There’s no shortage of other classic vintage games out there like anything from the Madden Football family, Ken Griffey Baseball, NBA Jam aka “he’s heating up!”, EA Sports FIFA, ad Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Yet, even with the advanced graphics of the current generation of video games cannot compete with some of the classics on Nintendo.

Even if you cannot get your hands on an old NES console, or you tried to hook up your old Nintendo to no avail — even by blowing on the cartridges — you can still take a walk down memory lane via YouTube. There’s no shortage of gameplay or playthrough videos featuring the favorite games from your childhood, including some of best sports titles in gaming history.

Tecmo Bowl

I cannot count how many late nights I played the original Tecmo Bowl with my brother. It was a simple game released in 1989 with four basic plays to select on offense/defense. Every team had two running and passing plays, except San Francisco and Miami who had three passing plays.

On defense, you had a 25% chance to predict what play the offense would call. However, if you frequently played the same opponent — like my brother and myself — you knew their favorite plays and patterns, which made Tecmo Bowl more of a mind game.

Like many of you, we had the “Bo Jackson Rule” where no one could use his team because he was a real-life cheat code and impossible to tackle and ridiculously fast. When picking teams, you could not select the Los Angeles franchise as part of the Bo Jackson Rule. Nintendo did not have an actual license from the NFL, so they had a work around using city names and team colors, but fans knew who was who.

Tecmo Bowl had a version of the New York Giants, which was my usual pick. On defense you made sure you controlled #56 aka Lawrence Taylor because he was the fastest defender and could get into the backfield in a flash to record a sack and drop a running back for a loss.

Kicking was always the pain in the butt, but poor kick coverage was also tilting. If you didn’t tackle at the precise angle, you were most likely giving up a kick return for a touchdown.

NHLPA 93

Did EA Sports achieve hockey prefect with NHLPA 93? This was the days before the Nanny State took over and tried to reduce violence in video games and removed fighting in the NHL 94 sequel. The NHL has been trying to escape their rough and tumble days of “old time hockey” with superfluous violence and fighting.

However, the NHLPA 93 video game from the early 1990s captured the last era of pugilism on the ice. Yes, you could actually get into a fight in NHLPA 93, and you could knock out opposing players with cheap hits. If you get lucky, you can even make them bleed on the ice. Scoring a knockout of your opponent in a one-on-one fight after you drop the gloves was more exhilarating than scoring a goal.

NHLPA 93 debuted when I was in college and it was the most popular game in my fraternity house. We held season-long contests and tournaments. Even classmates that didn’t like hockey were addicted to the game, which we played 24/7. It got so bad that the guy who owned the original game (shoutout to Greg M.!) had to lock his doors at night, and hide the game when he went to class because he’d come back and find eight people in his room ripping bong hits and playing NHLPA 93. The problem was solved when a couple of other fraternity brothers purchased additional copies, so there was at least one version of the game on every floor of the fraternity house.

NHLPA 93 was so popular that it even made an appearance in the indie film “Swingers” when the guys would gather at someone’s apartment in Hollywood to play NHL 94 at the pre-party.

Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out

There were two versions of Punch-Out one involving the Mike Tyson branding and the other one that did not. This was one of the few popular arcade games that was also a console game that debuted in 1984.

Like in real life boxing, you had to work your way up the ranks to get a title shot. Every boxer was different and had their own specialty knockout punch. Opponents gradually increased in skill the father you went, but your game would end if you got knocked out. It could take months before you got good enough to finally face Mike Tyson in the ring. And then it could take a few more months to figure out how to beat him. Do not forget this was an era before the internet, and if you did not have a subscription to video game magazines, you had to figure out a strategy by yourself, or consult with your friends on how to survive a barrage of combination punches and finally knock out Tyson.

The boxer names were just as iconic as the original Punch-Out game: Glass Joe, Bald Bull, Mr. Sandman, Soda Popinski, and Super Macho Man. In the Mike Tyson version released in 1987, Punch-Out included Von Kaiser, Piston Honda, Don Flamenco, King Hippo, and Mike Tysoon (aka Mr. Dream in alt versions).

It was fun trying to remember the perfect combinations to defeat each boxer. It’s stil hilarious that King Hippo’s pants would fall down when you punched him in the stomach multiple times in a row.

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Gamers and NFL football fans will have to wait until August for EA Sports to release Madden 23. This won’t be the first time Madden has appeared on the cover of his own video game; in 1999, he appeared on Madden NFL 2000.

Last season, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes shared the cover of Madden 22.

Madden passed away at the end of December at the age of 85. Depending on your age, Madden is linked to different aspects of pro football: coaching, broadcasting, and video games.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Madden was the Raiders’ head coach, leading the 1976 team to victory in Super Bowl 11.

By the 1980s, Madden pivoted to broadcasting. He started out a CBS Sports before spearheading Fox Sports’ coverage in the 1990s. At the turn of the century, ABC hired Madden to join Al Michaels on Monday Night Football. Madden ended his broadcasting career with NBC Sports and “Sunday Night Football” before retiring in 2008.

