Nintendo’s recent release of the NES Classic has sparked a renewed interest in nostalgic video games.

My memory was also jogged in the past few months when a Kia commercial featuring Bo Jackson and a Tecmo Bowl highlight came on my television.I’m 35 and for someone growing up in my era, few sports games lived up to the hype like Tecmo Bowl did.Never mind the fact the original version only had 12 teams, nine players on a side and four different plays.Before I bought it, I would send my dad down to rent that game, and later Tecmo Super Bowl, from a young Jaime Mendes at Terry’s Music Explosion in Palmerton.Even back then, Jaime was a smooth salesman.As good as the game was, the early days were frustrating as a Giants fan because Phil McConkey was about the slowest kick returner you could have. In the later version, when David Meggett came along, it was a real breath of fresh air.Tecmo Super Bowl was released in 1991 and featured all the teams in the league, and even though you were stuck with the 1991 schedule over and over again, it was amazing. In that version, you could also go to the playoffs and there was a Super Bowl. The cut scenes for touchdowns or injuries put it at the head of its class. Best of all, the playbook doubled and you got eight plays from which to pick.Fast forward to my college days, and that video game created one of the biggest controversies of my four-year educational career at Elizabethtown College.I’m not even sure how we got a version of the game that worked in a post-2000 society, but a group of friends each picked a team and we started a Tecmo league.Here is the thing you need to know about the game; when you’re playing the computer, your team is going left to right on the television screen.When two players are playing, however, one of them obviously has to go right to left.One of my friends was nearly unbeatable at Tecmo Bowl. He ran through the league undefeated and rolled up to the Super Bowl without having been challenged.His luck ran out when he lost a coin toss and had to be “Player 2,” meaning he would be the one going right to left on the screen. It is comparable to trying to throw or write with your nondominant hand when you would hardly ever have reason to do so otherwise.To this day, he blames it on the fact that he had to go right to left.On Monday, he shared a post from the Tecmo Super Bowl Facebook page with the comment, “I’m still bitter about Player 2. 16 years later.”I think this is one that may haunt him forever.Long live Tecmo Bowl, and to all the people who have ever had to be Player 2, you are not alone.