Head Ball Games: Big Heads, Short Matches

The football side of the group is the busiest. Football Heads runs league fixtures where wins carry you up a division, and power-ups drop onto the pitch mid-match to change the speed of the ball or the weight of your strike. Pill Soccer hands the same idea to a physics engine and capsule-shaped players, so a shoulder shoved into the ball scores as often as a swung leg does.

A second branch keeps the big heads but changes the sport. Head Sports Basketball lets you set the character, the court, the weather, the rival difficulty and the length of the match before tip-off, which is rare in a niche this small. Monster Head Volleyball adds a net, so the point turns on serving, blocking and picking the moment to rise rather than on raw speed.

Then there are the odd relatives. Pocket League 3D swaps the heads for small cars and one huge ball, and the hardest shot in it comes from a double jump into a flip. Basket Random redraws the court, the ball and the floor after every single point, so the giant ball you learned to shoot in round one is gone by round two.

Two of the picks are quieter and built around one repeated motion. Head The Ball never gives you a strike key at all: you slide the player under the dropping ball and the contact point decides the angle. Basket 3D is a single pull-and-release shot, and Game Penalty Kicks is a single swipe across the ball, with spin coming from the edge rather than the middle.

Half of this shelf is built for two people sharing one device. Basket Random, Pill Soccer, Pocket League 3D and Soccer Physics all split a keyboard between a left hand and a right hand. If that is the reason you came, the article on playing two on one keyboard covers the seating and key-splitting part, and the two player category holds the rest of the shelf.

Phones are handled unevenly here. Football Heads, Basket Random, Soccer Physics, Head The Ball, Game Penalty Kicks and Basket 3D carry touch controls. Head Sports Basketball, Monster Head Volleyball, Pill Soccer and Pocket League 3D lean on keyboard keys, which makes a computer the better seat for them. Checking that line before you call a friend over saves an argument.

If you want more of the same shape after these ten, the sports category holds the fuller football and basketball shelf, and the arcade category covers the short-round games that share this pace without the big heads.

How do these games play?

Most of these matches hand you three actions at most: move sideways, jump, and strike. Jumping is the one that decides matches, because you cannot steer in mid-air. A head that leaves the floor early is a head watching the ball roll underneath it, which is why the tips in several of these games say the same thing in different words: go up as the rival comes down.

The physics is loose on purpose. In Soccer Physics one key jumps and swings a leg at the same moment, and where the ball ends up depends on the collision angle rather than on your aim. Pill Soccer behaves the same way, which is why shoving the ball over the line with your body beats a hard swing near the net. Treating that clumsiness as the rule instead of a bug is most of the learning.

The precision games work by an opposite logic. Head The Ball rewards small corrections and punishes sideways dashes, Basket 3D asks you to keep the same pull distance while a run is alive, and Game Penalty Kicks starts reading you if you aim at the same corner twice. Here the slow player wins.

Match length is a setting worth using. Head Sports Basketball lets you shorten the clock, and Basket Random ends at five points. A short match keeps a single lucky bounce meaningful, which is exactly what you want when someone is waiting for their turn.

Which one should I pick?

Left column is the game, the two right columns say whether it runs on a phone and how many people can play.

• Football Heads - Free Head Football Game: Power-ups drop mid-match and change the ball speed or the strength of your strike.
• Head Sports Basketball - Free Hoops Game: Character, court, weather, rival difficulty and clock are all chosen before tip-off.
• Monster Head Soccer Volleyball Game - Play Free: Block after the rival jumps, not with them, or the ball sails over your head.
• Basket Random - Free Two Player Basketball Game: Court, ball and floor are redrawn after each point; five points ends the match.
• Pill Soccer - Free 2 Player Football Game: Player one uses arrows with P, player two uses W, A, D with S to shoot.
• Soccer Physics Online - Free Silly Football Game: W jumps and swings at the same time; there is no separate shoot button.
• Pocket League 3D - Free 2 Player Car Soccer: A double jump into a flip gives the hardest strike available in the game.
• Game Penalty Kicks - Free Penalty Game Online: Swipe across the edge of the ball for spin; the keeper learns a repeated corner.
• Head The Ball - Free Football Heading Game: No strike key at all; the header fires where the ball touches the head.
• Basket 3D - Free Basketball Shooting Game: Hold, pull back to build angle and power, then release to let the ball go.

Frequently asked questions

Further reading

For more, browse the ⚽ Sports, 👥 2 Player, 👾 Arcade categories.