American football games

American football reached computers and consoles along three separate routes. Arcade-style games kept a few plays and a fast clock, licensed simulations chased real teams and real rosters through the NFL and the players' association, and coaching games dropped the controller work entirely and left you with a playbook and a headset. This page is a catalogue of that whole era — the titles marked as playable start right in the browser, the rest are kept as records of the sport's history. And if you were looking for soccer, that is a different sport with its own page: football games.

The reference line is Madden. John Madden Football (1989) began on the PC as a serious simulation built around the coach's own playbook — Madden reportedly refused to put his name on anything with fewer than eleven players a side. John Madden Football II added features around the same core, and John Madden Football '92 on the Sega Mega Drive — the one with the ambulance that drives onto the field over injured players — settled the fast, readable console form the series kept for a decade. The catalogue below also records the licensed SNES run from Madden NFL '94, the first with the real NFL teams, to Madden NFL '98.

Sega answered with its own quarterback. Joe Montana Football (1990) played simpler and faster than Madden, and Joe Montana II: Sports Talk Football added something new for the time — a commentator who follows the action play by play. The line continued through NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana and NFL '95. The college game has its own branch here in Bill Walsh College Football '95, College Football USA 96 and All-American College Football, and EA's engine even produced a parody of itself: Mutant League Football, where the field is mined and the referee can be killed — bribed first, ideally.

The PC kept the thinking end of the sport. Dynamix's Front Page Sports: Football Pro and its '95 edition combined a full career mode with league statistics nothing on consoles could match, and Accolade's Unnecessary Roughness titles covered the same ground with a lighter touch. Coaching games go further still: Tom Landry Strategy Football, MicroLeague Football and MicroProse's Ultimate NFL Coaches Club Football resolve the game as decisions and numbers, and PlayMaker Football hands you the chalk and lets you draw your own plays. ABC Monday Night Football brings television presentation into the living room, while GFL Championship Football (1987) put the camera behind the quarterback years before that view became standard.

The arcade strand is the oldest. Atari Football (1978) reduced the sport to X's and O's and burned through trackballs; RealSports Football brought it home to the Atari 2600, and Tehkan's Gridiron Fight (1985) came from the studio that would soon rename itself Tecmo and produce the most loved football games on the NES: Tecmo Bowl and Tecmo Super Bowl, the first game with real NFL teams, real players and a full season at once — both kept here as catalogue records alongside 10-Yard Fight, NES Play Action Football and Midway's over-the-top NFL Blitz. Titles marked as playable run directly in the browser through an emulator, with no installation and no registration; most support two players at one keyboard or on two gamepads.