a perfect introduction to uhhh Sean, so I'm Mike Esposito. I'm a producer over at Nickelodeon, but I love Nintendo probably since I was about four years old when we got a Nintendo 64. So that outdates me and clearly indicates that we are by no means NES experts! Instead we are people who are really interested in video games in general and wanted to explore the NES in order of release.
• Joe: I'm Joe Kostiw and I'm an aspiring writer, and Mike was pretty dead on with what I am too. As far as my video game experience, I grew up with my Nintendo, but I'm not uhh an NES expert.
• Sam: What’s up I’m Sam Smith, No relation to the artist and I'm a I'm a PA at Nickelodeon. I grew up with an N64 for a while before I got anything else and so I kind of I got a lot of nostalgia with that. Never played NES before, uh really before this. So this is kind of this is going to be a good time
• Sean: and I'm Sean. You do not get to know where I work. I started everything with the Super Nintendo. Then I kind of abandoned Nintendo for a while and stuck with PlayStation, Xbox. All that fun stuff until uhhh until recently. So I'm looking forward to playing most of these NES games for the first time.
• —-----------------------------------------------
• Mike: Let's jump right into our first game, the game that this episode is all about 10 yard fight. I don't think it really needs any introduction. It's a football game that is pretty bare bones, but let's get some initial impressions, Sean.
• Sean: Well, it's not Madden. It's it's definitely football. I enjoyed, I I enjoyed it from the get go. To be honest, it was very frustrating but I'd say my initial impression was positive.
• Joe: So yeah, my initial impression was also positive, but it's uh it's not the kind of game that's generally my type of game, not a big sports game kind of guy. I'm always a little skewed at the beginning when I start playing a game. I'm also interested in like how they made it work with the limitations and how you know. So it was I, I mean, I I thought it was well done at first.
• Mike will interject and say the new hosts aren’t working because they’re still reading our old material. Enough revisiting the old NEStalgia. We need to start over!
• END OF PART 3
• PART 4 – 001 10-Yard Fight (Remake)
• BACK OF THE BOX: 10-YARD FIGHT, You’re the quarterback in this amazingly real football game!
• We will literally start the show over. Eventually, Mike will mention how we have 672 more NES games after this to which Sean comments that this is going to take 13 years...and that's when Mike realizes we can't just start over. We need to start earlier so that we can finish sooner. Mike says he is going back in time to 1994 to get kid Sean and kid Joe onto NEStalgia and start the podcast then so it will be done in 2006.
• END OF PART 4
• PART 5 – TIME TRAVEL VOL 1
• Now back in time, the year is January 30th 1994. The day the Bills lost their 4th Super Bowl. Mike runs into a distraught young Sean devastated by the loss. He kinda don't care the Bills lost and tells Sean that he knows just what will cheer him up. A podcast where we play all the Nintendo Entertainment System games in chronological order! Sean is weirded out by Mike, but likes the idea of playing video games. Just one problem: "What's a Nintendo?"
• Mike realizes that he’s time traveled not to our universe, but to an alternate one where Donkey Kong never attacked that Brooklyn Construction Site and thus Nintendo was never created.
• END OF PART 5
• PART 6 – TIME TRAVEL VOL 2
• So Mike goes further back in time to visit Donkey Kong (voiced by the DK sounds from the video games) and convince him that he needs to commit his deadly attack on NYC. Even though listeners won't understand what he's saying I'll fill the gaps in for them. He doesn't understand why he should attack. Mike tells him to just rip off the film King Kong. He's never heard of King Kong. Mike traveled to a universe where DK doesn't ripoff King Kong because the movie was never made!
• END OF PART 6
• PART 7 – A NEW PODCAST
• I go back to the main timeline and tell you guys that NEStalgia just isn't going to work. We need to start a new podcast, not about Nintendo. Not about video games, just some generic true crime BS.
• 001 - Gilles de Rai. Our new True Crime podcast begins with a story on History's first ever serial killer Gilles de Rai.
• BACK OF THE BOX – JEEL DEH RAY. Bien mal acquis ne profite jamais
• We do this for a while until a Multiversal Mike enters the podcast feed and explains that we have to stop the True Crime podcast. In every universe there is a NEStalgia podcast and it's run by Michael Esposito, our world will fall apart without NEStalgia. We agree to do the show, but just pickup where we last left off. The past history, it's time to move on.

