Game Review (written by Shannon) Added on: 11/22/2007
NFL Challenge is one of the oldest dinosaurs in the world of NFL computer game. First released in 1985, this old warrior gave rise to some of the greatest computer football games ever.
As games go, even older games, the graphics of NFL Challenge are roughly done and basic. This is to be expected, but it should not sway a person from giving this game a go. Even with its release in 1985, NFL Challenge took a total of ten man years to create and involves thousands of lines of code to make for the realistic statistics. It also has the advantage of using real NFL experts as consultants during the making.
The realism of this game was so great that ESPN television used it as the basis for their television reality series “NFL Dream Season” which created an eight game season using computer simulated NFL teams from history. In the final episode, which served as the Super Bowl for the show, the 1978 Pittsburgh Steelers pulled off a one point victory over the 1972 Miami Dolphins. The reality series was so successful, that ESPN brought back a sequel the following year. ESPN aired actual game clips from the games to make it more watchable for fans, but the game, NFL Challenge was the basis for the program.
This is one fine example of the realism brought out by this game. It is still, despite its dating, one of the most excellent simulation games available and it has superior replayabilty because of the numerous options, plays and teams. Coaches call plays, make substitutions, call time-outs and can even execute a hurry-up style offence when play becomes close and time is tight.
Like many games of this genre, NFL Challenge has the options for a single game or a season. The game refers to these options as micro and macro modules. There are many stats to look at, and judge for each player and the plays (on both sides of the balls) seem endless. It is an excellent example of a text mode game and still has great merit in the gaming world today. It has a good AI that shows the same general balance as human operated players, and is, overall, a very solid simulation game, likely the best of its time. It is still worth a shot today, and is well worth the download.
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Special Instructions (Source: Support Team | Added on: 01/21/2007)
This game is quiote difficult to start. Here is our step by step guide:
1st) You need DOSbox. Download and Tutorial here.
2nd) Extract the game into a directory, eg: c:\games\dos\nfl
3rd) copy the content of the 84 OR 89 folder into the game dir. (All files of one directory need to be copied, the 84 and 89 folder are in the nfl folder)
4th) start dosbox
5th) mount a drive like this:
mount d: c:\games\dos\nfl
(You should replace c:\games\dos\nfl with the directory you installed nfl to)
6th) change to drive d: (in DOSbox)
7th) start nfl (promt NFL and press enter)
8th) The game starts. Choose Drive d:, PC System and color option 5
(If the gamne doesn't ask for these three points, reinstall the game) |
