Not just for video arcades, Foosball has been a staple of bars, restaurants and friendly neighborhood living rooms for the better part of a century. Developed in Western Europe in the early 1900s, Foosball tables continue to delight kids and adults alike

The game itself has remained mostly unchanged for a long time, first appearing in England and then making its way across the pond. Some clever entrepreneur converted them to coin operation and quarters have been disappearing into them ever since.

Foosball consists of a table representing the soccer pitch with eight horizontal bars running across its width. Each bar has a line of miniature players hanging over the pitch, with handles on one end for the human players to control. Each team controls 4 of the bars, arranged as the goalkeeper at the end of the table, a defense line of two or three foos men, a midfield row of 4-6 foos men and an attack line of two to three foos men. Play begins when the ball is served from a hole on the side of the table or just dropped on the pitch. The players then slide the bars and spin the foos men to try to get the ball into the opposing side's goal (a square hole behind the goalkeeper), while defending their own goal.

The game can be played by two players who must control all four of their team's bars or by four players (or more) handling individual bars. Foosball can be played by complete novices and knowledge of soccer rules is not required. More advanced players are capable of subtle ball passing and trick shots and may follow a complicated set of foosball rules.

There are several professional tournaments with substantial cash prizes all over the world for highly skilled players. Before you run off to enter such a competition you must know that most of them prohibit the wild spinning of a bar that sends the ball careening into the opponent's side, which is quite possibly the most fun thing to do in Foosball.