Posted on May 15, 2006 at 1:27 PM in thoughts
Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.
On the second day of E3, my friend Chris sent me an e-mail reminding me to check out the "History of Gaming" section of the show. I had read about it earlier but it had completely slipped my mind. The first thing I thought of when I thought about classic arcade games was the one you see to the right, Tournament Cyberball 2072.
And as it turned out, I'm not alone in my obsession. Not only was Cyberball part of the exhibit, but when I got to the machine there were two other rabid Cyberball fans duking it out, including Associate Creative Director Charlie Short of Exopolis. I told Charlie I was just about ready to kiss the Cyberball machine when I saw it, and he looked at me a little funny but he understood. He said he'd heard about the exhibit two weeks ago, and the first thing that he wanted to know what whether or not there would be a Cyberball machine. They had Cyberball at the Brown University arcade down the street from where I grew up, and I spent many a high school sunday plunking in 8 tokens to take on all challengers. There's even an online league that grew up around it (which sadly appears to be down).
As Charlie and I explained to anyone unfortunate enough to be around while we played, the mechanics and gameplay of Cyberball still hold up after over 15 years. Explaining it to others while playing helped me think about what makes it such a great game. Here are a few of my thoughts:
- Robots Are Good For Football - Robots do what you tell them to do, so it makes great sense to employ them in a football game. They are great at disguising their intentions, and they are limited by their physical technology. So it's easy to see that a robot with a basket would be good at catching, a small robot with wheels and no hands would be good at running, etc. And the materials each robot was made of determined how adept it was. A titanium robot is faster than a steel robot. A magnesium robot is faster than a plastic robot. Pretty intuitive.
- No One Cries When Robots Explode - In Cyberball, successful plays "cool down" or "defuse" the ball. If you fail to convert or score with the ball in critical condition, it explodes, taking with it anything unfortunate enough to be holding it at the time. Human combustion might have been weird, but a robot exploding is just fun. And if one of your robot players explodes, his replacement is made of lesser materials, so it's in your interest not to let that happen. Trash-talking naturally flows from literally blowing up your opponent.
- Surprisingly Good AI(artificial intelligence) - Playing head-to-head against the computer is fairly easily mastered (I think I scored over 200 points on one particular sunday), but playing against a human opponent is a great challenge. Your robotic teammates do exactly what they are supposed to do, so much so that the only way to get better is to memorize tiny "tells" in the form of slight pattern variations. You have to study to get good at it. At the highest levels, it's sort of like counting cards in Blackjack.
- Simplicity - You control it with a joystick and one button. Other than moving the players around and selecting a player, you can hit the button for a single speed burst. That's it. It makes for a very strategic use of the speed burst. There are a small and manageable number of plays, but the possibility for infinite variations when you dare to go off script. There are only 8 teams to choose from with various strengths and weaknesses. It's a knowable world, and the human opponent adds the necessary unpredictability. It's a lot like chess.
In my last battle with Charlie at E3, it all came down to the last kickoff return. I burned him for a run the full length of the field, scored a touchdown, and clasped my hands above my own head in victory. Charlie was a worthy opponent.
Charlie works out the kinks before our battle
To me, playing Cyberball against a human opponent still holds up well, even compared to the experience of playing the latest Madden NFL games on today's consoles. When I've taken a look at the various versions made for different gaming platforms recently, none of them captured the magic of the arcade version. There was a rumor going around at E3 that there's a version in development for the Sony PSP, but until then to give the original a try, you'll have to find an arcade game emulator and a ROM of Cyberball.
I uploaded a few more photos from the History of Gaming exhibit here.
Comments
Truly one of the greatest football games of all time! That was perhaps the highlight of E3 for me, as lame as that might sound. It was indeed a blast playing head to head - I can't BELIEVE I let you score on the FINAL kick off!! I've been waking up screaming at night. One day we shall meet again on the cyberball field my friend!
Posted by Charlie Short | May 15, 2006 3:03 PM
I just want to post that I was part of the online Cyberball League and there are still some people who play this game online. Me and a group of friends still play this game every Tuesday night from 6:30pm to 11pm at my house as I have an original cab and a converted cab. We have been playing once a week at my house every week since the death of the arcade scene. If anyone ever saw us play this game or videotaped it they would understand why it is the greatest video game ever and why 30yr old men continue to play a 1989 game in the year 2006. If anyone thinks I am crazy for thinking this game is the best then all you need to do is head down to L.A. for 1 tuesday and you will understand why no other game compares. We really do not play singles however, mostly 4 vs 4 as we alternate having 2 people play offense and 2 play defense per team. We began playing 4 vs 4 because there were simply too many of us, usually 8-12 people show up every tuesday. I still believe that if someone were to get us on film playing this game it would spawn the making of a sequel of some sort. It is just incredible what me and my friends are able to do with this game. I mean seriously we play EVERY week no matter what, can you imagine the amount of time we have put in to this game that was made in 1989.
Posted by Robert Guitron | May 25, 2006 12:22 PM
can you imagine the amount of time we have put in to this game that was made in 1989
>>>>
Yes, I can and it's ALWAYS a blast to play with you guys when we had the ARK server up and running.
Where is MOJO, Marko and the rest of the die hards?
Will we ever play again online?!
Has it finally gone the way of the dinasaur?
ARGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!
Bring Cyber back someone!
My poor lonley cab is collecting dust, maybe I'll fire it up again someday.
You guys are right Rob, if people could only see you guys in action, it really is a joy to watch the masters play this incredible arcade classic!
BTW, I think I still have a few games I video taped that we played online during the online season.
I guess Marko dropped the server and no one is playing online anymore. (bummer)
If any of you guys still play online or want to start the league back up please drop me a line. mikea@ccisd.com
I'M ALWAYS DOWM FOR A GREAT GAME.
ONLINE SEASON RESULTS FROM 2004
Division A
W L PF PA AMOV GB
Team Norcal (SB/MojoJojo) 14 2 462 206 16 -
(TCU) CyberOHIO+YH 12 4 284 209 4.69 2
Bubba+parker1 6 10 125 163 -2.38 8
TechnoHurl! 6 10 122 405 -17.69 8
Axis Powers (Serv0+hagbard) 4 12 129 290 -10.06 10
CyberRob+ParisHilton 4 12 204 174 1.88 10
Division B
W L PF PA AMOV GB
geo+chugbugkid 15 1 600 167 27.06 -
Bouncer+Vman96 12 4 422 333 5.56 3
Gusman+RickyMartin 11 5 339 158 11.31 4
Team Sin City (Juker~3river) 6 10 291 460 -10.56 9
goakes+BT 6 10 179 424 -15.31 9
MBison+bradb 0 16 13
BRING IT ON PEOPLE!
"SFB", are you listening!!!
Juker are you still out there somewhere? Bring it baby!
I wish I lived in Cali.!
Long live Cyberball!
BT
Posted by Mike | December 5, 2006 11:02 AM