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Welcome to Nestalgia!

00:18 And this is the inaugural episode of Nestalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. Today's game, Ten Yard Fight. But first we should talk about who we are. Oh, no, no, no. You got it. I can't start this. That's a perfect introduction to Sean.

00:35 So I'm Mike Esposito. I'm a producer over at Nickelodeon, but I've loved Nintendo probably since I was about four years old when we got a Nintendo 64. So that outdates me and clearly indicates that we are by no means NES experts. Instead, we are people who are really interested in video games in general and wanted to explore the NES in order of release. I'm Joe Castu and I'm an aspiring writer. And Mike was pretty dead on with what I am too as far as my video game experience. I grew up with my Nintendo, but I'm not an NES expert.

01:06 What's up? I'm Sam Smith. No relation to the artist. And I'm a PA at Nickelodeon. I grew up with an N64 for a while before I got anything else. And so I kind of got a lot of nostalgia with that. Never played NES before, really before this. So this is kind of, this is going to be a good time. And I'm Sean. You do not get to know where I work. I started everything with the Super Nintendo. Then I kind of abandoned Nintendo for a while. I stuck with PlayStation, Xbox, all that fun stuff. Until recently.

01:40 So I'm looking forward to playing most of these NES games for the first time. Yeah, so this podcast is really a far cry from a historical analysis of the NES. What we're trying to do here is look at the games in modern view and see if they still hold up. This is something that I think a lot of people wonder when they look at the NES, the Super Nintendo. They play these games and they wonder like, are these games still worth playing? And I think that's what we're here to answer. Just kind of getting into the NES launch for a second. The NES launched in 1985, October of 1985. And it comes at a very interesting time because that was pretty much right after the crash of video games in 1983.

02:17 And pretty much everybody had abandoned the home console market. You know, arcades were still somewhat a thing. The Japanese market remained unaffected. And computer gaming was still a thing. So it wasn't like gaming was dead. I think a lot of people think the crash of 83 means no one thought about video games. I don't think that's the truth. I think what really happened is the home consumer market was just, no, I saw what happened with the Atari 2600. I don't want to do that again. Nintendo released the NES in 83 in Japan. And they were seeing good success with it and wanted to move into the American market.

02:47 And I think what's interesting about this specifically is the jump between what you were seeing in the Atari 2600 and what that console was possible to do. And then the jump all the way up to 8-bit hardware with the NES where you're actually seeing things other than blocks, triangles, like, you know, shapes and figures. And you were actually able to play, like, full-scale games. But we're not quite there yet. We're talking about the NES launch games.

03:12 And that's a little different because these games were mostly arcade ports or games developed directly by Nintendo to complement the release of the system and its features. Things like Rob, the NES Zapper, Super Mario Brothers. Even ports of games, their more famous games, like Donkey Kong, didn't come until later. So the NES launch kind of still comes awkwardly to the North American population because the introduction to Nintendo was mostly with Donkey Kong eating all your quarters. And all of these launch games aren't necessarily things that you associate with Nintendo.

03:48 Let's jump right into our first game, the game that this episode is all about, Ten Yard Fight. I don't think it really needs any introduction. It's a football game that is pretty bare bones, but let's get some initial impressions. Sean? Well, it's not Madden.

04:03 It's definitely football. I enjoyed it from the get-go, to be honest. It was very frustrating, but I'd say my initial impression was positive. Sam? Yeah, initial impression, it's like, it's cute, you know? Little guys, they run, they make a noise every time they take a step, which is kind of funny.

