4th and Inches

[Flack]

Last night my cat woke me up by jumping on my head and directly farting in my face around 2am. Since I was already up I decided to turn on the ol' Commodore 64 and play something new. After flipping through a few disks I found 4th and Inches, the classic football game by Accolade. 4th and Inches was written by Bob Whitehead, of Atari and Activision fame.

To test quality, I set up my Flip camera and filmed the entire game. The results were awful. The audio came out okay, but the monitor's frame rate led to rolling issues. Also, the total length of the footage was 38 minutes and YouTube will only let me upload 15 and, frankly, it was bad enough not to mess with. So anyway, based on last night's experience, here is my report of 4th and Inches.

Players have the option of playing as the Blue All Stars, or the Red Champs, but regardless which side you choose you will lose horribly, which begs the question, who named these teams? I chose red, and at one point I mused that perhaps my team had been originally named "The Chumps", but that a letter had been lost in translation.

And speaking of names, some of the guys I saw on the roster were Harry Lipz, Tank Salott, Mack Truck, Jerry Attrick, R. M. Pitts, Hugo Long, R. U. Thayer, and Rilly Quick.

Through some stroke of luck, I received the ball. The game automatically caught the punt for me, and I began to run. I made it out past the 20, and was feeling pretty good about things.

For each play on offense you pick the offensive formation, followed by the play, followed by the intended receiver. Once the play unfolds, you cannot change receivers. This burned me time and time again. I would pick "right tight end" and even if there were 5 defensive guys covering him and NOBODY on the entire left hand side of the field, you have no option but to throw it into insane coverage and hope for the best. And the best will not happen, ever.

On first down I got two yards. Then it told me it was 2nd and 7. On 2nd down I got tackled at the line of scrimage. That made it 3rd and 8. On 3rd I ran for five yards, making it 4th and 2. I eventually decided that the "inches" in "4th and Inches" were being added and subtracted randomly from each play.

On 4th down I punted, and man can people in this game kick. From roughly my own 30 I punted the ball so hard that it sailed through the end zone and out of the stadium and out of the game and into Donkey Kong and then I had to quit the game and go play Donkey Kong and get the football and bring it back to 4th and Inches.

So now I was on defense, and like offiense, you pick your formation, followed by your play, followed by who you want to control. If you picked left tackle and the goes right, too bad -- no switching for you.

I may not have mentioned that the screen does not scroll smoothly -- it redraws itself as action moves off of it. From sideline to sideline is probably 4 screens. I chose to play left, and the left reciever took off and went ... somewhere off screen. I could neither see him, or myself. The Blue All-Stars then threw the ball to him and the screen changed to show left field. Sure enough, my guy was just standing there picking his butt while the receiver was 20 yards ahead of him.

All-Stars 7, Chumps 0.

Hey, did you know if all your guys blitz, no one covers the receivers?

All-Stars 14, Chumps 0.

Also, did you know that at least one of his receivers is faster than all 11 guys on my team?

All-Stars 21, Chumps 0.

At one point the computer called time out for no apparent reason. It lasted 3 seconds. I guess that was all the rest he needed.

All-Stars 28, Chumps 0.

The only luck at all I had was with an onside kick, which I recovered and snuck into the end zone for 7. Also I bumbled one kick off and didn't hit the kick button in time and I only punted it 900 yards instead of a thousand.

Another thing that's annoying is that there are a lot of times where you don't get to call a play. Your side just says "ready". Like when the opposing team kicks a field goal. "Ready?" It should say, "Ready for something there's no chance of you blocking?" Or when you receive a punt. "Ready to run it back to the 15?" A little truth in advertising would be nice here.

Surprisingly I only threw 2 interceptions, which is amazing considering that you have to pick the receivers before the play begins and you have no chance of changing them after hiking the ball. As for defense, like many other sports games, I learned that my team did better the further I stayed away from the action. Defensive tackle is a good place to hide.

Final Score: All-Stars 28, Chumps 7

According to Wikipedia, 4th and Inches was one of the first football games to incorporate live play calling. I enjoyed playing it from a historical perspective, but the technical limitations of not being able to pick a receiver mid-play, change characters, and not see the person I am controlling half the time definitely put a damper on things.