NES Play Action Football

by Nintendo

Product Features

• Cartridge only.
• If Like New: in perfect or minor flaw condition
• If Good: has sticker(s), sticker residue, or minor problems
• If Acceptable has one or more flaws: has stickers, label torn, yellowing, black marker on it.

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004SVYG
• Item Weight: 8 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,904 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

***CARTRIDGE ONLY*** CARTRIDGE: 9.5..... PLEASE SEE THE CONDITION SCALE BELOW TO KNOW WHAT THE GAME IS LIKE IN MORE DETAIL

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Football Simulation for NES, May 30, 2010

By 

musicfan28if - See all my reviews

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: NES Play Action Football (Video Game)

Play Action Football offers a wide variety of plays for both offense and defense which provides an element of strategy not common among sports games. As the action takes place, you can see the lines develop for your running back. Ironically, a good offensive play to gain 5-20+ running yards up the middle is the "dive".

The passing game stays in remote view while you select a receiver and after selection, changes to close-up on the receiver. The passing controls are somewhat quirky because the receivers don't always move toward the target in the same direction as called in the play. For example, on the rollout pass, the receiver always has to run IN toward the middle to catch. The game does make you earn the catch though so it doesn't just smack your receiver in the chest every time. Also quirky is that the play can show 4 or 5 receivers but you have only three options on the direction pad.

But what Play Action delivers is the sense that you're really playing some football and most anything can happen. The 24 offensive plays versus 16 defensive plays provides for variance in running lanes and pass coverage from play to play. You can have a game where your receivers gain the yardage, another game where the running backs get the yardage and another game where everyone fumbles or intercepts. In contrast to Tecmo Bowl, which offers arcade fun, but seems somewhat scripted and unrealistically tilted toward offense (and uses short time clocks to make the scoring plausible), and relies too much on rock-papers-scissors play calls instead of field-of-play action. The Play Action soundtrack is also less grating than the Tecmo Bowl soundtrack. Another plus for Play Action is it has difficulty options for man vs. com and the AI can provide a decent challenge.

A few negatives for Play Action are 1)it has only the 8 teams that made the playoffs in the 1989 NFL season (sadly, there's no QB Eagles or Bo Jackson), 2)you annoyingly have to substitute players almost every play or they get hurt. The quarterback's energy is half-drained from just handing off the ball to a running back. Marino's backup gets plenty of playing time unlike in real life, 3)the punters and field goal kickers are worthless, for example, Roby can punt maybe 40 yards, and 4)the players look more like little crabs than football players.