Cyberball Guide 1.00 By Andrew M. Evans aka AndrewM (
[email protected])
Version 1.00 Released March 31, 2007
Looking for anything NES? Visit my hopefully-but-probably-not comprehensive NES
Site at www.neshq.com!
--== Table of Contents ==--
Section 01 ----- Revision History
Section 02 ----- Disclaimer
Section 03 ----- Introduction
Section 04 ----- Game Options
Section 05 ----- Teams
Section 06 ----- Opposing Teams
Section 07 ----- Basic Controls
Section 08 ----- Offense
Section 09 ----- Defense
Section 10 ----- A Note on Special Teams
Section 11 ----- Inconsistencies
Section 12 ----- High Scores
Section 13 ----- Closing Notes
--== Section 01 - Revision History ==--
03/31/2007 v1.00 Original FAQ
--== Section 02 - Disclaimer and Requisite Legal Junk ==--
This FAQ is intended for private use and may not be reproduced on any sites or
in any publications without my prior consent, which I may or may not (I don't
see why I wouldn't) grant by having you e-mail me at
[email protected]. If you
should fail to do so and I see my FAQ posted somewhere I shall be forced to
sue you into litigation Hell with my army of high-powered lawyers. Actually,
this whole bit is a bunch of nonsense. If you want to post or reproduce this
FAQ go right ahead and do so, just leave me my credit and the shameless
self-promotions for my NES Site, www.neshq.com (in case you have yet to see!).
Oh yea, and if you somehow get hurt using this FAQ I am in no way responsible
(is this even possible?). As a matter of fact, by even opening this file you
have officially absolved me of any responsibility in my entire life. Ok, well
it was worth a shot......
--== Section 03 - Introduction ==--
Welcome to Cyberball. Prepare to be... disappointed! Cyberball is a
football-like game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). If you've gotten
that far you probably already know this much though, so let me move on to more
pressing matters.
Cyberball is a science fiction-like derivative of football, whose tagline is
"Football in the 21st Century." Well folks, I've seen football in the 21st
century and fortunately for everyone involved it doesn't look much like
Cyberball. The premise behind Cyberball is that robots are the atheletes and
instead of downs the ball has varying degrees of temperature. The whole concept
is intriguing, but much like voting a pornstar to elected office, it just
doesn't work.
In the end the game ends up being a very mediocre football game with some minor
rules changes. Somewhat ironically the whole premise of the game - robots
playing football - is irrelevant because the graphics are so bad and the rules
changes so minor that this is still football.
This FAQ was undertaken as part of both my ongoing effort to contribute new
material to my website (NESHQ.com) and help with the NES FAQ Completion
Project.
--== Section 04 - Game Options ==--
One of the nice things about Cyberball is that it does give some difficulty
options that most early football (and sports games in general) lack.
At the main menu you may select:
Players - This is pretty self-explainatory. You can play 1 player vs CPU,
1 player vs 1 player, or 2 player vs CPU.
Level - You can choose rookie or advanced. There is a very significant
difference between these two. Rookie greatly simplifies the game play,
putting the CPU at a very easy level and limiting the offensive and
defensive play selection to four plays. Advanced allows you to specifically
choose a difficulty level (Easy, Medium, Hard, Pro) and allows for the full
offensive and defensive playbooks to be used.
Options - Allows you to select sound/audio options as well as whether or not
the human player will be highlighted (only relevant for 1 vs 1 play).
--== Section 05 - Team Selection ==--
Cyberball actually does provide the option for selecting different teams with
different abilities. So far as I can tell the passing teams have faster
receivers and the running team has a faster runningback. The balanced team
obviously has equally fast receivers and backs. Your team selection will
actually factor in to how well you do on the field.
At the team selection screen you may select:
California Crush (Balanced Team)
Berlin Invastion (Running Team)
New York Thunder (Passing Team)
Moscow Machine (Passing Team)
--== Section 06 - Opposing Team Selection ==--
At the opposing coach screen you may select:
Doc Davis (Easy) - This is the easiest difficulty level and a good starting
point for anyone who wants to experience the full game but thus far has only
been playing rookie level. On this level your fastest players will be faster
than the computer's fastest and you'll see his passing targets (more on this
later).
