In our simulated Super Bowl, Tom Brady slam-dunked a bowling ball on a field covered with banana peels

It's nearly Super Bowl Sunday, but there's no need to wait for the big game between the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams. Thanks to realistic football games like Madden 19 on PC, you can simulate the Super Bowl thousands of times in advance in an attempt to predict the score. Unfortunately, I don't own Madden 19 and I can't remember my Origin password, so I used Super Slam Dunk Touchdown instead.

I'm confident this is still a realistic simulation despite Super Slam Dunk Touchdown's retro looks and the fact that players can score in a basketball hoop, soccer net, or through the uprights using anything from a hockey puck to a tennis ball. Also, my teams include not only football players but one baseball player and a roller derby player, and during the game—which took place on a turf-covered field with basketball foul lines and contained three halftime breaks—the marching band would regularly stream out onto the field during the game and players would run into them. Hey, it's happened before.

Unfortunately, I can't name the teams or the players, so I just assume the blue team is the Patriots and the blue football man with the ball is Tom Brady, while the red team is the Rams (despite them not wearing red in real life). One minor ding against this being a true, accurate simulation is I'm playing on the Rams, controlling whichever player currently has the ball (or puck). Apart from that, however, I'm confident this is a sound simulation you can bet on for accuracy.

The Super Bowl gets underway, with the Patriots quickly scoring four points by throwing the football into the net past the Rams goalie, which is a very realistic football thing to happen. Play switches to using a bowling ball instead of a football, as fans begin to fling banana peels onto the turf, causing players to slip and fall. As the marching band appears on the field, a massive brawl between the Patriots and Rams erupts, and a streaker (one of several) runs off with the bowling ball. Keep this in mind while you're placing bets this Sunday: streaker runs off with the bowling ball in the first quarter. It's a winner.

The Rams score when the baseball player hits the bowling ball into the net, and we go to the first of three halftimes with the score tied at four. After the break, the Patriots take the lead again when the roller derby player throws a hockey puck into the net for another four points. Classic football.

The Rams score again when their baseball player (me), after missing one shot on goal, gets the basketball back and cracks it through the hoop with his bat for three more points. He celebrates in a vulgar fashion by running in place and pumping his arms, just like real football players do. It's 8-7 Patriots at the second halftime. It's a close game and a very realistic football score!

In the third quarter, however, the Patriots begin to run away with the game. Brady kicks the soccer ball they're now using into the net for four more points, then throws a hockey puck through the uprights for two more. The Rams throw a bowling ball into the net, making it 14-11, but it's the last time they'll score. Brady kicks a tennis ball through the uprights, then does the same with the hockey puck again, then repeats it with the tennis ball a second time. He's unstoppable. It's 20-11 going into the final halftime break.

As the clock ticks down, Brady kicks a bowling ball in for a score, showing his foot is very strong and durable indeed. In a field now littered with banana peels, hats, a broken stadium light, and multiple streakers, the roller derby player dunks the soccer ball for another score, and Brady follows up with his own dunk, this time of a bowling ball, and even kicks the bowling ball through the basketball hoop for another score. He's just showing off at this point.

Maybe it's the marching band or the constant brawls or the fact that they're just not used to encountering quite so many banana peels on the playing field, but the Rams offense and defense are helpless in the final quarter.

The final score of Super Bowl LIII: Patriots 44, Rams 11. It may seem unlikely, and it's Scorigami, but computer simulations are never wrong and I stand by this result. The streakers, despite possessing the ball several times, did not manage to score.

Christopher Livingston
Staff Writer

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.