50 Years of Video Games: Atari Football (Arcade)

In the world of video games, 1978 is defined by one major historical release: Space Invaders. However, I have previously covered the game on The Game Hoard, and while you can read that review if you want to see the real headliner of the year, it actually presented a rather interesting challenge. 1978 was not a year with many other major or memorable releases. Breakout received a sequel in the form of Super Breakout, the oft forgotten Odyssey² home console was released, and Namco released its first video game ever with Gee Bee but it didn’t really leave a mark. However, while big games were hard to come by, there was a new idea taking hold in arcade hardware, the trackball rising in popularity thanks to being part of a two-player sports title known either as Atari Football or simply Football.

The trackball, known by Atari as a Trak Ball for trademarking purposes, has a remarkably simple purpose in Atari Football: full range of two-dimensional movement. When you’re controlling your player on the field, you simply need to put your hand on the suspended sphere and brush its surface in the direction you want your player to move. While joysticks and other control methods can do things like diagonal movement, a trackball allowed for a full 360 degrees of possible movement in all directions, although it does come with some downsides. The movement speed of your player will be tied to how fast you can roll that ball in the direction you wish to travel, and in a game like football, both sides will be trying to roll that ball as quickly as possible to try and either escape the defense or reach the player holding the ball for a tackle. The moment things kick off in Atari Football there’s going to be a lot of wild rolling that can be fairly exhausting. The arrangement of the arcade cabinet itself as a table rather than a standing unit means it is easier to position yourself in a way conducive to this rapid rolling, but even on a simple play it can feel like you have to put a lot of elbow grease into moving your player around the screen.

On the grey and white football field of Atari Football the players are actually represented in a rather cute manner. Rather anything resembling actual human beings, the defensive players are all Xs while the players on offense are Os, this mimicking the way plays are illustrated in playbooks. 7 players will line up on each side, and while there are no kickoffs or field goal options in Atari Football, players are able to select a play for each down. Since players will be swapping between defense and offense based on whether or not a team can at least make a profit of ten yards up the field in four plays, the arcade cabinet has the plays for defense and offense arranged in a box to the side of the controls. These plays are divided with the names Sweep, Keeper, Bomb, and Down and Out, and while your selection will change how your players are arranged and what passing options are available to you, strategy certainly doesn’t feel as important as your commitment to rolling the trackball.

This issue arises for a few reasons. First and foremost is how the game’s AI behaves. You and your opponent only control one player on the team, and while the offense will shift to the player receiving the ball if a pass is attempted, whoever isn’t in your control is handled by the game. The offense and defense players under the AI’s command often run into each other, and while the defenders do a good job holding the offense at bay, the linemen do have a problem actually catching human players. It’s surprisingly easy to weave between defenders when you have the ball or disengage from an offensive lineman trying to block you while you’re heading for the quarterback on defense. Weaving through the opposing team is something the AI players struggle to respond to, and there were times the offense players were able to completely block the defenders even when I sat my player in place, although usually they aren’t that incompetent so attempting it yourself will usually lead to you getting sacked. The game does at least try to prevent the offense from scoring over and over by giving a bit more inherent speed to defenders so they do have a chance of eventually catching you if you don’t vary your running line enough. This does mean that often times it will boil down to whether the ball carrier can avoid the opposing player’s single X, and that’s where much of the trackball rolling at high speeds comes into play.

Atari Football’s time limit for a game can be extended by putting in more quarters, but the races to the endzone are quick even in shorter games. The field isn’t too large and ground can be covered quickly, but another reason the game often comes down to the trackball spinning contest is the wildly varying potential of passing plays. You are only given one receiver option per play when on offense, and while the O that is intended as the receiver at least usually moves in a conspicuous enough way to keep track of them, unless the defense can block it you’ll often have a player so far out they’ll be uncontested going for the endzone. The opposing player or AI defense can prevent this of course and the risk of the pass being blocked actually makes it less reliable than just trying to run the field for the yards you need to maintain possession. It’s a mild gamble where the payout is often about the same as trying to loop around the sides of the defense, but the funny thing about how efficient the offense can be with successful passes or weaving around the other team is that games can often have both sides getting points regularly. Stalling tactics are fairly effective though since the AI isn’t smart enough to overcome them sometimes, but it will usually be a contest of you and the other player on how long such a tactic can work and they can at least better respond to it.

