Electronic Table Soccer!

Electronic Table Soccer!

Odyssey 2 - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Magnavox Publisher Philips, Magnavox Published 1980-??-?? Platforms Odyssey 2 Genres Action, Ball and paddle, Single-screen, Sports Themes Sports Multiplayer Simultaneous versus Distribution Commercial

Electronic Table Soccer! is a foosball (aka table soccer) video game developed by Magnavox and published by Philips for the Odyssey 2 in 1980. Like with the real-life game, players try to knock a ball past their opponents and into a goal to score a point. The first player to 10 points wins.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. 10-0 score.
Finished	2023-10-26.

After finding a few Odyssey 2 games where the AI was easy to beat, I decided to try and find others. I ended up beating this one on my first try. Later that day, after several more attempts, I beat the game with a score of 10 to 0, completely shutting-out the AI.

Review

2	2	2	1	3

Best Version: Odyssey 2

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The game features an AI, which was a rarity at the time. Too bad it's terrible.
• The flipping animation players make when you score is cute.

Bad

• I do not like the controls. You have to keep left or right held down to move the associated players, but you have to press a different direction to have them kick. This makes it awkward and takes a while to get used to.

Ugly

• There is very little to the game. You'll see everything it has to offer after a few seconds.
• This was the first foosball video game to attempt to draw humanoid players, and the awful graphics and animation make that clear. The audio is also grating.
• After playing for only a couple minutes, I discovered how to abuse the AI in such a way that, whenever I got control of the ball, I was guaranteed to score.

Media

Box Art

• 

  The USA art features teams of strange robots which, not only doesn't match the game, but also doesn't look very fun.

• 

  The European painter obviously never played foosball, because both team's players are on the same bar!

Documentation

• 

Videos

Longplay.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	Characters don't have a clear race.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Role	Staff
Entire Game	Ed Averett

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
Danish	Indendors Fodbold	Indendors Fodbold	Indoor Foorball
Dutch	Elektronisch tafelvoetbal	Elektronisch tafelvoetbal	Electronic Table Football
English (Jopac version)	Baby Foot
English (UK)	Electronic Table Football
English (USA)	Electronic Table Soccer!
French (Canada)	Soccer de Table Électronique!	Soccer de Table Electronique!	Electronic Table Soccer
French (France)	Football de table electronique	Football de table electronique	Electronic Table Football
German	Tischfußball	Tischfussball	Table Football
Italian	Gioco del calcio	Gioco del calcio	Football Game
Portuguese (Brazil)	Futebol Eletrônico!	Futebol Eletronico!	Electronic Football
Portuguese (Portugal)	Futebol de mesa	Futebol de mesa	Table Football
Spanish	Cuadro electronico de futbol	Cuadro electronico de futbol	Electronic Table Football
Swedish	Elektronisch bords-fotboll	Elektronisch bords-fotboll	Electronic Table Football

Links