Backyard Football (1999)

Backyard Football is a football video game released by Humongous Entertainment in 1999. The game was the third Humongous Sports game released by Humongous Entertainment, preceded by Backyard Soccer and Backyard Baseball. It is the first of all of the Backyard Sports series to consist of the Backyard kids and professional players as kids.

Gameplay
They're 3 types of gameplay available in Backyard football. The first one is a single game. A player picks the field they wish to play on, the weather type, those being sunny (the players run very fast on this terrain) rainy (the players run at a normal speed and the ball is very hard to throw) and snowy (players are slow). They then pick the difficuly between Easy, medium, or hard, and decide on weather they want the auto or manuel kick on. They then pick their team name, which is all of the current NFL teams, and 10 backyard teams. They then take turns picking players with the CPU. There are a total of 7 players on a team, two will sit out for a play, while 5 get to see action. The stats of a player for a single game have no effect on a players season stats.

The second type of gameplay is season mode. The player picks their home field, settings, and team before the season. They then are allowed to pick all seven of their players before the CPU can pick any for the rest of the league. They then guide their team through a 14 game season, and if they are to win their division or be picked as the wild card, the team has a chance to compete in the playoffs. 8 teams compete to make it to the finals for a chance to win the "Super Colossal Cerial Bowl."

The Third type of gameplay is online play. Backyard Football is the only game along with Backyard Baseball 2001 that offers online play with players across the globe. Online play is hosted through the Junior Sports Network, online play that is only available for Windows users, since the network system does not support macintosh. Since www.jrsn.com has been discontinued, no new coach names may be registered to play online. While doing online play, the player may make contact with another coach online. They may then chat with each other with only pre-written dialogue, since the network is not being monitored to make sure no innapropriate language is used. Like Backyard Baseball 2001, there are 3 modes of difficulty. Easy, Medium, and Hard. The harder the difficulty, the more likely the players out on the field are going to not make such magnificent plays to "bail the coach out".

Stats
The stats of a player are divided into 5 categories, each category offering a skill rating of 1 to 4, showing the players skill at a certain category.

Catching: Shows the players catching skills. A player with high catching skills is unlikely to drop an average pass, and will easily catch a lousy pass most of the time.

Throwing: Judges this players skills of the length they can throw the football, the accuracy of the pass, and the height of the ball.

Running: Shows the speed of the player, players with great speed have a better chance of being able to score a long rushing touchdown.

Blocking: Shows the players ability to block a rushing player, or how strong the player is at rushing and knocking down another blocker. A player with good blocking skills also will have a greater chance of forcing a fumble when tackling an opposing player.

Kicking: Shows either the players power when delivering a kick, or accuracy when attempting a field goal or PAT (point after Touchdown.)

Cheats
There are 2 cheats that are accountable for Backyard Football. The first one is to hear Pablo Sanchez (a Spanish-speaking player) speak in English. Like in Backyard Baseball, Soccer and Baseball 2001, a player must hold shift and enter and click on Pablo's portrait to hear him talk in English.

The other one is to have the player's team be the Tackling Dummies. The Tackling Dummies are a team of Mr. Clanky and his practice bots used by a player when they perform a practice mode. When entering a coach name, the player must enter the name in as "Mr. Clanky". After this, all of the league setup options and the team pickings are skipped, and the Tackling Dummies (a very solid team) are the player's team.

Pro Kids
There are 8 pro kids in Backyard Football. Here are their names and teams.
 * Randall Cunningham QB Minessota Vikings
 * Brett Favre QB Green Bay Packers
 * Dan Marino Miami QB Miami Dolphins
 * Barry Sanders RB Detroit Lions
 * Steve Young QB San Francisco 49ers
 * Drew Bledsoe QB New England Patriots
 * Jerry Rice WR San Francisco 49ers
 * John Elway QB Denver Broncos