I.M. Payne (Medium) - A step up from the Easy Level. Once you've gotten your
feet wet and decided that you don't want your friends harassing you for
playing on the easy level this is the way to go. Wait a second, if your
friends are harassing you about Cyberball it's time to start seriously
reevaluating your friendships. But anyway, the medium level is a lot like
the easy level save for the fact that the computer's players are a little
faster.
Grace Savage (Hard) - The hard level is where the game evens out a bit. You
lose the ability to see the computer's passing targets and the computer
players are faster than yours. This level is probably the most fair.
Sky Rogers (Pro) - Good Ole' Sky Rogers! Wait, what? Ah nevermind. The Pro
Level is the way to go when you want to put some hair on your chest, you
little nancy boy. Time to cowboy up and hit the big leagues. The Pro level
is actually a little stupid since the computer players are significantly
faster than your own. It does make for a decent challenge however.
--== Section 07 - Basic Controls ==--
Outside of the actual game the controls are your standard NES controls - use the
directional pad for movement through menus and A or B to select.
In the game things get a little more tricky. On offense use the D Pad and A or
B to select a play. The ball gets hiked automatically, so don't worry about
that. When passing use the D pad to highlight the box you'd like to throw to.
This is either Up, Left, or Right. Once you've got the correct box highlighted
press the A button to throw to it. Note that your pass will go straight to that
box and no further (no underthrows, tips or delfections). Make sure that your
receiver is there or can get there real quick or you're on the express train to
Interceptionville. And no one likes to go to Interceptionville (high crime rate
and lots of homelessness, or so I hear).
Running is a little tricky as well - running actually requires a button to be
pressed for the handoff, unlike other football games where this transaction
occurs automatically. Basically to handoff press B and the direction of the
player you're handing off to. So if you want to handoff to a RB behind you press
down and B. Watch out for this because if there's not a player there the ball
will keep going as if it were passed.
Defense is easier than offense, mostly because tackling just involves running
into the opposing player. Obviously use the D pad to move around and run into
the ball carrier. The most important thing to remember on defense is the super
awesome turbo boost. Yes, the turbo boost. Amazingly enough, despite the number
of things that were missed, they managed to program in a turbo boost. Press the
A button and you'll get a quick turbo boost.
--== Section 08 - Offense ==--
I could drone one about offensive strategy and striking a healthy balance
between passing and running plays but that would resember football too much. And
in 21st century football the opposing coach doesn't change his defense according
to the other team's offense at all. So the best offensive strategy is to find
plays that you can effectively run (obviously, if you can't pass worth a damn
you should stick to running plays). Cyberball does actually have a decent number
of plays, which are broken down into three categories:
Running Plays - If you skipped over Section seven you should go back and read it
before attempting running plays. That being said, running plays have one or two
backs you can hand it off to and one receiver to throw to. The best running
plays have two RBs, each running a different direction (Swindler and Canoheat
are both good examples of this). This allows you to attack the weak side of the
defense since, believe it or not, Cyberball has several defenses with movement
before the snap. Running outside works best since the RB is one of the faster
players on the field. Be careful to watch how the defense is stacked up - if
everyone except the linemen are outside the hash marks then switch it up and
run through the center of the field. Likewise, if everyone shifts to the center
be sure to bounce it to the outside.
Option Plays - The option plays are probably the best plays in the game since
they all have both a RB and two receivers in them. The RB is always a good
option depending on how the defense shifts, and if they don't you can just toss
the ball to one of the receivers.
Passing Plays - Passing plays are hit or miss in Cyberball. Use plays that have
two WRs and the RB as these players are much faster than the TEs. Try to select
plays that have one receiver on either side and one player down the middle.
A few other things on offense:
TEs - TEs are pretty much useless. They're so slow that they can never get to
the passing point by the time you throw the ball. If they do catch the ball
they're so slow that they get tackled easily. This is why above I recommend
using RBs and WRs as much as possible.
Reverses and Long Routes - Beware of reverses or long routes when choosing a
play. The defense is quick and offensive plays have to be executed quickly
to be successful.
Downs - You'll get six downs instead of four in Cyberball.
First Downs - The only way to defuse the ball is to get past the 50 yard line.