04:24 It did feel, I don't know, it felt like it really had no place to be in a one-player game, I thought, which I feel like we might talk about in a bit. But just off the bat, just very kind of, it just felt very basic, which is kind of what I was expecting going into NES games, but this was just like, just very basic. Mm-hmm. Joe? So yeah, my initial impression was also positive, but it's not the kind of game that's generally my type of game, I'm not a big sports game kind of guy. I'm always a little skewed at the beginning when I start playing a game, because I'm always so interested in how they made it work with the limitations.

04:56 I mean, I thought it was well done at first. We'll just say that for now. And I think my initial impression was, why are they running like that? Like, what is that formation? You know? Oh, the box? Yeah, you look at it, and it's like, you know, like, is that the perfect kickoff formation? Yeah, that's what football is like. Yeah, the perfect kickoff formation is the entire team surrounding the receiver. Just make a giant O, and everybody makes sure the receiver doesn't get touched. I don't know why anyone doesn't think of that. Tell that to everyone.

05:25 Alright, so let's just kind of get into it. I personally feel like the game is still playable. It has a lot of flaws in the terms of strategy. Once you're given the ball, you are immediately sending a man into motion, which is an interesting little feature, and then that turns into your one receiver.

05:43 You also have, like, your quarterback is just also your running back and your fullback, and the three of you line up and run in the same direction. And if you try to, like, walk back a little bit, like, just to get away from people, all of a sudden you start, you have to, like, kick off the, like, you're punting all of a sudden. Oh, really? I didn't know it was another thing. You took, like, three steps back. You know, like, let's say one of the guys was chasing you. You take three steps back, all of a sudden you're punting the ball. It's like, no, I'm just trying to, like, set up a pass. Wow, now that I didn't actually end up doing. Very interesting. I did that one time, and it wasn't until right now that I realized why that happened.

06:21 You just take three steps back and that's it. But I just want to see if this happened to anybody else. Did anybody else have a computer that threw a very forward-looking pass and then proceeded to throw another forward? On almost every play. Okay, so here's the thing. So this is a 1983 game.

06:38 When you think about a football game, whether you're watching it or you're playing it. Oh, real fast. Sean did not misspeak there either. This is a 1983 game. It just came to America in 1985. Yes. Yeah, so this is a 1983 game. When you think of, when you're watching a football game, you think of these lines on the football field that are just imposed in, like, the director's room or just a box where the director is switching the cameras. That was not a thing until 1998, so you don't actually know where the line of scrimmage is except for, like, it's that specific pixel. So I think when you're thinking of these forward passes that are then immediately thrown to another forward pass, this is actually a lateral, which you see all the time actually.

07:24 Right. At the time of this recording, AFC and the NFC Championship games were played. We saw three flea flickers, which is basically what you're talking about. Okay. Where you flick it to another back and then he throws it again. This is something that is legal in football. So I was actually very interested to see that in the game. I am glad for the clarification too because I felt like an idiot when I couldn't then pull this off.

07:44 I was like, okay, wait, so he just did the forward pass twice. Why can't I? I was passing and then waiting to pass again. And it just felt like, you know, the computer just had that one little strategy ahead of me. But I might have to go back and try that. Yeah, I think it's really the only way to complete a pass in that game because apparently there is no Z-axis.

08:05 Yeah, that bugged me the most, I think, in this game was that when you're throwing the ball to your receiver, even though it's football and you throw over people to play football, if there's anyone in the way of the ball, they intercept it. Yeah, even if they're right in front of you, like as if you're throwing like a line drive. Yeah, so you have to make sure that your receiver, so you just basically wait until your receiver is on one side, like all the way on one side or all the way on the other and you just pick the side with less defenders.

