Backyard Football "Punt, Pass and Kick with the NFL League"
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Backyard Football is the newest addition to the Junior Sports series developed by Humongous Entertainment. With all the action and excitement of the gridiron, Backyard Football not only features favorite Junior Sports kids running, throwing, catching and kicking just like the pros, it also brings real-life players to the field with the debut of NFL kids. The game includes junior versions of San Francisco 49er's Jerry Rice and Steve Young; Denver Bronco John Elway; Minnesota Viking Randall Cunningham; Miami Dolphin Dan Marino; New England Patriot Drew Bledsoe; Detroit Lion Barry Sanders and the Green Bay Packer's Brett Favre. The Windows version also features an exciting new network multi-player capability, which allows football fans, with a few simple clicks, to find and play a real-time, one-on-one game of Backyard Football against other kids across the country. Price: $19.99; available for PC and Macintosh. The Humongous Entertainment Web site is a great place for both parents and kids to visit. There is all sorts of information, games and such. http://www.humongous.com Other Junior Sports software includes: Backyard Baseball and Backyard Soccer. The Junior Sports Network is located on the World Wide Web at: http://www.jrsn.com
Backyard Baseball is part of the Junior Sports series designed for 5 to 10 year-old boys and girls. The series provides all the action and excitement of adult sports games, while easy-to-use controls allow even the littlest athletes to compete in the best of the Backyard Leagues. I have found that most of the software from Humongous is usually appropriate for a wider age range than specified. They are intuitive enough for younger children, with some help from older siblings or parents, and exciting enough for some older children.
Players can choose from all 31 NFL team names and logos. Kid versions of some of the NFL's top players join the Backyard Bunch. Custom NFL trading cards created by Pacific Trading Cards. Five-on-Five football with instant replay and wild touchdown dances. Guide your team through a 14-game season and to the Super Colossal Cereal Bowl. Simple point-and-click controls. Multi-player head-to-head capability using your keyboard or a gamepad. Junior Sports Network compatibility allows one-on-one, real-time games on Windows based systems. Create your own Backyard Kid with the "Create-A-Player." Track game, season and lifetime statistics.
Installation: There is almost nothing to the installation. Just a few support files are installed on your hard drive. This is convenient for individuals with limited hard drive space. Manual and Help: There is a CD cover/guide that provides some basic information and there is also a thorough Help file. Interface: The interface is colorful and intuitive. Kids get to play in all kinds of weather: snow and rain. The characters are well drawn. Controls: Backyard Football has a variety of options that can be set or modified depending on a child's needs or preferences. For instance the game play talk, sideline talk, music, and player's bantering can be turned on or off. There are also three difficulty levels: easy, medium or hard to choose from. Gamepad controls can be changed. The Clubhouse: As the game begins, the Backyard Football kids display some of their fancy football hijinks. After their show, kids will find themselves in the Clubhouse. As they move the cursor around the screen, they will see highlighted areas which will take them to different parts of the game. They can visit the following locations: The Hall of Fame--Kids will find all the trophies displayed. There are three trophies: Super Colossal Cereal Bowl; Backyard Conference Championship; and Parks Division Champions Trophy. Single Game Window--Kids can choose a game, create a team and select weather conditions and a playing field. Season Play--This is where they can play against different league teams. Kids just sign in as a coach, select a team name and colors, and draft players. They can choose players from the 38 Backyard and NFL Kids on the neighborhood bench. Team Bench--Then they can head over to the Team Bench where they can choose their strategy, find a season schedule, view the team trophy case and access team statistics.
This is a fun game. Whether a child is already a sports fan or just learning about sports, this program is a must.
PC: Windows 98/95 Pentium 90 16MB of RAM 4X CD ROM Macintosh: 133Mhz PowerPC System 7.5.3 32 MB of RAM 4X CD ROM
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