No. 2: Tehkan World Cup
World Class Football (Soccer) Action from Tehkan
Tehkan World Cup, Tehkan (1985). Football
games come and go, with better graphics, real players, 4-play etc. but all
soccer games (as it's known across the pond) really need are a few pixels 
and a decent control method. Most footie games utilise an eight-way joystick and
half a keyboard full of buttons. Tehkan World Cup transcended this with its large trackball and single fire button. The direction and velocity of
the ball 
was controlled
by one swipe of the trackball and sometimes a single button press. This made for
a game that was instantly playable yet difficult to master. The trackball could
take quite a bit of damage too - often leading to games where brute strength
prevailed over skill. I played this game almost daily for a couple of years, and
there was this bloke 
,
fairly well-built, who used to smash
the ball from his own penalty area towards my goal, often with deadly accuracy.
Damn him. He was the only opponent who beat me more often than I beat him.
There
was a joystick version of this game which seemed a bit pointless to me, as the
beauty of Tehkan World Cup was the analogue nature of the trackball. Playing the
game in MAME this way (analogue control is not yet supported), seems to make
things rather easier. Therefore my record victory with the default settings
(14-0 against the first team, in 1 minute 30 seconds play time), now seems
rather tame. 
Features: Simple, addictive, palm-bruising football fun with just a single button!
Other
Notes: This game was also known as Mexico '86, to tie in with the Football World
Cup of that year.