Rollerball is a video game produced by HAL Laboratory, Inc. in 1988 for the Nintendo Entertainment System four years after its initial release on the MSX. It is designed to be played by one to four players, in turn. It is an emulation of a pinball machine, although it has a second, two-player mode.
The pinball machine rendered in Rollerball is composed of four screens, which, by proportion, would be about as long as two standard pinball tables if it were a real table. The graphics on two of the four screens are based on various aspects of the New York City skyline. The topmost screen (hereafter called the bonus screen) merely shows some clouds and a blimp. The second screen (the main screen) shows the top of the Empire State Building, while the third screen (intermediate) shows the lower skyline and the Statue of Liberty. The lowest (final) screen shows only a blue backdrop, representing the Ocean.
The alternate mode is a two-player game called Match Play. In this mode, a much smaller table, only one screen tall, houses a number of buttons and switches that lower the score of the player on that side by various amounts. Four sensors in the middle of the table will switch the scores of the two players whenever they all become lit. A slot machine is spun by the buttons on the outer walls, and its bonus is enacted by hitting the button on the top wall. The first player to lose all his or her points loses.
Two animals in the middle of each player's area show an emotion, from ecstasy to sadness, through neutral indifference, depending on that player's score and the score margin between the two players. In the Japanese version, the left player's animal is an elephant, and the right player's is a giraffe. In the English version, the giraffe was changed to a donkey, likely in reference to the Republican and Democratic U.S. political parties.
Source: Wikipedia, "Rollerball (video game)", available under the CC-BY-SA License.
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