Another Ponitless Exercise

BLiP Football vary faithfully recreates those handheld football games from the 1970's, which means it's just as boring and repetitive as that Mattel Football reissue you bought 4 years ago at Wal-Mart and played once. OK, that's not entirely true. BLiP Football has an "enhanced" feature which allows you to switch from red players on a black field to red and yellow players on a black field with blue endzones. Not even Mattel Football II had that.

Enhanced mode. Feels like you're right there in the stadium, doesn't it?

The screen is laid out just like the old LED games, with a scoreboard on top, then a nine-yard long playfield and several non-functioning buttons. The function of each button is mapped to the Atari joystick. Pressing up or down moves your blip up or down. The fire button moves it forward (no backtracking). Just like the original, the scoreboard is only capable of giving you half the information at a time, and only does so at your request. Pressing left gives you the score and the time left in the quarter. Pressing right gives you the status (down, yards to go and the ball's current location on the field).

There is no passing in BLiP Football. You have no teammates to pass the ball to. No teammates to block for you. All you can do is run at the five opposing blips until you reach the edge of the screen, at which point you reappear on the other side with the defenders right where you left them. This makes is possible to rip off some pretty long runs if the computer gives you a straight path. And something to keep in mind when it's fourth and 1, the defense always lines up in such a way that you can get 2 yards just by blindly rushing ahead.

3rd and 8. Looks like I should pass. Oh, wait...

The question to ask here is why. Why make a console version of a portable game that doesn't take advantage of the greater (even talking about the Atari 2600) capabilities of the console (not counting the "enhanced" mode)? Why not keep the blip look and feel but add a true 2-player mode (or, for that matter, a true 1-player mode)? Considering that this game is twice the cost of the game it's based on, it would be nice to get something extra for the money, rather than lose something now that the game is no longer portable.