Unstoppable.

That’s the only word that can even remotely come close to describing “Tecmo Bo”, a sports video game athlete so dominant, so simultaneously loved and feared by 8-bit pigskinners worldwide, that his name has become forever entangled with the game – -  both on the digital gridiron and in real life. Sports commentators often recycle the phrase “you can stop him, you can only hope to contain him” when referring to an elite athlete, but a “contained” Tecmo Bo will still break off 200 yards on you. In the first quarter.

The real life Bo Jackson, in a short but stellar NFL career that spanned 38 games, was one of the most explosive running back to ever step onto the field. He wasn’t just a back, he was a monster back with speed, quickness, and strength derived from a body that looked like it was birthed by Rosie the Riveter and fathered by a Sherman Tank. Despite his seemingly super-human abilities, Bo’s legend was cut short (or, perhaps created) by a freak hip injury. But in his brief time in the league Bo left a tremendous impact on the game.

Tecmo Bo, to get back on track, was not only as good as the real life Jackson, but even better. Why would Tecmo’s programmers make Bo a god-level videogame athlete? I suspect lots and lots of sake.

The majority of sports titles on the market today are programmed by North American companies, which makes sense as the USA and Canada are the twin Meccas of the baseball, football, and hockey worlds – but this wasn’t always the case.

Back in the 8-bit era, sports titles were often the products of Japanese companies like Jaleco and Tecmo. A classic like Baseball Stars being the handiwork of SNK’s Japanese geniuses made absolute sense as baseball is a hugely popular sport in the land of the rising sun. But football? How many Japanese know a fullback from a running back? Or even know what a back is?

Chances are very few, I reckon, but that didn’t stop some bigwig in the halls of the Tecmo corporate offices from greenlighting a project that the majority of the Japanese wouldn’t care about. And when I say the Tecmo corporate offices, I mean a strip club with dancers dressed like Sailor Moon. And when I say greenlighted, I mean giving the thumbs up while taking shots of the happy juice from between a hooker’s rack. So in a mad quest to rake in some heavy American coin, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Bo Jackson’s otherworldly abilities, were born. At least that’s how it plays out in my mind.

Tecmo Bo is, by far, the fastest player in game–only Barry Sanders comes close. How many times have we (or someone we hated) picked the Oakland Raiders, selected the infamous Down + B play and proceed to score what was essentially a gimme touchdown? You could have Bo run the ball backwards to your own endzone and then proceed to juke and your way through every defender to an easy seven.

Bo was the catalyst for many childhood brawls that I had with my Tecmo Super Bowl compatriots. Sometimes it would be over who be blessed to play as The Chosen One or, in extreme cases, a heated debate would arise over whether or not he should be hard banned from a Tecmo Super Bowl session entirely. Of course, if someone was dead set on playing as Bo (and that someone was usually me), I would pull what my friends still call to this day the “Jay Schroeder Card.”

The Raiders are known for Bo (and to a lesser extent, Marcus Allen), but the team is equally famous (or is that infamous?) for having one of the single most atrocious QBs in the game: Jay Schroeder. In fact, Bo’s shocking degree of awesomeness is only surpassed by Jay Schroeder’s shocking degree of scrubbiness.

He’s a lock to toss at least two INTs per game, or hurl a pass about 20 feet off its mark, should you decide to even think about going even semi-deep. If I wanted Bo to get off over 50 guilty free rushes, I would blame it on that bum’s ineptitude; after Schroeder’s first tear-inducing act of folly, I’d be all “oh my god! Look at how bad he is!” and then proceed to feed the ball to Bo for the remainder of the game. It was fast, it was easy, and it was quite, quite dirty.

It’s fortunate that football has separate offensive and defensive squads, because if Tecmo Bo was allowed to double dip on both sides of the ball, this entire sports video game retrospective would’ve been written about him. Legend has it that Bo’s Tecmo superiority is so enduring that whenever the flesh-and-blood Jackson makes a public appearances there’s always one Tecmo nut on the scene that thanks him for the glorious 8-bit memories, or wants him to autograph a copy of the game.

Whether true or not, the fact that such a rumor exists demonstrates the impact that #34 had on an entire generation of sports gamers. Vincent Edward “Bo” Jackson and Tecmo, Inc., we salute and honor you for filling our childhoods with joy and wonderment.