Obviously you can only do this once, and that's assuming you started behind
it in the first place. This gives the possibility of running up to 12 plays
on any one offensive drive.
Defuse Yardage - There's a 'defuse' yardage number in the play selection
screen. This number represents how many yards you have left to go until you
get to either the defuse (50) yard line or the end zone, whichever is closer
in front of you.
Money - You'll receive money for scoring and defusing the ball. Money can only
be used to upgrade smoking players (players who have taken a lot of hits).
This seems to be useless since the upgraded player doesn't have any extra
speed and a replacement player is just as fast.
Exploding Players - Ah, the joys of Cyberball. As touched on above, players
can explode if they take too many hits or are holding the ball short of
the defuse line.
Scoring - You get six points for scoring and then have to convert - there are
no kicks. Passing a conversion gets one extra point while running gets two.
--== Section 09 - Defense ==--
Defense is really pretty self-explanitory in Cyberball, although there are some
key things that can help:
Speed/Player Selection - Just like on offense the different players on defense
have different speeds. The safeties seem to be the fastest, then the
linebackers, and the cornerbacks are the slowest (not sure how this ended up
being the case). With this in mind try to pick formations that have the safeties
and linebackers in larger numbers and better positions. All long formations work
well because they have two safeties and three of the four have two safeties and
a linebacker.
Blitzing - Blitzing is pretty easy, and the turbo button makes it even easier.
Blitzing works best when using a formation that puts a linebacker close to the
line of scrimage, such as the goalline (short) formations or the 3-4 formations
under the medium formations.
Pass Defense - Pass defense is especially easy on the easier two coaches since
it shows where there pass targets are. You can line up in front of those targets
to block the opposing team's passes. Aside from that choose the obvious pass
defenses (everything in the long formation) in obvious pass situations, such as
when the ball is hot/critical and the opposing team has a long distance to go to
the defuse line or endzone.
In general I recommend running the 3-4 or nickel on the first few downs since
both of these put a linebacker close to the line of scrimmage and drop several
players into zone coverage. For longer downs I always use the prevent since it
drops two safeties and a linebacker deep into coverage.
--== Section 10 - A Note on Special Teams ==--
Special teams in Cyberball show up less often than Britney Spears shows up for
rehab. There are no field goals and no punts at all. There is an opening kickoff
and kickoffs after scoring. For these occasions get the ball and run to the
outside just off of a blocker. The field in Cyberball plays much smaller than a
normal football field and you'll especially notice this on kickoffs. Run outside
and hope for the best.
--== Section 11 - Inconsistencies ==--
A few inconsistencies that may or may not have been accidentally left out of
Cyberball:
Fumbles - There are no fumbles in Cyberball, ever.
No Special Teams - As noted above, there are no field goals or punts.
No Kick After Half Time - After half time there is no kick. The team that went
into half time with the balls retains possession at the same spot on the field
as they had going into half time.
Safeties - There is no kickoff after a safety, instead the team that got the
safety receives the ball at their own 20.
These are just an observation and I'm not really sure if their non-inclusion
was intentional or a mistake (obviously something like the defuse line was
intentional).
--== Section 12 - High Scores ==--
I always try to include a high score section in my FAQs. If anyone has a high
score e-mail it in to me and I'll update the FAQ accordingly.
--== Section 13 - Closing Notes, Credits, and Thanks==--
Cyberball is a decent and somewhat enjoyable game in the end. Taken in the
context of its time (it came out 15 years ago as of the time of this writing)
it's a pretty decent game. Obviously it's not Tecmo Super Bowl but if you don't
go in comparing this to better football games it's a pretty enjoyable little
game.
I'd like to give special thanks to Jon "FlowingMindspin" Hornbaker for giving me
quite a bit of help on this FAQ and collaborating on some aspects of the game. I
probably would't have done this FAQ without his help (a dubious distinction).
Last but not least check out NES HQ at www.neshq.com, which is the most popular
NES-specific site on the Internet. obviously GameFAQs gets a ton more visitors
than NES HQ, but as far as pure NES sites go it's numero uno. Maybe you'll feel
compelled to contribute to it as well and help build the most comprehensive NES
resource on the net. And finally, send any questions to me at
[email protected].
