At last, a chance for one my favorite pastimes … *checks notes* … pressing A about 10,000 times.
Jokes aside, the original Track & Field is easily one of my favorite arcade games. The basic premise is that you play through a series of athletic events, each with slightly different mechanics, switching between them until you fail to record a qualifying time or distance in something. The controls are always really straight forward, with the simplest event requiring you to simply hit two buttons as fast as possible. It’s simple, challenging, and a lot of fun – what else could you want from an arcade game? Well…
The NES version of Track & Field is a bit unique, even among other home console versions. It’s missing the hammer throw event from the arcade version (which is fine by me, because it’s straight up trash), but it also picked up three events from the 1984 arcade follow-up Hyper Sports – skeet shooting, archery, and the triple jump. You can definitely tell that those events come from a different game – archery, in particular, feels like a whole different beast. While the other additions are reasonably interesting, archery is just a slog. It also leaves so little room for error that it kinda ruins the experience.
Another major difference in the NES version is that instead of being able to alternate between two buttons when button mashing, you only get to use one. I imagine this is for technical reasons (there are two perfectly good buttons on an NES controller), but make no mistake – this is a huge difference. Like, surprisingly huge. It still works, but a lot of the events just don’t feel the same because of it.
As you might be able to guess, some of the intense button-mashing translates rather poorly to the standard, small NES controller. Fortunately, there are some practical options for situations like this, such as the incredibly cool NES Advantage:
This controller isn’t great for everything, but it’s an excellent fit for Track & Field. The bigger buttons are a bit more useful for mashing purposes, and makes the whole thing feel a bit more like the authentic Track & Field experience. If you want to cheat your way through life, it offers even more for you: the ‘Turbo’ buttons at the top do a lot of the mashing for you! With this, I was able to set a couple of in-game ‘world records,’ including an utterly preposterous 21+ meters in the triple jump:
The real triple jump world record is 18.29 meters, held by Jonathan Edwards of Great Britain since 1995. I know this is a video game, and I used the cheat-y buttons on the controller but no matter – I’m calling you out, Jonathan Edwards. I jumped way farther than you and you know it.
Also, the menu music is the theme from Chariots of Fire for some reason.
While this particular version of Track & Field pales a bit in comparison to the original, I definitely still enjoyed it. The NES version got its own exclusive sequel in 1988, which has a different and larger mix of challenges, most of which involve neither track nor field. It’s pretty solid, too. Konami has continued making track-related games over the years, including one for the N64 and a DS game in 2008. The formula has generally stayed the same, with simple controls and varying competitions.
If you’re going to get a home version of Track and Field, though, it may be worth tracking down the pricier Atari 2600 version, if only because it comes with its own special controller:
Neat!
Next week, we’ll be checking out a handheld port of a 16-bit classic. Will it hold up? My money’s on no.