08:30 And that's kind of how you play. I think like when I started off playing the high school team, I'm sure we all did. And I think I played the first half of that match. It was just figuring out how to play this game, like so many interceptions, so many, you know, like I just couldn't figure out. I think the second half was even less fun because then I figured out, oh, OK, so just pass it immediately and run to the side as fast, you know, like as diagonally as you can. Mm-hmm. Gain like five, four, you know, four or five yards.

08:59 Do that again, first down and just keep going the whole way. It's like that's really for me that was the optimal strategy. When I played the high school game, my strategy was just run the ball every play. Oh, so you were running every play. Every play and it worked better for me than I was passing the ball. I mostly ran the ball. I would usually lateral it to my back so that like there was another like gap that I could run through. But there was also this weird like rubber banding thing that as soon as you got like a certain distance away from the defender. You just became sluggish. You were slow and they would just gallop right above.

09:30 Yeah, very strange how that would work. And what about those dive animations? I think the dive, I don't know. I feel like me versus the computer, dives suck. Because like the computer gets the perfect dive and you, you're diving all over the place. And sometimes you dive like 20 yards.

09:46 Yeah. Good thing there's no Z-axis in this game because if you saw that dive, this person is like literally like they're just jumping like 30 feet in the air and then like flying over you. You also can't, like the game can't keep track of where you are going forward. So like if you dive sideways and the ball's being run forward, your character diving will also just move forward. Like it stays in the middle of the screen to move forward. Yeah. And pretty much missing a dive in this game is the equivalent of losing like 30. It's like it will take forever for you to catch them again and get that opportunity.

10:25 I do think, I didn't play two player with someone else. I've just played versus a computer. I think with people it would be a different story because I think the diving would be kind of fun. Because it's kind of like that fun of these controls are really clunky but they're clunky for both of us. So it's like kind of fair, you know what I mean? Yeah, no, I definitely do understand that and I think Sean you have something to say.

10:47 Yeah, I do think that the controls are clunky but it's actually really impressive that they were able, that they were actually able to make all of this stuff possible with those two buttons. Yeah, no, I just mean the dive. Yeah, of course, of course. But like the whole game feels like an NES game. I think, yeah, I think important here is like what you said that it's impressive that they were able to program an NES game to run a full football pretty much. But the thing that really kills this game for me is there's no playbook.

11:18 There's no stats. There's no challenges. There's nothing that really, nothing other than the concept of get the ball to your zone, you know, and score the touchdown or the field goal. Nothing, nothing about it otherwise is, is like anything that is reminiscent of football. Like there's so much missing in this game. I think that it's like this is, this is minimalist football. If you want to describe it as something like you can still create a play by just you waiting until your man in motion is where you want him to be. So is Pong the minimalist tennis?

11:52 I mean, yeah, sure. Okay, no, no, I'm asking. Yeah, so if Pong, so this is like, this is football. Now I'm not saying this is as important. I'm saying this is football's Pong in that sense of like, how do I make a football game that still feels like football? Yeah. But we don't have, we don't have the ability. Yeah, I think that's a good way of, a really good way of describing it.

12:11 I think if anything, it's a good blueprint for other football games. You know, I don't know if there were many football games that came before this one. Yeah, no, at this point, the football games that you're looking at, besides the ones on the computer, which actually did run some pretty detailed like, you know, not in the sense of not gameplay. I'm talking about like, you know, kind of the simulation style things. The football games before that. Yeah, we're talking like, we're talking blocks on the Atari 2600 and you know, that kind of stuff. And so this is a, this is a big step. As far as that goes, yeah, I think it is a good blueprint just for games to come.

12:48 I'll pose this as a question. Like, would something like Madden exist if this never existed? Would like the form, would it be different, you think? Or do you think that this was influential? I don't think that this was influential enough to direct Madden. I think that this game offers a lot in terms of like, here's how, here's how you would play football on a video game console. Yeah. I don't think that it really offers anything in terms of like, I mean, even just consider the gameplay. I played, I played about six games.

