ColecoVision Find...Sort Of...

[Aswald]

Well, it's been a while, but this week I actually found some ColecoVision games in a sort of second-hand store, one filled with junk from the 1950s to today- posters, toys, that sort of stuff.

One of the cartridges was ColecoVision Football. He wanted 6 dollars for it. A bit much, but I noticed that it actually included the instructions AND the playbook, which I didn't even know existed. Also, he threw in an unmarked cartridge, so, what the hey.

Unfortunately, that cartridge was Spinnaker's Alphabet Zoo. Not exactly the best game ever, to put it mildly, and certainly not nearly as good as Wizmath, or Monkey Academy. Boring, even for an "educational" game, and with a dull playfield and player characters to match.

Football, on the other hand, is terrific. Complex, yet easy to learn, and with good graphics and sound, this is one of the most playable video football games I've ever tried. It's even better than Rocky Boxing and Super Action Baseball, two games I really like.

Who else likes this game?

[Reverend JagDiesel]

I had this one back in the day and played it on my Adam. I'd say its as good or better than the early NES attempts at football games. Brought back memories!
Man if my sister hadnt "borrowed" my CVision and games and hawked them a week later! Taught me to let anyone long term "borrow" anything game related.

[chadtower]

That's when you leave an inappropriate bodily fluid on your sister's toothbrush.

[Aswald]

I like the way you can pre-program plays, but then pull a quick switch at the last second. There are literally dozens of possible combinations; I've even managed to pull off the old "Statue of Liberty" play, or something like it.

The graphics are great. The players even become larger as they move "closer" to the foreground. And, like Baseball, this remains a really playable game.

Oddly enough, it reminds me of something I tried a few years ago. The NES Gauntlet 2 allowed up to 4 people to play at once. It occurred to me that the ColecoVision might allow this, too.

The ColecoVision controllers use keypads, which have 12 buttons on it (you can see where this is going already).

Gauntlet uses only 2 buttons, and the 4-contact joystick. So, in effect, out of 18 possible "presses," you are only using 6 per controller.

What if you used a Y-adapter, and plugged in a regular controller AND a 2-button controller that was simply the equivalent of a keypad? For example, pushing up on the joystick would be like pushing the #2 button on the keypad. Pressing the left fire button would be like pressing the #1 button, and so on. In this fashion, 4 controllers- 2 regular, 2 special- could be used for a 4-player game. Or, you could just use 4 regular controllers, but players 2 and 4 would only use the appropriate keypad buttons on theirs:

2= UP
4= LEFT
6= RIGHT
8= DOWN
1= LEFT FIRE BUTTON
3= RIGHT FIRE BUTTON

I actually wired an old 2600 controller into a keypad (or vice-verca?) to try it out. It was a crudely-done piece of amateurish trash, but...it worked. Sort of like the conversion of of a regular controller into a 4-button. Pity I don't have as much luck with emulators.

[TheRedEye]

I had this one back in the day and played it on my Adam. I'd say its as good or better than the early NES attempts at football games. Brought back memories!
Man if my sister hadnt "borrowed" my CVision and games and hawked them a week later! Taught me to let anyone long term "borrow" anything game related.

You should educate your sister on the dangers of crack addiction.

[Jorpho]

@Aswald: The four buttons on the Super Action controller actually send two simulatenous numpad keypresses. I forget the specifics, but I remember reading a post here a while ago about someone easily rewiring a standard controller to act as a Super Action controller.

[Aswald]

That's exactly what I did with mine. You flick a Radio Shack switch, and keypad buttons #1 and #3 act as the 2 extra buttons on the Super Action Controller. You have to use fine wire, though, or you can't close the controller up.
Of course, you cannot use the keypad normally, so to do so, you must flick the switch back.

This has proven most helpful in Front Line. To a lesser extent, Rocky Boxing.