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The old NES and SNES Tecmo Bowl games were so much fun that I liked them, and I don't think I've sat through a real football game in my entire life. They just had a fast-paced, arcade appeal that transcended really needing to know what you were supposed to be doing or why.

Football games have grown quite a bit more nuanced since then, to the point where I don't even try to understand Madden games without a developer at my shoulder explaining everything. You'd think there'd be a market for a simpler, arcadey alternative, and a lot of people with long memories got excited about Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff maybe being that game.

It seems like Tecmo has dropped the ball, or at least didn't get everything quite right this time. A 64% Metacritic average is very rarely attached to a game based on mass misunderstanding. The real question is what developet Polygon Magic botched, and if the game is still worth its while despite the fumbles. Let's take a look at the reviews and see what patterns emerge...

The high score comes from IGN, where an unusually forgiving Craig Harris somehow gives a 7.7 out of 10 to a game he otherwise has very little good to say about. This seems to be one of those cases where a reviewer appreciates the concept of a game so much that the knives don't really want to come out.

The gameplay itself remains untouched from the classic Tecmo Bowl experience, and depending on your perspective that's both good and not so good. For those who crave the classic Tecmo Bowl experience, go you. It's still solid and simplistic, pick-up-and-play football with very few rules to get in the way. For those grown up on the 15 years of Madden, well, Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff lacks all the features expected of a current generation football game. Things you take for granted  like, for example, the ability to switch players during a play or directional-aiming passing  just weren't part of the Tecmo Bowl experience back in the day so they're not in Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff. It's a little awkward going back to the Tecmo Bowl design and reliving some of its decisions; cycling through your receivers with a single button just seems so archaic today. But hey, it works and Tecmo didn't want to mess with the classic to appease its target audience. Your enjoyment of this game definitely depends on your perspective and your gaming expectations going in on the first snap.

GamePro's review came courtesy Mike Spitalieri, and awarded the game a 3.5 out of 5. This review doesn't spite the game for its retro design goals, but does have serious problems with the interface and certain missing features.

Kickoff also offers customization options including the ability to change team logos and player names as well as assign attribute points and offensive powers like rocket pass and lightning dodge. Ordinarily, jacking up your player's stats and powers might cause some balance issues, but the game's reliance on blocks, fumbles and interceptions provides both fast-paced arcade action and a mechanism to iron out the difficulty. Unfortunately, the game's simplicity is underscored by a flawed menu system. During play selection, there's no field position marker, so good luck deciding whether to punt or kick a field goal. Season mode is a clunky mess that doesn't allow you to exit games once you're in spectator mode, run multiple seasons or even delete a season that you've already started.

1up awarded the game a C grade, with Todd Zuniga's review reading very similarly to GamePro's. It's not the simple graphics or arcadey feel that bothers him, but just the simple fact that a bunch of features are either missing or implemented in ways that don't make any sense.

The series does make slight progress, though. Offensive players will catch fire throughout the course of the game, allowing your QB to sling impossible-to-intercept bullet passes or giving your tailback the ability to truck over a defender or two. Problem is, there's no hint that it's about to happen. It'd be better to have receivers go deep, rather than run curl routes if your QB's hot -- but there's no way of telling before you call the play.

Speaking of no way of telling, one of the game's goofier oversights is not telling you where you are on the field. If it's fourth down, a menu will pop up that asks if you want to punt, kick a field goal, or go for it. Yet there's no indication if you're on your own 30-yard line or your opponent's. And no way to call a play, then a timeout, to find out. So bogus. But you won't be the only clueless one -- I witnessed the CPU try a 70-yard field goal that fell well short, giving me great field position as a result.

GamesRadar gives Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff a 5 out of 10 and is rather forthright about having no use at all for the game's retro stylings. The text of Henry Gilbert's review, in fact, picks on that a bit more than the issues with features and interface that other writers focused on. There's also a big focus on what is viewed as an unfair difficulty curve.

The controls are equally simple and frustrating. Controlling a player, whether with the d-pad, the stylus or an odd combination of both, too often makes you feel like a coach the players won't listen to. Sometimes it's a pass going way too short or to the wrong player, or even a run in the wrong direction. The too-basic controls are never really there, a huge drawback for the less-skilled players it wants to attract.

On the subject of pushing players away, the computer difficulty - which can't be changed - is ludicrous. Maybe we're just awful at the game, but it should not have taken us 12 games before we finally squeaked by with a win. You'd think with the small number of plays it would be easier, but instead our blockers were all over the place, while the computer made running plays look easy and got more than half its third-down conversions. Plus, our players fumbled the ball on offense at least once or twice a game, while the computer never made a fumble that didn't go in its favor.

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