223. Rollerball (HAL Laboratory, Famicom, 1988)

Upon starting Rollerball, I was immediately put in the mood to have a good time. After taking in the  pretty neon cityscape at dusk and peppy 8-bit title screen music, I noticed a ticker at the bottom of the screen  that had the following text scrolling by "MAKE YOU FEEL EXCITED AND AMUSED WITH THIS SUPER REAL PINBALL GAME". I was a little disappointed to learn that Rollerball is *just* a pinball game, but hopeful that the HAL Laboratory copyright on the title screen would translate to an interesting game. Originally released in 1984 on the MSX, Rollerball was ported to the Famicom 4 years later, and eventually released on American and European NES systems a couple years later.

And Rollerball thankfully did turn out interesting, even if it isn't more than a pinball game, it's probably the best pinball game on the NES/Famicom, though I'll have to do a bit more research before I make a statement that conclusive. What Rollerball does offer is a giant multi-featured pinball machine. While most Famicom pinball games that I have tried confine the action to 2 screens stacked on top of each other, Rollerball goes one step further and includes a third screen in its skyscraper-themed table, which in addition to having more features means that it's about 1.5 times as difficult to lose a ball, which I appreciate. There is even a 4th bonus screen above the others, but it requires some serious luck with the slot machine to activate.

I think most people like myself who play video games but aren't particularly interested in pinball consider Windows Space Cadet Pinball to be the most widely known video game pinball table, so I feel the need to reference it here. Rollerball feels like an earlier version of Space Cadet, and I think the real deciding factor there is interactivity. Like Space Cadet, Rollerball features a ton of different scoring mechanism, some of which rely on player interaction (like using the flippers to change the lights above a series of holes so that the ball will light up a certain hole) and some that don't (like a slot machine you can spin but not stop). The table features lots of holes that redirect your ball in interesting ways, and give me flashbacks to Space Cadet's black hole, another feature that is easier to implement on a virtual machine than a real one.

Rollerball also sports a cool versus mode that has both players playing on the same single screen. Each player starts with a certain number of points, and every interaction with the elements on the field or drooping the ball lowers your score, and the first player to reach zero points is the loser. While this would be a novel enough idea on its own, there is also a slot machine that triggers various detrimental effects from loss of points (boring) to loss of one of your flippers (debilitating and hilarious). There are also 4 buttons in the middle of the play field, and if they are all lit, the two players swap scores, which is even more (potentially) debilitating and hilarious.

4/5, a fully featured pinball simulator with a neat 2-player versus mode