13:18 And I played from high school all the way up to the Super Bowl team. And the AI was not that much better in the Super Bowl. Like, like it didn't feel like any more of a challenge. That's true. It's so simple. Right. It's such a simple, yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's such a simple execution that it doesn't feel like there's a lot more to be learned here other than like, you know, the biggest thing when programming a football game is you got to make sure you can pass and run.

13:41 Well, that's also, it's also probably because it's coming from, it's an arcade game that got ported. More so, I think also the, there was only offense on the arcade version. That makes sense. There wasn't defense. Playing defense in that game is frustrating as hell. Yeah. So one of the things, a couple of other things I wanted to talk about.

14:00 Real funny. So I did mention that I played the Super Bowl team. When you beat the Super Bowl team, and just for some, some clarification here, when you beat the high school team, it says, congratulations, you're on your way to the Super Bowl. And so on and so forth. It says that forever. When you beat the Super Bowl team, I really wanted to know what was going to happen. Maybe there would be like some extra animations programmed or something like that. Instead, you get the black screen with the white tech. Congratulations. You're on your way to the Super Bowl. Wow. Next year. I just, yeah.

14:28 I guess like, yeah, we really are destined to be on the Super Bowl again. But I just, I couldn't believe that they were that lazy about it. Yeah. That you would go through the trouble of programming like a whole idea of like, oh, just keep playing until you get to the Super Bowl. Not that you can't just pick Super Bowl right from the start. But then to just like, be like, yeah, yeah, just loop back to that screen. Not even like a, you did it. Like, if you did it, it would have been fine, right? You know, like, I actually never won a game.

14:56 My first game was against the high school team. Yeah, me too. It was a 14-14 tie. Okay. And then I'm like, okay, I'm going to skip right to Super Bowl. And that ended up being a 7-0 loss. But see, that's what I'm talking about though. It wasn't... It's not that different. Yeah, it wasn't that different. The colors changed. Mm-hmm. Here's a quick question too. Did anybody ever miss a field goal or see a field goal? No, it was a very easy thing.

15:22 You can't miss that field goal. If you missed, Barra just starts in the goal and is like, yeah. Well, no, actually, that's not necessarily true because it depends on where you scored the touchdown. Oh. So if you score the touchdown on the far right side, you have to kick it. From that hash point. Not that this is clearly not the rules. I mean, like, it's not far off. Okay. There is a lot of, like, things that they were able to translate into it. Yeah. But, yeah, all you have to do is like, it starts straight ahead and all you have to do is just move it to the right or to the left and then it's an automatic field goal because, again, there's no Z axis.

15:54 Yeah. And, I mean, like, you know, again, it's a very early game, but how do we feel about that lack of music and just like the three, maybe four sound effects that are programmed into this game? That gets pretty repetitive. Yeah, the only reason I'm a little happier, usually I love music in video games, but I'm happy that there wasn't too much music because I just feel like being an arcade game, it would not be very good NES music. And I do think there's a lot of good NES music out there.

16:22 But you know what they could have added that in the NES version? Yeah, that's true. I mean, they've probably got to put more work into it. Even just like on the start screen or something. Yeah, especially since they did add, you know, more to the game, putting it on the NES anyways, they probably could have put it on there. But I was just glad to not have an annoying soundtrack. I just thought such an early game would have like a very repetitive, very like... Honestly, if I heard music playing through the game, I would complain about it because that's not how any kind of football is playing.

16:48 That's true. I mean, yeah, even if you look at Madden now, there's no music playing in the middle of the match. But, you know, Madden has a lot of other room for music, whether that's like, you know, in those cool pre-game show things that they do, or the menus and stuff like that. You know, I think like just some kind of something to populate this other than just like the...

