This year marks the 20-year anniversary of the release of Backyard Football 2006, and this past Christmas marked 19 years since it became my first-ever Backyard Sports video game. It’s the CD version of the game designed for Windows, and I would later buy the same version for PlayStation 2, along with other editions of the game for PS2.
To this day, Backyard Football 2006, featuring 14 NFL pros such as Tom Brady and Peyton Manning as kids, remains one of my go-to games. The classic, developed by Humongous Entertainment, was the series' second 3D Football game and the final installment to be developed by Humongous.
For many years, PlayStation 2 was the best option when it came to multiplayer. While the computer version is also technically designed for multiplayer, local multiplayer on a console is generally more convenient than huddling around a laptop or a regular-sized monitor.
How to play Backyard Football online
But nearly two decades after opening up Backyard Football 2006 on Christmas morning, we managed to turn the CD game into an online multiplayer game, even with no explicit online multiplayer feature included in the 2005 release.
By using Unity Technologies' Parsec software, you can allow a friend to remote into your computer as player No. 2 and play the game as if you were both in the same room.
All you need to do is download the app, share your screen, and enable your friend’s controller usage. Just make sure to test both controllers on Gamepad Tester first, because the game will only register your controller if you've pressed a couple of buttons before launching it.
From there, simply launch the game and start playing.
It is even better when run with DxWnd, which runs the game in its own window and actually allows you to click away from it without totally closing out of the game (if, for instance, you want to record or stream the gameplay with OBS Studio).
Parsec can pretty much be used to remotely play any computer game that is designed for local multiplayer. It isn’t what you’d consider traditional online gaming, but it still allows you to connect with friends from hundreds if not thousands of miles away on games not specifically designed with such gameplay in mind.
And depending on what Playground Productions have in store for their recent Backyard Sports revival, which has thus far featured a few single-player re-releases on Steam, perhaps it could serve as a nice segue into the future of online Backyard gaming.