# Most dominating player in video game history? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 9, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210 "2004-07-09T02:28:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/1 "2004-07-09T02:28:11Z")
My pick: Michael Vick in Madden 2004. The guy is Superman. ---
**Author:** ![xvxdarkknightxvx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/34f0e0/32.png) [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/2 "2004-07-09T02:31:01Z")
What? ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/3 "2004-07-09T02:31:30Z")
Bo Jackson, Tecmo Bowl. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/4 "2004-07-09T02:32:20Z")
I should have specified _sports_ video games. Who’s the most dominating player in _sports_ video game history? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/5 "2004-07-09T02:38:41Z")
> [@xvxdarkknightxvx](#): > > What? I’m asking what cgi character from sports video games kicks the most ass. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/6 "2004-07-09T02:48:30Z")
Mike Vick? No chance. It’s gotta be Tecmo Bowl Bo. Mike Vick is definitely the most dominant Madden video game player since Randall Cunningham, but come on, you can stack the line against him. You couldn’t stop Bo. And it wasn’t a matter of not being able to catch him, you just couldn’t tackle him. It was impossible. Tecmo Bo would break every tackle and just run into the end zone. ---
**Author:** ![xvxdarkknightxvx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/34f0e0/32.png) [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/7 "2004-07-09T02:58:32Z")
In earlier NBA games, wasn’t Jordon not allowed to be included for fear of absolute ownage? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/8 "2004-07-09T07:45:44Z")
Pah. Carl Pickens in _Madden '93_. Impossible to stop on kick returns. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/9 "2004-07-09T08:29:35Z")
Please. Bo Jackson from Tecmo Bowl, hands down. Dude was basically a cheat code. I’ve been working on videogames, had access to the code and all the debugging tools, and had a harder time getting them to do what I want than with Tecmo Bowl and Bo Jackson. I mean come on, even _ **I** _ could consistently win Tecmo Bowl if I had Bo Jackson on my team. Me. Gay guy, doesn’t play any sports, doesn’t know anything about sports. Could win every time. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/10 "2004-07-09T09:47:30Z")
> [@xvxdarkknightxvx](#): > > In earlier NBA games, wasn’t Jordon not allowed to be included for fear of absolute ownage? To be able to use the names of most individual players, a video game company usually has to get a license from the players association. To use team names and logos, they need a liscence from the league. Thus, you sometimes get a football game that has all of the teams and logos, but pseudonyms for the players. I remember one football game that had the actual player names, but the teams were just city names and had altered logos and colors. Certain superstars have licensing contracts separate from the league’s player association. Jordan was one of these. To have him in your game, you had to get a license directly from his representatives. Jordan apparently preferred to have his name on the game if he was going to be in it, thus you’re unlikely to find him in any game not named for him. ---
**Author:** ![cmason32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@cmason32](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmason32)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/11 "2004-07-09T10:08:31Z")
[http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/030821.html](http://espn.go.com/page2/s/simmons/030821.html) > [@](#): > > Back in Bo’s day, video games were much more primitive. The original Tecmo Bowl featured only four plays per team, and on a loaded '89 Raiders team, Bo had only one run play to himself. It was like limiting Will Ferrell to one SNL skit per week. No matter. You couldn’t come close to stopping him. When Tecmo Super Bowl was released in 1991, we could play whole seasons and keep stats, which pushed Bo’s magic to the next level. I knew a guy in college who cracked 1,000 yards with him … in one game. > > When I mentioned Video Bo’s brilliance last year on [ESPN.com](http://ESPN.com), the e-mails poured in, with everyone writing in reverential tones, as if he were a real person. One reader remembered his buddy ripping off an 85-yard game-winning run, saying he was “helpless as Bo shed about 874 tackles at once and strolled into the end zone … it took me a long time to get over that one.” Another reader wrote, “When I tell my kids about the greatest athletes of my generation, Bo Jackson will be on that