The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of retro football games!

[S3M]

Now that the World Cup has started again, lets get some related football discussion on your favourite and most hated retro football games out there.

From the arcades to home computer there used to be a wealth of football games out there until FIFA and PES pretty much tied up the market.

One of the legendary football games for me has to be World of Sensible Soccer, fast paced single button controls that just worked so well. While there have been attempts to bring the format into the 3D era nothing quite beats the 2D original games. This is the XBLA version on X360, which you can still pick up.

What games did you enjoy or hate having to play, can't say I was ever a fan of the Kick Off titles.

[DeathAdder]

Super Formation Soccer on SNES, the first version of which was based on Italia 90. I got that with my SNES. Still fun to play, and the co-operative play was something I'd never seen before.

[Asura]

The football games which most stick in my mind are...

ISS (Game Boy Color) - Loved this. Got it for about £2 one week back when the GBC was contemporary and ended up playing it for weeks.

Actua Soccer 2 (PC) - Pretty objectively a bad game. However, I got it free with a 3DFX card and it looked amazing as a result by the standards of the time.

Sega Worldwide Soccer 97 (Saturn) - At least I think it was 97. I got this cheap too, and ended up playing it for a long time; it was extremely playable with bizarre ultra-Sega music.

There were probably others, but those were my highlights.

[Mayhem]

On the C64, it was International Soccer, and then the battle was between Emlyn Hughes and Microprose Soccer. Both had their massive positives, it depended on how you wanted to play it! And then there was the early FIFA, which I played on the PC, with the ability to always score from a certain position, and the ability to perpetually avoid yellow cards by running away from the ref!

[Tobal]

Played alot of strange football games and i have good mate who along with myself enjoy playing bad football games as well (via emu mostly), the strangest by far is Bakuretsu/Super Shot Soccer... fancy playing as england and having one your defenders block a shot by turning into Bigben, then this is the game. Just watch the intro for most of the madness.



Other so bad they're good, Olympic Soccer, Libero Grande 1-2, Viva Football, 3 Lions, Goal Storm, Adidas Power Soccer 2, Euro Champ Soccer, Megaman Soccer, FIFA world cup 02, UEFA2000 on the dreamcast which as far as we could work out does not have a shoot button.

[Leon Retro]

Super Formation Soccer on SNES, the first version of which was based on Italia 90. I got that with my SNES. Still fun to play, and the co-operative play was something I'd never seen before.

As much as it's a clunky game in many ways, I really enjoyed it back in the day. I liked the graphics, some of the music tracks during the matches are really catchy, and it was fun to play once you got used to it.

Other SNES footy games I played:

International Superstar Soccer: I loved everything about this game - Konami managed to deliver a truly brilliant football experience.

Hat Trick Hero: As much as it looked OK, it was far too basic and unsatisfying. I had a bit of fun with it, but knew it wasn't very good.

Excite Stage '94(aka Soccer Shootout): The graphics seemed a bit small and lacking overall, but it played well, so I enjoyed it quite a bit. This also had good music which helped boost the atmosphere.

[Brad]

Kick Off series. Fond memories of those games and their many expansion disks.

[Colin]

The Tecmo one from the arcade was always a favourite. In its day 3do FIFA was brilliant too.

[Team Andromeda]

Nothing beat drunken Hatric Heroes in Barry Island arcade and the countless druken Sensible Soccer sessions on the Amiga and Mega CD with a gang on of mates.

Really loved 8 player Fifa 96 on the Saturn, the incredible Match Day II on the Zx Spectrum, the over looked and underrated classic Olympic Soccer, the ace World League Soccer 98 and the fabulous This Is Football series on the PS 2. Did also enjoy Super Soccer on the Snes with manual GK the ace Germany music track and the ace pee take when one scored a own goal, Fifa on the 3DO

The worst footy games I played and bought were Ryan Giggs footy on the MD, Super Kick off on the MD and World Cup 94 on the Mega CD. Have to current Fifa and Pro Evo games are really good

[vanpeebles]

World Soccer on the Master System, Match Day on speccy, Sensible Soccer on my Acorn A3010.

[ZipZap]

Match Day on the speccy was where it all started for me. I was only really young at the time, but I got hours from that game. I also used to play a Spectrum game called Super Soccer which was *terrible*. I obviously tolerated any old garbage back then!


On the C64 it was about Microprose Soccer and Emlyn Hughes. Both were two of my most played games for the system, but I think Emlyn Hughes deserves a mention, because of how it allowed you to pass neatly across the ground in a different directions (as opposed to just the direction you were running!). Players would run into space, you could pull of defence splitting 1-2s and as I got good, I scored some really impressive goals! Shame there were no replays.


I played Tecmo World Cup 90 a lot in the arcade. As with most old football games, there were techniques that would guarantee a goal, right up to the final game, but in the days before youtube, you’d only learn those techniques by watching other players in the flesh, which meant it took quite a while to master them all. It was also good fun in multiplayer.


That brings us on to SWOS, my final love of the 2D era! Not only did it play the best game of football at the time, but I also loved how it handled the global game. Hundreds of teams and players, playing over what felt like a real season.


Does PES on the PS2 count as retro? (the same amount of time has passed between now and then, as had passed between then and the C64 games I mentioned earlier!). PES3 was the one I played by far the most. As I had a chipped machine, so I was also quite into modding. I downloaded all the correct player/kit mods and even made a few kits of my own.

[Team Andromeda]

World Soccer on the Master System, Match Day on speccy, Sensible Soccer on my Acorn A3010.

The over head kicks in World Soccer are still to this day, the best ever. Also had to give a shout to Football on the Intellivision, where each half went on for 45 mins, me and brother used to play that and always get a telling off, for being late for Sunday dinner, back in the day

[Brad]

+1 for 3do FIFA. Amazing at the time.

[nakamura]

I've played just about every football game ever made I think, at least on console!

Highs:
Emlyn Hughes
Kick off 3
J-LEAGUE Dream Stadium 96
ISS 98 and Pro series
Sensible
FIFA 95
Olympic Soccer (Sensible basically)
PES PS2

Middlers:
Worldwide Soccer
FIFA 3DO/96
ISS SNES (keepers suck)
Super Sidekicks (same)
Hat Trick Hero
Tons of PlayStation games!

Lows:
Virtua Striker (worst football games ever)
FIFA 97-2003. (All terrible)
Namco Soccer Prime goal (PS1)

[buster_broon]

Loved animal League soccer on the super nintendo but my favourite was Olympic soccer (PS1) the game was fast and you could bend crazy shots, i think Alan Green was the commentator and it was hilarious, "wack, my granny could have done better'