17:10 Well, I mean, I could just go back to my original defense and just say minimalist football. All right. And I'm glad that you're sticking with that. I would like to say that I think that the way they at least present the leveling, like the different levels of like difficulty as high school or college or something like that. I do think that that was a cool touch. I think that is an interesting way to describe it. Yeah, exactly. Because what else would you have done? Just easy, medium, hard. Right. And that's that's worse.

17:38 I think it is kind of fun that you have that. And did you did you notice that they each had their own symbols? I didn't I didn't I didn't see the other symbols, but I did notice that, like in their touchdown fields, they would. What do you call that? The end zone? Yeah. Wow. The touchdown field. To the touchdown field. We should cut that part out. No, no, no, this is perfect.

17:58 The end zone. You know, there's that. I think there was stars. There was Sarah Longhorn. I think I know. I mean, I don't know. Okay. Rocket or something. Okay. As far as it goes, it was like fairly intuitive.

18:14 Like I looked up the manual before I before I played this one, which I think is great. Yeah. I think it's really important for NES games. Uh, but, uh, I think that you may not even need it. I think that like, you know, you want to go this way. You press a, you throw the ball. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's only so much experimenting. Right. Yeah. But I think the way they set it up is like a very kind of just pretty intuitive for a video game for people who like have no experience going into video games, which is, I guess, kind of like what this is. Right. Okay. Not, or very little. Well, I think like, yeah, I think for sure.

18:50 That's something important to talk about is that the NES wasn't necessarily sold as just a console for kids. Like this was a, like a family style thing where it's like, you know, dad and his son can play together or like, you know, anybody can pick up and play this thing. It's only, you know, two buttons and a direction. That's true. But I think a lot of the games that at least I think of when I think of the NES have such a level of abstraction because of it does, it can't render as much as we're used to.

19:20 Like liquid, what, uh, what Sam's saying that it's actually a surprise to me that it, that this game was as intuitive as it was. I thought I was going to have to, cause I started, I didn't read the manual. I don't, I haven't read any of the manuals. That's fine. Um, I thought I was going to have to go and look one up. Um, but no, I mean, it was, it was pretty clear.

19:39 Yeah. Yeah. My, I didn't look up the manual for this one either. And it was pretty easy to catch on. But that, I mean, that also kind of feeds into why my initial impression changed because my initial impression was positive. And I still think I'm still impressed with the game, but in the end, I think it's so repetitive, especially because you can kind of find a strategy that works every time. And, you know, it was repetitive enough that I think it's not a game that I would really play over and over again.

20:07 Yeah. And we're going to have to do our essential games list. Check that out. Well, refer to this list because we're going to be the, uh, what we hope to be the hardest entry, uh, to get in kind of the gatekeepers of what are good NES games. Let's just kind of, let's just kind of get into it. Uh, basically the way I think we should handle this is we're going to have a vote. And since there's four of us, I think at least two should say that this deserves to go into the essential games list.

21:03 And, uh, you know, whether you're for it or against it, I'd love to hear just kind of like a final statement. So, Sean. All right. Well, I've been pretty high on this game, uh, from the beginning of this conversation, but I mean, obviously this is not a, a classic game. This is a really cool experiment in terms of how can we, uh, how can we put together all of the abstractions of football into a eight bit game? Um, and I think they succeeded, but it's nothing special.

21:33 I'd say it's nothing special. Okay. Yeah. I, I agree. I think the only situation I can see where I would go out of my way to play this game would be if I had friends over and we were just like really bored and we had a couple of minutes. And I was like, Oh, we can play this kind of jank NES arcade game, you know? And you just have that folder and like jank NES games. Jank NES games. Yeah. This goes in my jank folder.

21:59 Joe? Uh, yeah. So, I mean, kind of like what, what you and Sam were saying earlier is that like, even though this probably didn't inform the modern Madden, I think it probably informed, I'm just speculating, but I'm probably informed later NES, SNES games like this, which, which are probably better, which makes me feel like I'm not going to be a little bit. So, I think that this is not really worth going back to play if there are better retro football games out there.

