Five "football" games on old computers that everyone can enjoy
Text adventures! Platform games! 3D on a C64! There's lots to discover in the football genre, even if you don't like the sport.
Football games would always sell well back in the day, which is why there are so many of ‘em. But a platform game? A text adventure? A…I’m gonna have to italicise again here… 3D arcade game on the C64? You betcha. I picked five from a list of dozens after taking out all the obvious stuff (love you, Sensi, but we all know how good you are by now). Even if you don’t like football, you’ll probably enjoy at least one of these.
1. Subbuteo (1990. Amiga, ST, Amstrad, C64, Spectrum)
The IRL version of Subbuteo has been knocking around since WW2. In it, you take turns to flick plastic players around a piece of felt and then your cat ruins everything (either that, or Mum vacuums up the ball early doors).
When Electronic Zoo announced that they were going to release this simulator of a simulator decades later, most magazines dribbled some variant of WhY NoT PLaY TEH rEAL tHing. Well, why play a racing game when you can trash your Dad’s car eh? Daft argument. And it turns out that Subbuteo ported over to computers pretty well. It stands up as a bit of a fun in its own right.
It’s an overhead view of the pitch on the 8-bits and a prettier (but no more playable) 3D view on the Amiga and ST. You line up your shot like in a snooker game. Then your opponent gets the chance to flick their players somewhere defensive. Possession is lost if the ball hits the other team or you fail to strike the pig’s bladder at all.
You can influence every move with power and spin (again, it’s like snooker) and the original game’s strong strategic element is captured really well. There are leagues to try and climb, or you can play one-offs against the computer or a mate. The problem is that the computer is just too good and it has a better understanding of the physics-bending shots the game occasionally serves up. This is probably one that’s best played with whoever’s hanging around the house. It’s a shame, ‘cos a good solo mode would’ve been the true W that computer Subbuteo had over its plastic-y original.
2. Soccer Kid (1993. Amiga, CD32, SNES and others)
You don’t need to know anything about football to love Soccer Kid: it’s a platform game (underneath the hood is the Arabian Nights engine) with a twist. Back in the day, this one was hugely anticipated. CU Amiga magazine exclaimed that it’d been worked on for – wait for it – eighteen months.
There’s some mangled storyline about aliens stealing the World Cup and breaking it in to pieces. This translates to you exploring a bunch of countries, collecting stuff and avoiding the baddies. You tackle platform action in England, Italy, Russia, Japan and the States (saving the day in time for USA ’94, ‘course).
The twist? Ah, you’re gonna love this. It’s a football. Well – that and your mad skills. You boot the ball around the screen, using it to open chests or jumping on it to reach far away platforms. Hit it just so and you can take out an enemy, too. If you get really good, you can master the bicycle kick to clear the levels in super-efficient style.
Platform games were massive in ’93, as each platform looked for its answer to Sonic. Irritating as that comparison might be, it’s apt here. Soccer Kid has a hell of a pace, but it also shares Sonic’s biggest frustration. The fun of the game is in tearing about the joint, but you’ve got to stop doing the good bit to perform specific tricks. You’ll be dribbling along, having the time of your life. Then you have to stop, line up your sprite and kick just so to hit an object. It really brings you out of the moment, punctuating the joy Soccer Kid delivers so well.
It's the only gripe with this gorgeous looking kick about. The game looks fab on its native Amiga (even better when it gets all fancy on the A1200) and it’s biiig (three levels for each country and a boss too). Sure, there isn’t a lot of variety. But when the idea’s this much fun, you probably won’t care. Deffo worth the play.
3. World Soccer (1990. Amiga, ST, Amstrad, Atari 8-bit, C64, Spectrum)
Zeppelin’s 8 and 16-bit management sim’ is a three division competition made up of teams from Europe (props to the mighty “Hamiton” and “Suttgart”, heroic typos rather than any last century licensing drama). You start with a bunch of donkeys in the third tier, and it’s up to you to climb the table. You do that by clicking around this screen here:
In the week, you’ll mainly be going to visit the bank manager, doctor and scout. Come Saturday you can pick your squad based on a bunch of stats and whatever you know about your opposition. The choices are largely binary (play a player or don’t; buy a new prospect or not).
