The story of sports gaming is the story of football gaming. Ever since
the console and computer games industries got off the ground in the
later 1970s, developers have been trying to build a better football
title. No other sport was given the attention granted to the gridiron
game. Even baseball, the national pastime for nearly a century and an
apparent natural to be reenacted on a TV screen or computer monitor,
lacked the prestige of its younger brother
art of this was due to the way that the National Football League
surged in popularity at the same time as the video game era dawned.
Thanks to the efforts of commissioner Pete Rozelle and innovations like
ABC TV executive Roone Arledge's Monday Night Football, the NFL was
enjoying an unprecedented explosion in public support. So when the
Atari 2600/Video Computer System (VCS) and Mattel's Intellivision
brought video games to our living rooms in 1977 and 1979, respectively,
there was really only one sport that people wanted to play on them. The
idea that those little black boxes would be able to drag Sunday
afternoon and Monday evening through the rest of the week was a huge
selling point for the console systems.
Of course, reality didn't quite match expectations. Gameplay was
generally very crude, even by the lowered standards of the time. In
1978, Atari's Football for the 2600 employed three-man teams consisting
of players who looked like washing machines and a field that filled a
single screen. You could call plays on both sides of the ball, but only
basic ones that shifted receivers and backs from one side of the field
to the other. Intellivision's NFL Football arrived a little more than a
year later with more sophistication, boasting five-man squads with
players who had moving arms and legs and the ability to use elaborate
formations. There were serious drawbacks, however, most notably
molasses-slow animation and the complete absence of artificial
intelligence that made two players a necessity.
When the Commodore 64 became fashionable as a gaming machine in 1984,
football game development kicked into high gear. These early computer
football efforts were generally more complex than their console
cousins, even simplistic fare like Gamestar's On-Field Football. Some
could still be categorized as rather advanced simulations. 4th and
Inches from Accolade was published in 1987, yet it remains playable
today as an arcade experience with a little bit of depth. Design
evolutions, along with advancements in technology and programming skill
(a lot more could be jammed into an Atari 2600 cartridge in 1984 than
in 1980), were increasingly seen through the end of the decade on both
consoles and computer systems. Tecmo released Tecmo Bowl for the
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1988, kicking off a sensation
that lingers to this day. The smart, fun gameplay spawned a sequel,
Tecmo Super Bowl, that is now 10 years old but is still being played in
online leagues. A pinnacle was reached in 1989 with Cinemaware's TV
Sports Football. It was jammed with more features than any of its
predecessors. Full season play, coaching mode, and playbooks that
varied from team to team made it the template for everyone else to
copy.
Good or bad, football games were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Even
though they were simplistic in comparison with the real thing, football
titles asked more of the gamer than those depicting the other big three
North American sports. Being required to outwit your opponent as well
as outplay him provided football gaming with an added strategic element
that couldn't be matched by baseball, basketball, or hockey.
Playcalling may have been rudimentary, but it was still there, and it
gave players an extra dimension that was more interesting than the
simplistic arcade challenge of hitting a ball, sinking a basket, or
scoring a goal. It may be strange to think of a small playbook and
stick-figure players as being representative of any great depth, but
they seemed almost unbelievably refined in comparison with their
rivals.
Over the following pages, we look back at those early days, tracing the
evolution of football as console video game and computer simulation.
This piece concentrates on the major football titles of the past,
although reference can be found to lesser-known works. For example, all
of the football games produced for the Atari 2600 can be found under
the main heading of Atari's original Football. Regardless of status,
most of the games themselves are now no more than nostalgia pieces.
Some can still be entertaining diversions--something that was proven
during the extensive research that went into this article--and all
serve to show how far we have come since 1978. Those too young to have
experienced these games firsthand would do well to read on before they
complain too much about comparatively minor problems with today's
games.
