Futuristic sports have been a moderately successful gaming genre during the whole of the 80s and early 90s, with the Bitmap Brothers’ Speedball II being probably the last great title. Even though there have been some exceptions, even in the last years, it is safe to say that both public and developers have mostly moved on from the idea of playing a made-up futuristic sport on their computers, in favor of… well, playing real sports on their consoles. What a sad world we live in.
So, let us put on some skates, wear a protective helmet and let’s go back to 1985.
In the future there will be no wars, but there will be nostalgia.
Rocket Ball, developed by John Sinclair for IJK Software and released on C64 and Amstrad CPC (by P.Beckett) in 1985, is clearly inspired by the 1970 movie Rollerball with James Caan, which had a terrible 2002 remake starring, among others, Jean Reno and digitally added in Slipknot. Wish I was kidding…
Anyway, while IJK Software clearly couldn’t get the rights to the movie, it definitely matters little since we’re not here to follow the plot, but only to play a good old (new?) simplified match of Rollerball.
In the game, two teams of five skaters will fight to pick up a ball, shot by a cannon, in order to bring it to the goal and score. It is an overlysimplified and violent version of American football with basically no rules: it is possible to elbow other players in the stomach or kick them to the ground.
But that is the extent of Rocket Ball’s violence, no blood or deaths, just a lot of injuries.
While Rocket Ball is as straightforward and barebones as a sports game in 1985 could get, the design is spot-on. The screens scrolls from left to right, with the player skating to pick up momentum and slowing down in order to crouch and pick up the ball. Naturally, with the ball in hand, the player has to balance speed and accuracy in order not to overshoot the goal or getting kicked in the shins by the adversaries. While there are only single matches to be played, it is possible to select five leveles of CPU difficulty.
There’s plenty of interesting small details, like the teams marching at the start of every match and presenting themselves to the public. Personally, I love the moment when, after a goal is scored, the screen stops scrolling and several players pensively pass by like they’re just contemplating their own life mistakes. Fantastic.
The ending screen shows the winning team saluting the public with an appropriate fanfare in the background.
The main issue for anyone playing Rocket Ball for the first time will have to be the controls, though.
Basically, it requires very precise timing to be able to pick up the ball, done by pressing the button to make our character crouch. But again, the player is on rollerskates, so the whole thing becomes very hard to do correctly and there will be times when the ball will just roll in the gutter despite one’s desperate attempts to pick it up.
Graphically, Sinclair (a name not really synonymous with Commodore!) kept things clean and simple, which is for the best. The gameplay is appropriately fluid, with pretty big sprites and well done animations, especially for the public which is usually something most sports game tended to skip on.
The sponsors depicted on the stadium’s various banners are actual existing companies, which is pretty strange to see in such a low budget title.
Soundwise there’s no much to talk about, most of the match is spent in silence with only minimal sound effects, even though it is curious to hear the famous Rocky fanfare (not Gonna Fly Now, but the one before the fights) before the match starts.
Rocket Ball is still fondly remembered by many players today and I think still not a bad choice for a quick co-op match, scoring is not even required to have fun. Which is amazing for a simple game that is now 36 years old.
On a conclusive note, apparently Ubisoft is slated to bring back not only the futuristic sports game, but almost a remake of the original Rocket Ball, with their free-to-play Roller Champions.
Is that going to be better than 1985’s Rocket Ball? No way!
