Lucasfilm Games‘ classic futuristic sports game, Ballblazer, was released for the Atari 5200 by Atari Corporation in 1986, and it’s a really good port.

The frantic split-screen action takes place on an enclosed checkerboard arena, with moving goal posts at either end. Each player controls a ‘Rotofoil’ craft that always snaps to face the direction of a ball that is fired into the play area.

If the ball is ‘loose’ (and not in possession) a Rotofoil’s forcefield will ‘grab’ it and will then snap to always face the goal posts. The aim is to then race toward the goal posts and fire the ball between them using a ‘push’ from your forcefield.

If your opponent is in possession of the ball and is moving towards your goal posts you can try to dis-possess him by getting close to the ball and firing a push at it. If successful the ball will become loose and available to whoever reaches it first.

Points are award depending on how far you are away from the goal posts when you score. If you’re close up you’ll only get a single point. You can score up to three points by firing the ball through the posts from far away. As you score more goals the space between the posts shrinks, making it more difficult to score.

The winner of the game is the first player to score ten points, or the player with the most points when the timer runs down.

Games can be played between two human players, or single-player against droids. These droids can be set to nine different skill levels, with one being the lowest and nine being the highest. The timer can be set to between one and nine minutes in length. You can also set up games between two droids and just sit and watch them play.

Ballblazer is a simple but absorbing game that has stood the test of time well. The Atari 5200 version is an excellent port and it stands up well to the original Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit versions. The only downside, that I noticed, was that the ball sometimes looks a little deformed, but that is not noticeable during play – only in still screenshots. Otherwise, this is an excellent version of a timeless classic that is still worth playing today.

More: Ballblazer on Wikipedia