Granny Vinnie Reviews

7800 Rank: 54th Genre Rank: (Sports) 10th Awards: 10th Worst Originality, 6th Worst Value You Only THINK You Get to Rehash the Old Atari Sports Rivalry...Red Team Vs. Blue Pros: You Create Your Own Plays at the Line Cons: Gameplay is SLOW/ Terrible Computer AI/ Cannot Hit Field Goals NO! NO! NO! You Have Been Fooled Again

Overview: It's about this time of year when I start longing for the cool of autumn and the sound of colliding pads, the roar of the crowd, and listening to the insane hoop-la that is football. When trying to fill this void, I sometimes pick up a video game and reminisce about past seasons and games I, myself have played in. Football games do not, typically, hold their value very long. Updated rosters, teams, and players make last season's football games seem like an ancient artifacts. So, by saying that, how does the Atari 7800's only football game, Touchdown Football hold up in the new Millennium? Not well, I'm afraid.

Graphics: In a shocker, the red team was not able to fill a roster this year to continue the sports match up that Atari loves to put in their sports games...Blue vs. Red. So Atari had to find another team to play the blue team. Thankfully, they were able to find the black team. Now, the season can begin! Here we have 6 on 6 football: Two skill players, three linemen, and a quarterback on offense, two corners, one linebacker, and three linemen on defense. The players are small, but decent looking. They have two colors a piece, either the tacky blue and yellow or the much a cooler looking black and white. San Jose State verses the Oakland Raiders? Who knows. The field is impressively 3-D, a feat that even the Super Tecmo Bowl games had trouble replicating well. The scoreboard is adequate but not flashy, and the team's cheerleader (that's right, cheerleader...as in one) looks like a Hungarian Lesbian Weightlifter. Overall, graphics are not a problem, but positively not a plus, either. Especially if simu-ladies are your thang.

Sound: I should just leave this category off of most games. It sucks...are you shocked? There is a little tune that plays every time there is a kick off. It reminds me of college football, but when you are beating the computer 87-0, it transforms into a hideous anthem. Besides decent crowd noise (which is something that Realsports Baseball desperately needed) there is nothing else note worthy in the audio department.

Gameplay: This game could have been very good if it was improved in 3 areas...speed, running game, and kicking game. First of all, the game is way too slow to thoroughly enjoy. It's like watching a senior league game. There are no running backs, therefore the only running plays are bootlegs by the quarterback, which typically are worthless. And maybe the biggest 7800 flaw since Impossible Mission, it is impossible to hit a field goal. I've tried a thousand times...never hit one yet. These three things alone sink the game, but there is one aspect of the gameplay I do like. You create your very own play every time you line up to snap the ball. There are nine formations to choose from, like Shotgun, split backs, the "I" formation, and so on. Each play, you tell each receiver what route out of 9 to run. Then you tell the line one of three blocking schemes. Then wah-la! You made a play. There are a a few I really like, and I will reveal those when I release my hint page later in the week. Even though I like this part of the game, people who know little about football would be lost and weep often.

Originality: This game hardly does anything out of the ordinary. No season play, no team names, no Championship game, no injuries, no Madden saying stupid crap like, "Boom!" or "Now that's gotta hurt!" The only thing going for Touchdown Football that is unique is the create a play feature.

Value: The computer is stupid. The plays it calls are terrible 90% of the time. If you call anything but Prevent and Goal line, you will be able to stop the computer easily even if you have never seen a football game in your life. The game is too slow even to enjoy a two-player game.

Overall: Touchdown Football just isn't any fun. The game is just way too slow. The make your own play feature is great, but it cannot save the game at all. Your best bet is to pick up a copy of NES's Tecmo Bowl if you want Classic Football Fun.



Other Reviews:
The Atari Times: 5 out of 10
CV's Atari 7800 Panoramic Froo-Froo: 2.0 out of 5.0 (Bad)
Video Game Critic: F


Additional Info: I would like to take this time to thank Mitch Orman, owner of The Atari 7800 Page for allowing the use of his screenshots for this review.

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