list, in large part because of my memories of Tecmo Bo.” > > Bo Jackson was practically unstoppable in Tecmo Bowl. > > Everyone has the same highlights: running Bo backward to his own goal line, then turning him around so he could plow through everyone for a 99-yard jaunt. Or watching Bo bust TDs even if the defense called his play (no one else could do that). Or seeing Bo carry defenders like a knapsack for 20, 30 yards. Video Bo was larger than life. I’ve heard that when Bo speaks at colleges, someone always brings up the video game thing, and Bo will laugh and admit that “No matter where I go, somebody always mentions it.” > > It’s weird how it all turned out. In four seasons, Bo played just 38 games before that freak hip injury ended his career. He never broke 1,000 yards in a season. Other than a few outrageous runs and the time he pancaked Brian Bosworth on Monday Night Football, there wasn’t much substance to Bo’s time with the Raiders. Just as we wonder about the careers of Gabe Kaplan and the woman who played Lacey Underall, we’ll always wonder why things didn’t turn out differently. If anything, Video Bo was more memorable than the real thing, the most unstoppable virtual football force of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/12 "2004-07-09T10:44:00Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > My pick: > > Michael Vick in Madden 2004. The guy is Superman. William “Refridgerator” Perry in just about every Madden I’ve ever played. You just can’t stop him. Marc ---
**Author:** ![middleman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/13 "2004-07-09T14:06:31Z")
Emmitt Smith from Madden 94 was virtually unstoppable. ---
**Author:** ![Anonymous\_Coward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/94ad74/32.png) [@Anonymous\_Coward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anonymous_Coward)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/14 "2004-07-09T14:36:00Z")
Mike Tyson. You had to be a god to score a star off that dude. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/15 "2004-07-09T15:16:42Z")
The right side paddle in the original _Pong_. The guy was a wall! ---
**Author:** ![down\_by\_law](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@down\_by\_law](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/down_by_law)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/16 "2004-07-09T15:38:44Z")
the game: nba live 95 on sega genesis, the best basketball game ever. the player: keith askins, backup forward for the miami heat. this guy, buried deep in the heat lineup, could hit ridiculous shots…he could drive and dunk on people…he was quick and could handle the rock. truly an all-around superstar. we had a sneaking suspicion that he was sort of the stand in for the omitted micheal jordan. we had a rule that no one could use the guy, because he was an automatic 50 points. but that game had its share of unstoppable guys. there was a group of about 5 of us that played, and we all used the same teams every time. one guy had golden state, and latrell sprewell averaged about 80 points a game. another guy had the pistons and grant hill put up obscene stats. one guy chose the sonics and used an aging detlef schrempf (!) to dominate. myself, i chose the hometown pacers, and used reggie to hit about 19 or 20 threes a game. that’s a realistic basketball sim, people! ---
**Author:** ![Mullinator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@Mullinator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mullinator)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/17 "2004-07-09T17:14:20Z")
I think it’s safe to say that if you played Tecmo Bo, you know Tecmo Bo is the answer to the OP. As for more obscure dominant players, I put forth: 1. Vincent Damphousse - NHL 93 on the Sega Genesis. Take any team you want. Vincent had the ability to start his shot to the left of the net, glide past a sprawled goalie, and put the puck in the upper right. Every time. I must have scored 20 goals a game with him. 2. 2nd pitcher from the bottom, Chicago Cubs - Major League Baseball on Nintendo 8 bit. The best video game pitcher ever. Bar none, you just have to know it to use him because his stats suck. Not sure who remembers this game, but the basic idea was that as a pitcher threw more pitchers, he lost speed and would get hit a lot more. Not this guy. His brilliance didn’t appear until he was tired, which means most people don’t wait for it to happen. Once his fastball went away (which takes at most 1 inning), his slow curve took over. It was so ridiculous, that you could pipe one right down the middle. As soon as the batter started swinging, you could move the ball out of the way. Just completely unhittable. I had countless 27 strikeout games and no-hitters. I would make ridiculous bets ($50 says I can keep you from touching the ball the whole game) and win every time because this guy was essentially God on the mound. 3. Big fat guy - Ice Hockey, Nintendo 8 bit. Sure they were slow, but get a team of 4 of these guys and you couldn’t lose. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/18 "2004-07-09T18:29:49Z")
