Are you ready for my “old man” voice? Good, because here it comes.

Back in my day, we didn’t have fancy polygonal 3D graphics in our sports games. Our favorite athletes were rendered in sprites, colorful (or not so colorful) two-dimensional images pasted on our standard-definition, bubble-screened TVs. New games for my Super Nintendo cost $60, and there was no way to keep your relatives from buying you bad ones.

Yes, I remember it well, the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning, finally unwrapping that Nintendo-cartridge shaped present that I’d been eyeballing for days, only to find a copy of The Rocketeer.

It’s a bad game. Don’t play it.

It was not a good time to be a child with such a small allowance. With such a limited budget, parents were the only source of gaming funds.

“What’s that, little Billy? You can’t get past the first level in your new game? What’s that? It’s evil and unfair, you say? Well, too bad. I just paid $60 for it, and you’re not getting another one for a while. Now go practice your piano lesson before you play any more games.”

Ugh. Thanks, Mom.

And so, for much of my childhood, I suffered through games like Beethoven’s 2nd and the immortal Space Football (which was so atrocious that it deserves its own column).

In 1994, when I was around eight years old, I got my hands on a game entitled Bo Jackson’s Hit and Run. This tiny cartridge was built for my brick-shaped, hand-me-down Nintendo Game Boy and featured both football and baseball.

You read that right. Football AND baseball.

As any red-blooded American child of that time period could tell you, I’d stumbled upon gaming gold. I could be throwing long bomb passes one minute, and hitting monster home runs the next. Once you figured out the game, you could pitch shutout after shutout, striking out every batter you faced.

I never did figure out the punting system in the football game, though. Every kick turned out to be a touchback. Nice going, Bo.

But for a kid, this was the best sports game ever. I played it frequently for several years, and still have it sitting in my old Game Boy case. If I got in trouble at school or didn’t do my chores, I’d hide Bo under my bed and play once the lights had gone out in the house.

If not for Mr. Jackson, I doubt I would have become the sports fan that I am today. Just doing the research for this article made me want to play. So if you’ll excuse me, I have a Game Boy to dust off, and an old friend to visit.

- Taylor Maxwell

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Tags | Baseball, Bo Jackson, Football, Nintendo Game Boy, Super Nintendo