FanPost

Remember Super High Impact?



(This game blatantly rips off your team Dolphins fans).

Ever have a relative that hoots and hollers and throws a bowl of peas in the air at dinner and proceeds to slice the bowl in half with a giant steak knife? No? Well that is basically what Super High Impact Football was when sitting at the dinner table next to other football video games of it's time.

Super High Impact was the sequel to Midway's first ever venture into the world of Arcade football games, High Impact Football which came out in 1991 in arcades. Acclaim ported the sequel to the Sega Genesis and SNES in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

If you remember playing either game you'll recall how wacky this game truly was. I had known about it's existence since I was about 13 years old and played it for the first time via a SNES emulator site when I was about 16 and had a laugh at how wild it was.

Much like Arch Rivals spawned in a way NBA Jam, High Impact and Super High Impact have a hand in the birthing of NFL Blitz.

So anyway...I figured why don't I break down out nuts this game truly was by analyzing a game video that I found on YouTube which shows the first Quarter of action and a little bit of the 2nd.

(0:01) A board flashing by rapidly with words like "WOW" "SMASHING" and.....wait why In the word are Varoom and Taxi in this? Did Midway just figure any word in all caps can be scary and intimidating?

(0:12) Insert Initials? No thanks you stalker.

(0:16) How can you tell this game was made in the early 90s? LA is a playable team. Also yes you are seeing it correctly, Africa and Europe are playable teams but for some reason Team Canada was cut out of the sequel. A great injustice that should have caused every Canadian to sue the US government, or kick US cars out of the country. *Glares at random 1995 Ford Focus*. By this you can probably tell that I'm from the Great White North.

Alright the person playing picked Las Vegas and Miami and like many of it's peers the teams and rosters are unlicensed and it's just a bunch of random polygons running around beating the crap out of each other on the turf. The one funny thing like almost all unlicensed games? The uniforms are as close as possible to the NFL ones without being them. You'll see what I mean with Miami soon.

(0:57) Game time! Vegas has the ball first and the QB is hit so hard he does a front flip! In today's world the linebacker that hit him would be looking at a 55 game suspension and a 3 trillion dollar fine for that. Also Miami is wearing teal jerseys, and a white helmet with no logo and that equals=no NFL Lawsuit!

(1:23) After sucking for another play, Vegas is faced with 3rd and 18 and inside their own 10 yard line, their QB chucks one deep and finds his Receiver who gets punched and flips forward for more yards! My question. Why in the world is the defensive back celebrating? Like dude, you gave him more yards on the play!!!

(1:38) Punchy McPunch's dumb play ends up resulting in a Vegas TD, generic music and a random #66 player clearly wearing a jersey that is meant to replicate the New York Jets jersey appears on screen and begins to flex......I don't know why he's there randomly flexing like he's on Muscle Beach in California and hoping no one sees the fact that he's missing a neck but it's just weird. Let's call him Sir FlexALot.

Side Note: You may have also noticed in this game that whenever a team scores the opposing defense jumps up and down like they just let Road Runner get away from them due to the fact that the it blew up in their faces. Since this is the 90s and everyone liked playing on Astroturf then I will assume that doing that caused all of their virtual knees to explode in a cloud of muscle and corn flakes. RIP virtual knees.

(5:18) Vegas has the early lead up 14-7, driving down field again after a nice catch and MERCY ME DID THE VEGAS WR JUST GET CURB STOMPED?!

(5:19) Violence must always have red lettering or be shown with a red background.

(5:22) So now we have a complete brawl on our hands and HOLY CRAP SOMEONE HAD THEIR NECK BROKEN!! Ummmmmmmm.........This is awkward. Also kudos to the cheerleaders for not being phased by mayhem going on around them. If Sportscenter/SportsCentre/SportsDesk did Top 10 lists back in the early 90s they would have been on it.

(5:27) Vegas wins the brawl after their meter had been filled first. If you were playing this game you had to button mash as fast as you could to fill the meter. As you probably noticed early button mashing was also needed for field goals. I wonder how many hands were broken from the need to always slam on the controller multiple times in a game?

(5:31) Is that Jesse Ventura screaming "somebody get a body bag?" Oh pre ESRB games you crack me up.

(5:43) So the 1st Quarter comes to and an end and the fans are standing up in unison saying "HEY" in tune with Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Part 2. Quite a few of the fans are shirtless. Lovely.

(7:34-7:45) Oh for pete sake, what's with Miami and causing fights? After the Vegas QB gets a first down on a draw play he gets punched in the chest twice by a the linebacker who must think he's football's version of Jean Claude Van Damme. It's also a tie game!!! I mean wait until you are down by at least 40 to get into another scrap.

(8:20) After getting 54 types of tar beaten out of him the Vegas signal caller comes back with a laser beam of a throw that finds the wide out, and then? He gets hit so hard all of his clothing flies off except for his underwear and undershirt.........The way everything flew off makes me think that the same animations were used for how limbs would fly off in Mortal Kombat. So thank Super High Impact for your ability to rip off Johnny Cage's head, kids!

(8:33) Play begins again after the most likely soiled pants of the WR have been picked up from the field and...c'mon really? Now the running back loses all of his uniform this time!

I do have some questions in regards to both plays.

1. Why did the Vegas player's helmet magically turn purple?? They were brown pre contact!

2. Undershirts with sleeves? It's a game between Miami and Vegas most likely in the summer so it 's 20,000 degrees outside. How the players haven't evaporated by now is beyond me.

Imagine if this type of game was around on modern consoles? Parents would be more outraged with this than any version of Grand Theft Auto!

Seriously though, it represented a simpler time when a game like this could survive in the sports gaming world before official licenses began to dominate things. Even though it rips off NFL teams like Oakland, Miami and the Jets it's still a ball to play, I encourage Dolphins fans to give it a try but then again if you live in Miami there's much better things to do like hang out down in South Beach in between games.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Phinsider's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of The Phinsider writers or editors.