Track & Field

Arcade version of Track & Field

Track & Field is a sports game originally released in arcades in 1983 by Konami Industry Co. Ltd. and shortly after ported to several home platforms. The game allows up to four players to compete in a series of six olympic themed events.

Track & Field uses a side view of an arena complete with an audience and scoreboard with either one or two lanes visible depending on the event; the goal is for players to make it through all of the olympic events with the best scores possible. Each event has a qualifying time or score that needs to be achieved; if players fail to reach the target, one life is lost and the game ends when players lose all lives. The game begins with three lives, and additional lives are earned after every 100,000 points earned. Although multiple players can compete, players are always attempting to beat the events qualifying targets rather than each other. For running events, there are two tracks on the screen allowing two players at a time to play while other events allow only one player at a time to compete. In cases where fewer than four players are playing, the computer (named “CPU” on screen) will take the unused positions. Events in the game include the following:

• 100m Dash
• Long Jump
• Javelin Throw
• 110m Hurdles
• Hammer Throw
• High Jump

The actual events in the game vary in some of the home versions. The MSX version replaces the 110m hurdles with a 400m dash. The Famicom version does not contain the hammer throw and high jump, while the NES version does include the high jump and also adds skeet shooting, archery, and triple jump for a total of eight events.

In the arcade version, the controls may vary as well. Initial cabinets manufactured utilized two buttons for running; Later cabinets replaced the buttons with a trackball controller. This was supposedly due to a high rate of failure for the buttons resulting from the frequent button mashing the game required. Some home versions of the game came packaged with a special Track & Field controller which replicated the button layout of the earlier arcade cabinets.