Madden first licensed his likeness for video games in 1988 for John Madden Football, which was initially created by EA Sports/Electronic Arts. Since 1999, the title has been called Madden NFL followed by the ensuing year.

Madden 23: Three Covers and $5 Million in Charity

Madden 23 will feature Madden on different covers with two depicting him as an NFL head coach, and one as a broadcaster.

“We were thinking about this year’s game and who was going to go on it,” said Seann Graddy, the executive producer of Madden NFL. “It almost became an obvious answer. I say that because we really wanted to celebrate Coach in the product this year, and what he’s meant to us for the 30-plus years that we’ve been using his name in our game.”

The first cover, designed by artist Chuck Styles, will feature Madden as a young coach.

“The thing that we wanted everyone to take away is that we’re celebrating all three phases of Coach Madden’s kind of legacy,” said Graddy.

The cover featuring Madden the broadcaster will have him in a shirt and tie while drawing a telestrator, which was a huge hit with fans when he first started using it during games.

Although specifics won’t be revealed until tomorrow, there will be a version where Madden coaches against himself with the AFC All-Madden Team versus the NFC All-Madden Team at the old Oakland Coliseum circa the 1970s.

“Honestly, the thinking of why we wanted Coach vs. Coach is, we want Coach to win,” added Graddy.

EA Sports will donate $5 million to charities that Madden was heavily involved with before he passed away in late 2022. Half will get split among nonprofit organizations such as Girls Who Code, College Track, StreetCode Academy, and Mission Bit. The other $2.5 million will create a new EA Madden Scholarship to provide financial assistance to a dozen historically black colleges and universities.

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Magnus Carlsen comes in as the -350 favorite to win the Oslo Esports Cup, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.

Carlsen dominating Champions Chess Tour

Carlsen won the first two “regular�?events on the Champions Chess Tour this year. He’ll try to become the first player in the two years of the tour to win three consecutive events in the same season. Counting back to the 2021 tour, the World Chess Champion will be looking to win his fifth straight tournament.

The Oslo Esports Cup will award a total of $210,000 in prize money. The eight-player field will compete in a full round-robin, with each player taking on every opponent in a four-game rapid match. Should the match be tied, blitz and, potentially, an Armageddon tiebreaker will be used to determine a winner.

Each match win is worth three points. If a match goes to tiebreakers, the winner will earn two points, with the loser taking one. At the end of the tournament, the player with the most points wins. Each player also earns $2,500 per point.

To win, Carlsen will have to contend with some of the other top players on tour so far this season. Polish star �?and World Championship contender �?Jan-Krzysztof Duda (+750) earned his spot after finishing as the runner-up to Carlsen at the Charity Cup last month. Anish Giri (+750) is tied for 15th in the tour rankings, but is always a threat as one of the world’s top-ranked grandmasters.

Praggnanandhaa among Oslo Esports Cup wild cards

Le Quang Liem (+3000) and Eric Hansen (+5000) each earned spots via their overall tour performance, even if they’re unlikely to contend for first at the Oslo Esports Cup. Liem made the knockout stage in each of the first two events and has won $21,500 on tour so far. Meanwhile, popular Canadian streamer Eric Hansen proved he can hang with the world’s elite by reaching the quarterfinals of the Airthings Masters. He currently ranks eighth on tour with $11,750 in earnings.

Organizers invited the other entrants, including Giri, as wild cards. 2021 Tata Steel Masters winner Jorden van Foreest (+2000) is coming off of a quarterfinal appearance in the Charity Cup. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (+1200) hasn’t appeared on the Champions Chess Tour this season, but ranks No. 10 in the world and has the ability to beat anyone in the field, including Carlsen.

Finally, there’s Indian youngster Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa. The 16-year-old stunned the chess world by beating Carlsen in their round-robin game in the Airthings Masters. You can’t bet on Praggnanandhaa at regulated US sites �?he’s under 18 years old, after all �?but Unibet is offering him as a +10000 long shot.

The Oslo Esports Cup is the third event of nine on the Champions Chess Tour schedule. The tour continues through November, with the final six tournaments still unnamed at this time.

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The Charity Cup is the second event of the 2022 Champions Chess Tour, and is supporting UNICEF.

Carlsen, Duda turn back semifinal challengers

So far, organizers say they have raised more than $100,000 for the international charity through the tournament.

Carlsen started his semifinal match against Ding Liren by playing the unorthodox 1. e3 as White. That didn’t bear fruit for the champion, who settled for a draw in each of the first two games.

Carlsen finally broke through in Game 3. Ding found himself in time trouble in a complicated endgame, blundering in what should have been a drawn position. Now needing a win, Ding saw history repeat itself in Game 4, as he blundered again in the late stages of the action. That left the final score 3-1 in Carlsen’s favor.

