GBA Championship Football Download (1987 Sports Game)

This must be one of the earliest team sport games to use a first-person view - the packaging mocks the Xs and Os used to represent players in contemporary Gridiron games. What you see is what the player sees - control and viewpoint passes from the kicker to the receiver on a punt or kickoff, and the quarterback to the running back or receiver on a pass or kick. Releasing passes involves rotating the controls to select the pass direction. To take the ball, aim the visible hands in the centre of the screen.

There are 28 teams split into four divisions; their names are fictional (including the Seagulls, Mustangs and Geronimos), and each is rated out of 3 on 8 areas of skill. Matches last for 4 quarters of either 4 or 7 minutes' in-play time. Menus to select plays or teams involve using diagonal movements for selection.

Standard Gridiron rules apply - gain 10 yards in 4 attempts (downs) without fumbling or having a pass intercepted; kick a punt or field goal if you are about to fail at this.

One of the earliest games by Dynamix programmers, GBA Championship Football is a solid text-based simulation of the gridiron sport. The goal is simple: pick a team from NFL's four geographic divisions and lead it to win over the opposing side, whether human or computer-controlled. The game's playbook is quite comprehensive for its age, and the strategy does affect the outcome of the game. Too bad there is no tournament or championship mode despite the game's title, making it good only as a quick beer-and-pretzel football fix instead of a comprehensive simulation. In all, a respectable effort for the time, although falls short of rivalling XOR's NFL Challenge, a much deeper and more sophisticated contemporary football simulation.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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