NFL Football (Intellivsion, 1980)

Though it says Copyright 1978, the Intellivision was not released until December 1979, and only test marketed for much of 1980, and this game didn’t hit store shelves until February 1980.

It’s Super Bowl time again, so here we go with the annual football game review. Of course, I may not have many of these left to do if the other side has their way and bans football (thus depriving African Americans of yet another opportunity by replacing it with a white one- but according to the New York Times’ Steve Almond Blacks achieving in football is racist anyway because it’s racist for Blacks to have money I guess (he’s not the only NYT contributor that says Blacks success is racist).). I’m not sure why they want to replace football with soccer though since that means the audience is in as much danger as the players (seriously, aside from a movie with Jack Klugman and another movie with the assassin from From Russia With Love, when has an American football game ended in bloodshed? Strangely… it’s the less popular sports with the worst rioting. I dunno, I can’t tell iced canes from diamond bags anyway.), who are still in the same amount of danger as football players (perhaps moreso with women players, so maybe don’t get too attached to soccer in the longterm)… and sometimes war breaks out.

The Game

As you can see, the cartridge is plugged into the side (at the bottom of the picture), and the controllers have an interesting layout

Player 1 has yellow teammates with a red quarterback, and Player 2 has blue teammates with a black quarterback.

Intellivision was new to me when I played this. Evidently, you have to have two players otherwise you can’t play the game. There is no single-player mode. This is not the only Intellivision game to do this (speaking of Intellivision limitations, if you want to get one get the first version off the console, as the second version can’t play certain games, like Donkey Kong).

Being a game from 1979, you don’t get the same number of play options as future football games. There are still a few options to choose from, and you will need a manual to understand it. Luckily you can see them for free online. You may be wondering how a game from 1979 can have enough options to need a manual, and that lies in the controller. It has a keypad with 10 buttons plus two more buttons on either side of the controller, and on top of that (actually the bottom) is the…. uh… D-pad? Joystick? I have no idea what to call the thing for moving your character because it is a black circle flush against the controller.

Prediction

Since they were out of colors, the referees are depicted as black as well, which means they must be corrupt because they are wearing the colors of Player 2’s team. Thus I predict the referees at the Super Bowl will be biased as well.

I didn’t get to play this out because it was just me jumping between controllers. With no single-player mode, there was no AI to play against. So just based on the colors of the team it seems that the Washington Commanders and Carolina Panthers will play at the Super Bowl. I have not been following football and wrote this before the penultimate game had been played, so this is a legitimate prediction made in ignorance.

My Opinion

I think it’s a fun game, seems like it’d be fun if you play it with someone else. A lot of Intellivision games are so cheap that you can afford to get them in boxes with manuals. So there’s not much reason to pass this up.