“It was really tough,�?Carlsen said of the match. “All the games were really, really tense. I felt that this was my best day so far.�?/p>

In the other Charity Cup semifinal, Duda took on Vietnamese grandmaster Liem Quang Le. Duda broke through in the first game of the match, then held on under immense pressure as Liem tried to level the match. Ultimately, Duda was able to hold three draws and advance by a 2.5-1.5 score.

Duda said he’s excited to play Carlsen in the final.

Is there something better then two days practice with world champion and get paid for that? #CharityCup #ChessChamps @PKN_ORLEN @LenovoPolska @Zinzinoofficial pic.twitter.com/T37u3yMdSO

— Jan-Krzysztof Duda (@GM_JKDuda) March 24, 2022

“Considering that I’m not playing my usual openings, because I’m hiding them [for the Candidates Tournament], it’s even more special,�?Duda said. “I’ve struggled so much the last year that it’s a nice feeling to reach the final.�?/p>

Carlsen favored for Charity Cup title

Carlsen will come into the Charity Cup final as a -400 favorite over Duda (+270), according to online sportsbook Bwin. However, bettors shouldn’t discount Duda’s chances. He has proven to be a thorn in Carlsen’s side, famously ending his record 125-game undefeated streak and eliminating him from the 2021 World Cup.

The World Champion is well aware of the threat his opponent poses.

“He beat me in the World Cup, and I’ve beaten him in a couple matches on the tour,�?Carlsen said of Duda. “He’s a very strong player, of course, and he’s deserving of being here.�?/p>

Duda and Carlsen will now complete for the Charity Cup title in a two-day contest. They will play a four-game match each day. If each player wins a match, or they draw both, the finalists will play tiebreakers to determine the winner.

The winner will take $25,000 in additional prize money, with the runner-up earning $15,000. Carlsen has already won the first event of the tour season, earning the victory at last month’s Airthings Masters.

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Hansen started strong and held on during the final day of play to make it into the knockout rounds of the first event of the 2022 Champions Chess Tour season.

Hansen enjoying ‘dream’ Airthings Masters performance

While Hansen is a strong grandmaster, he ranks just 237th in FIDE’s official world rankings with a 2606 standard rating. However, Hansen scored wins over the likes of Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi to set himself up for success in the Airthings Masters.

With two rounds remaining on Tuesday, Hansen was poised to clinch a quarterfinals berth. However, he dropped a game to Alexandra Kosteniuk, who scored her only win of the tournament in their 14th-round battle.

I never knew that scoring 1 out of 15 could be such a relief �?Thank you so much for your support! Your messages meant a lot! @ChampChessTour #AirthingsMasters #ChessChamps

— Alexandra Kosteniuk (@chessqueen) February 22, 2022

“I never know that scoring one out of 15 could be such a relief,�?Kosteniuk would later write on Twitter.

Hansen secured a draw against Germany’s Vincent Keymer in the final round to officially put himself into the final eight.

“It’s been a bit of a dream,�?Hansen said of his run. “I’m still taking it all in.�?/p>

Oddsmakers still see Hansen as an underdog, though his performance so far has impressed fans and pundits. Bwin lists the Canadian as a +1400 pick to win the Airthings Masters. He also rates as the +180 underdog to Andrey Esipenko (-250) in their quarterfinal match.

Carlsen overcomes COVID to qualify

Carlsen safely qualified for the quarterfinals in second place behind Nepomniachtchi at the top of the table. However, things weren’t easy for the World Champion. Carlsen struggled with the aftermath of a COVID-19 infection throughout the tournament, and got off to a particularly slow start on Day 1, scoring just 1.5 points in four rounds.

“It’s been a little bit better today, but the first could of days I was feeling like I’m okay but I didn’t have the energy which made it hard to focus because every time I tried to think I blundered,�?Carlsen said after the third day of round-robin play. “It was a little bit better today but still pretty bad.�?/p>

Bwin now sees Carlsen as the -115 favorite to win the Airthings Masters, ahead of both Nepomniachtchi (+500) and Ding Liren (+600). But the Norwegian says he’ll have to pick up his game to earn the first title of the tour season.

“I think I played pretty badly today, so I will have to play a lot better in the knockouts,�?Carlsen said. “But at least I’m there, which is the most important thing…I’m trough and I have the chance to fight regardless of who I’m going to face.�?/p>

Carlsen will start his knockout stage run against Liem Le Quang, who qualified in the eighth position. Bwin sees Carlsen as the -800 favorite in that match.

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The Play Magnus Group announced the upcoming Champions Chess Tour schedule on Thursday, revealing new rules and formats that will address some complaints from last year.

Every point matters for players, prizes

This year’s tour will feature nine events, starting with a regular tournament beginning on Feb. 19. There will be nine tournaments in total, with the third, sixth, and final events being majors. There’s no true final this year: at the end of the Champions Chess Tour, the player with the most prize money wins the championship.

Players will be earning money in different ways this season as well. Regular events will again feature 16-player fields and start with a round-robin. Every win will be worth three points, with draws worth a single point. Every point a player earns will be worth $250 in prize money, leading to this year’s slogan: “Every move matters.�?/em>