22:23 Right. And, uh, so yeah, I think like, for me, the takeaway is, is that it's a, it's a competent, it plays football. This thing, this thing is a football game. It definitely, uh, looks, feels, and emulates football. But, there's no playbook, there's no stats, can't even trade, teams aren't really even a thing. I think that, it, you know. Are you going to trade the one, like, the left tackle? I want their, I want their, I want their running backs. They're faster. Sure. Um, I think that like, when it comes down to it, if, if you have the option to play Madden 18, or, do they do that? Or go back into the NFL 2K. Yeah, the 2K5. 2K5. 2K5 is great. That's when you could actually like, design your house, I think. Yeah. Like, it's, what?

23:10 Who's ESPN back? We'll talk about PS2 Talja when we get to that. Um, but, yeah, I just think that like, if you have the choice to play those games, this is a far cry, uh, from what I would consider like, a definitive football experience, let alone a definitive NES experience.

23:26 Yeah. Uh, so I think with, uh, with four nays, we are, uh, removing this from the essential games list. And, and can I, can I just say too that a lot of the things that I vote on, like, I don't, I mean, I'm gonna be tough on these games, but a lot of them I don't think are bad games. I just don't think that they're games that you need to play. But if you're interested in like, how games developed and how they, you know, like, I, I find these games really interesting, even when I don't necessarily think that they're in on essential material. That's a great point.

23:58 Uh, the, the, I think what we're trying to do here is come up with that essential list. But I think if you're a listener who's interested in us talking about these games and you're not playing them, you should be like, I think when we talk about like, for instance, our next game, baseball, I think go out and figure out a way to get a copy of that game and play it because baseball, you know, we're going to be talking about it.

24:19 It's not that much different than 10 yard fight in the respect of being a competent way of playing baseball. baseball. So, uh, I'd say get out there and get it. And that goes for any of these NES games, play along. That's the, that's the fun and hopefully the hope of this podcast. And that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia.

24:38 Join us next time for baseball and be sure to play it yourself. If you can, for more Nostalgia, please subscribe to our podcast, wherever you listen and be sure to check out nostalgia cast.com. That's N E S T A L G I A cast.com. On the website, you'll find links to the show and show notes, as well as our other platforms, such as Twitch, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.

25:01 Thank you so much for your support of Nostalgia. We thank you for spending time with us. I'm Michael Esposito, and you can find me on Twitter at Esposito film, and I'll talk to you soon. I'm Michael Esposito. Just kind of like get comfy and go into the post show. I didn't know it's night. Alright. I don't know. I like it by. But Sean, you're kind of like, you're kind of like our football guy.

25:26 I would say, I would say so. The fact that we couldn't, we couldn't find the word end zone was indicative of that. What do you mean we? Look, I do. Yeah, no, I will never claim to be a football guy, but I will never not know the word end zone. I think it was for me, I was just tripping up on what I wanted to say, because I was thinking about the actual like, the engraving thing that they do on the end zone, you know, like where they have like the names of the, you know, the field.

25:53 It surprised me actually, because I mean, I guess you're not a football guy, but I always thought you were more of a football guy than I am, because I'm very much not. I think he's basically, I think I'm a sports guy. He's a sports guy. I like the concept of competition. And I'm still, I'm still doing my work trying to get him to be a full time bills fan. Right. Um, can I, can I point out what you've written on our, on our wall here?

26:17 Yes. Sean has written the Buffalo bills are the best football team and the only team in New York and capital letters. Yes. Well, that's just because that's what I write. Actually no. Buffalo, Buffalo, the U looks lowercase. I don't know. I mean, I mean, it's way smaller.