Atari Football is definitely a stripped down version of the sport and it almost seems like much of the enjoyment is meant to come from the control method, but using the trackballs at such high speeds to try and keep up with the opponent isn’t just exhausting, it can lead to soreness and even in some cases blisters by playing in the intended manner. There really isn’t enough strategy to the play to justify the risk of injury but the player who can spin the ball more quickly will be rewarded so it’s hard to reach a gentleman’s agreement to not risk your hands to try and win. Passes would become far too efficient if you do try to limit the players since the player on defense couldn’t make up the lost ground from a ball slipping through, so you have to essentially embrace the danger and go wild on the ball. You likely won’t have any true adverse effects from a short session, but it makes returning to Atari Football for a second round unappealing and even if the trackball wasn’t a factor the teammate AI still makes it feel more like a cat and mouse game between one competent player from each team that is still decided mostly by speed.

THE VERDICT: Atari Football was likely the game that popularized the trackball simply because spinning that sphere as quickly as you can feels like its only major appeal. It’s not something with much substance and it wears out both players pretty quickly trying to achieve and maintain that speed, but if you remove that element of playing the arcade game you get a very flimsy simulation of football. The game-controlled teammates can be both too competent or totally incompetent since they often busy themselves with handling each other instead of trying to go for the tackle, but this also undermines the point of picking a play since unless you’re going for a pass it’s easy to whip around the other players to face off with your human opponent. A few things like a small speed advantage on defense mean the offense has to work somewhat to score, but Atari Football often feels more like a quick game of chase rather than a true sport.

And so, I give Atari Football for arcade machines…

A BAD rating. The trackball is the star of the show and the cause of many of its problems as the focus on it seems to undermine the actual elements of the sport Atari Football is adapting. There’s a sort of primal thrill in letting loose and spinning the sphere as rapidly as you can and that transfers a little to the chase being a bit better than a foregone conclusion, but the trackball is so adept at letting you traverse the field it invalidates other features. Picking a play feels like it’s present mostly if one player is feeling cheeky and wants to attempt a pass, and with the AI teammates often too busy rubbing against each other to pose a threat or help the human, Atari Football sadly does feel like it’s closer to a game of tag than a ball sport. The fact the trackball can’t be used for extended periods without risk discourages continued play or longer games as well, but on the other hand the game’s limited substance means it’s not too appealing to go back to it unless you want to really test how quickly you can spin that trackball. An attempt to add a bit more depth would be made in 1979 with a four player version of Atari Football which added in the option to punt the ball if you were worried you wouldn’t hit first down and even go for field goals, but it’s not quite the big step needed to pull this game away from a laser focus on the running game.

The novelty of the trackball and that arcade thrill of engaging with an odd sort of controller is likely why Atari Football was popular enough to help the trackball take off. However, it’s not too big a surprise that its era of prominence in gaming was a short one. Games like Missile Command would at least see its used for precision instead of the almost bestial way you’re meant to interact with the ball in Atari Football, but unless the idea was suited for the device then its presence would come with a price. Atari Football isn’t totally empty without its trackball but it’s still missing the things that make its adapted sport interesting. In fact, if it was two players spinning spheres in a pure game of chase then maybe there would have been more interesting complications. Since your teammates are often more a midfield barrier than a major concern and the rules don’t add much to the experience, Atari Football ends up a weak attempt to capture the kinetic energy of the sport while forgetting the other factors that make football more than men just slamming into each other at high speeds.