Field Goal

Field Goal is an arcade game which was released by Taito Corporation in 1979; it utilises a Motorola M6800 microprocessor, running at 1.0065 MHz, and the player has to use a single button to launch a ball towards a paddle at the bottom of the screen, with a rotary controller to direct the paddle left and right for deflecting the ball into three rows of destructible American Football helmets (which will move across the screen in the direction that they are facing). If the cabinet is set for the player to start with three lives, a red helmet is worth 20 points while a yellow one is worth 30 and a blue one is worth 40 - however, if it is set for the player to start with five lives, the helmets' point values will be reduced by 10. Regardless of how many lives the player starts with, destroying the complete row of red helmets is also worth 500 points, while the complete row of yellow ones is worth 1000, and the complete row of blue ones is worth 1500; furthermore, scoring a goal is always worth 300 points, but if the ball hits a player when he is running across the screen, the number on his outfit will be multiplied by 100 and added to the point value displayed in the goal (if the ball hits the player's head, he will also fall down and disappear). When the goal's point value becomes 1000 or greater, the value in question and the word "EXTRA" will alternate appearing in it - and if the player deflects the ball into the goal while the latter is displayed, they shall receive an extra life. If the player manages to destroy a certain amount of helmets without losing a life, the paddle will shrink; however, if they should lose a life, it will return to its initial size. Finally, if the player should reach a certain amount of points, they will be awarded a free credit by default - however, when the game was made, it was illegal in some states of the US to award free games or credits (so arcade owners in those states had to disable that feature). In 2007, this game was also featured on the compilation Taito Memories II Gekan for the Sony PlayStation 2.