26:35 It doesn't have the little thing. Uh, you gotta be here to see that. Um, but I will say that capital U, it's kind of small. You're right. Yeah. It's a smaller font. I didn't know this growing up is that that is true. The Buffalo bills are the only team in New York. It's, it's, you know, it sounds like, yeah, it sounds like you're trying to rile people up, but it's the truth. It's really strange. And it's like, I just want to know, like, well, how does New Jersey feel about that? Like, do they not care that they're just being like walked on by New Jersey?

27:07 It's like a secret pride thing. It's like, yeah, you're here for you, the New York team, but you know, we, we know where you are. What do you think would happen if like one of those teams or funny enough, what if the bills became the New Jersey bills? That'd be sick. But they were based in Buffalo still. And the two New York teams are actually based in New Jersey. There would be riots in Buffalo. See, now you're just making stuff up. They break even more tables.

27:31 Yeah. That's a thing, right, Sean, with the tables? The, I, I, I'd like to say that, um, we aren't as, as animalistic as I think we're, we're painted in social media, but yes, we do, uh, break a lot of folding tables. There's a lot of strange hijinks that isn't always G rated. Are we trying to keep this G rated or PG?

27:53 Yeah. I think, you know, if it warrants the curse, just for the listener, uh, we might curse on this show. I think only when it warrants it, I don't want people to just like, of course, I just think it's content. It's like, it's like sexual content. You don't want to show off like, Hey, did you know I know these words? Like that's like, that's what I feel like sometimes when people curse. Yeah. So I think if you get a curse, you gotta like, you gotta feel it. You gotta commit. Of course. I'm just saying that I want to describe what a lot of bills fans do because it's not really appropriate. That might be wrong.

28:23 Oh my gosh. Uh, yeah. And I think like Superbowl's coming up and at the time of this recording, um, the championship games were just played. It's going to be the goddamn New England Patriots versus the Philadelphia Eagles. So, um, I hope you all be able to, I'm sorry. The best fans, the best, the best fans between the both conferences, uh, are fighting it out.

28:47 So I don't think anyone wants there to be a winner to this. Have the Eagles ever won the Superbowl? No, they are with the bills and the Vikings. So, I don't know how you feel as a bills fan if you want to keep them winless or not, but I feel like you gotta be rooting for the Eagles if you're not a Patriots fan. I mean, there's a, there's a small piece of petty, uh, like misery loves company in me that wants the Eagles to stay winless. And I think that the fact that the New England Patriots win so much, it would just be status quo. But no, I just want to see New England burn.

29:19 Hmm. And they probably will during their riots when they win or lose. You think New England will riot? This is just gonna be another Sunday for them, man. Yeah, I mean, I was, I was in Boston when, uh, when the Red Sox won and when the Patriots won. And they were, they were like flipping cars and shit. All right, well, I get the Red Sox, cause they thought they had a curse for a while. But the Patriots, which, which year were you there for the Superbowl? Uh, what was that? 20, uh, 2015?

29:47 Really? In January? They reacted that? I don't know, I don't know. I remember it was New England. Well, and they're very passionate about their sports, right? Yeah, I'm sorry to anybody that's what's in the game. Maybe I'm getting that wrong. Yeah. Awesome. I remember when the Phillies, uh, when the, not the Phillies, when the Red Sox won. They're both red. I could see where you would make that mistake. Yeah, cause the Phillies, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. All right. All right, cool. Um, yeah, this is a post show if I've ever heard one.

30:12 Definitely, you know. Anything you want to say about football real fast? Just like... Go Bills. There you go. Uh, I ain't got nothing. All right. Yeah, I think everything that needs to be said about football has already been said. Yeah, let the bodies... That's not true. I'm gonna start my own podcast, Sean'sFootballTalk, at gmail.com. Well, that's right. I didn't want to step on your email address podcast. So... Let the, uh, let the bodies at the floor.

30:35 Um, and then you just have to sign in. Can we leave that in, too? Yeah. Sam, can you just sign in to the podcast? Yeah. I think I saw Chris Walker. Yeah, Chris is a little...

31:00 Just a very clear...