Baseball on the old NES system. Oral Herscheiser threw untiring fastballs like nobody’s business. Curve it to the outside corner and they were unhittable. Bonus fun points because his 4-character name of ORAL was a source of endless pre-teen snickering. Barry Sanders on the Madden Football for the Sega. Not Bo Jackson ridiculous, but could spin through tackles endlessly and was ridiculously fast. Guaranteed play every time was sweep to one side, reverse direction and out run every defender and waltz into the endzone. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/19 "2004-07-09T18:37:51Z")
**The Big Boss Man** from the arcade game **WWF Superstars**. The way that game worked, if you did a “power move”, the victim would get up and be stunned for a few seconds, which meant that when you next grappled them, you would start out with the advantage. But if you had used too much of your energy (there was clearly a hidden “energy” stat to go along with the health stat that you could see), they would be able to overpower you instead. However, when the Big Boss Man grabbed a stunned opponent, instead of grappling, he would throw them against the ropes. At which point, if they were reduced enough in health, you could do his power slam move, which stunned them again. The upshot of which was that once you had reduced someone to a certain level of health, the BBM suddenly, automatically and unbreakably could reduce them all the way to zero life. Besides, the power slam was perhaps the most fun video game move ever. SO satisfying. ---
**Author:** ![DKW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dkw/32/3118_2.png) [@DKW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DKW)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2004, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210/20 "2004-07-09T19:58:04Z")
Yeah, that Boss Man Slam was something else. A throw that not only did three bars of damage but never failed. I’ve seen countless players rip it over and over until the opponent was a useless lump of meat (most of them just picked up the chump instead of waiting for him to get up). The only problem with it was…well, you couldn’t use it until your opponnet was already beat up a bit, plenty of time for the Boss to get clocked himself. Anyway, I’m nominating **Andre the Giant**. That guy was _death_ in that game. He was so incredibly dominant, he even overshadowed his partner, Ted Dibiase (who had about 20 high-damage moves). Strikes that take off a whole bar, cannot be 3-bar thrown by anyone, even simple body slams don’t work sometimes, a _no-risk_ submission move that can easly drain five bars or more, a 2-bar buttsplash that takes about a third of a second…can you say “monster heel”? Other names: **Mr. Sandman** , Mike Tyson’s Punch-out!!: The one opponent arguably even tougher than Iron Mike. He had it all, speed, toughness, power, recovery, unpredictability. Oh yeah, and that three-uppercut special where if you were a _hair_ off with any of your dodges, you were taking at least 30% damage. **King** and **Queen** , Virtua Tennis 2/Sega Sports Tennis: I go into gut-wrenching detail about this duo in my GameFAQs writeup. Take Michael Chang’s quickness, Mark Philippoussis’ muscle, Andre Agassi’s precision, and Pete Sampras’ ironclad determination, add a court sense that borders on psychic, then _multiply it by about five_, and you have an idea of what these monsters are like. **Jack Nicklaus** , Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes: He fell off a bit afterward, but in his early licensed games, he could break 60 on _any_ course in the world _every time_. His short game, in particular, was just unbelievable. **Danny Sullivan** , Danny Sullivan’s Indy Heat: You know how they say that taking a big lead against Takumi Fujiwara is a mistake? Taking a big lead against Danny’s little yellow machine is _suicide_. I once stayed out of the pits on Michigan, and I swear he easily cracked 300 MPH when he exited. And he gets _better_ at this the further in the season you progress. The worst part is that none of the other computer cars is so blessed, which means that the rotten bastard never finishes behind any of them. I mean, c’mon, even “Ironman” Ivan Stewart lets his buddies take one now and then! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-dominating-player-in-video-game-history/254210.md?page=2)