Come game day, the comedy begins. Instead of stick figures flickering about a square of green, you get to watch ZTV:
It’s hopeless, at least on the Amstrad and Commodore versions tested for this piece. In the CPC one, the “ace Zep TV sportscaster” match reports don’t always reflect the end result. The Commodore version is even worse (the Zzap! review complains of being awarded a penalty kick…only for the resulting goal to be awarded to the opposition). Happily, this bug is just crappy commentary code and not the game dicking you over. Your choices seem to reflect the results fairly enough, even if the scores are quite big. Even better, you can turn Zep TV off.
Where World Soccer really falls over is with the fiddly squad management system. Transfers can be hard ‘cos you can’t go off and compare a target to your existing player stats: you either buy as soon as he’s offered or dismiss and the chance is gone. Injured players, meanwhile, can be a fitting pain: their playing position isn’t indicated by the doctor, so you’ve got to wade through your team and work out where you’re short.
Flicking through the reviews from Autumn 1990, mags across all formats criticised World Soccer for a lack of action. That’s reasonable enough. You’re mainly limited to replacing players who’re injured (it always seems to be a groin strain) and waiting for gate receipts to go up enough so that you can buy a slightly better striker. You can’t choose formations or tweak other bits of your game plan, and sometimes there’s nothing to do between matches but pick a team and go again.
But there’s something a bit namaste about World Soccer nonetheless. It’s easy and relaxing to play – click, click, click - and it looks very nice. If you don’t mind the lack of depth you can have some fun here for a night. There’s a save feature if you want to go for longer. Luxury!
4. Football Frenzy (1987. Amstrad, C64, Spectrum)
If this text adventure was executed properly it’d be a low-key classic. You’re the manager of Grimsditch Rovers, a Small Club™ who’ve inexplicably reached the Cup Final. They’re a farce. It’s Wednesday and nothing is ready for the trip to Wembley in 72 hours’ time. You take things by the scruff of the neck from the first screen, paying off the electricity bill and then moving on to the dirty kits.
It’s the standard N, TAKE KIT, S, DROP KIT, WASH KIT sort of thing here – the game’s been made in 1985’s Graphic Adventure Creator, so you’ll pick it up easily. There’s very little guidance in the instructions, but that’s kind of nice. You’re free to walk around the town and see what problems you have and how you might fix ‘em. You don’t often get a “you can’t do that”; there’s humour and stuff to enjoy at almost every turn. Along your way to Wembley you’ll have to stop one of your team leaving the team to shack up with a pop star. There are rival fans to avoid (don’t sing, they’ll deck you) and literal fires to put out.
You’ll really want to love Football Frenzy. It’s full of ideas and the author can tell a story well. It’s refreshing, too, to see the idea of a text adventure stretch its legs. But the end product is sloppy. Early on in the C64 version you’re told that there’s an exit to the east, but the code only lets you go north and west. Some “puzzles” are pure time wasters, like the constantly engaged phones (other tasks don’t even need to be solved to finish the game, likely a bug resulting from too little testing). If that isn’t enough to finish you off, the questionable parser will. Snooping around this game’s code reveals the commands KISS, GROPE and UNDRESS – seemingly related to the club’s secretary. Worse, it treats this unacceptable “gameplay” as a joke. Idiots.
5. I Play: 3D Soccer (1990 Italy, 1991 UK. Amiga, ST, C64)
I Play: 3D Soccer claims to be so real that you’ll think you’re in it, like one of those ‘80s films where the kid gets sucked in to the screen. At least, that’s what the translation from its native Italian tries to say:
“I, has a fully subjective prospective [sic] of the game and therefore I becomes the actual sportsperson, the real actor in the game”.
The action’s viewed from just behind your man at pitch level. The grass scrolls about a bit like a racing game. Because you’re always the same player, you don’t always have the ball. You’ve got to think about stuff like timing your runs and getting in to the right places to receive the ball using the pitch scanner you’ll find at the top.
If that sounds a bit much, the reality of this game is far more arcade-y and enjoyable than you might expect. The ball sticks to your foot when you receive it so you’ve just got to worry about what’s next. Fire passes it to the nearest team mate. To take a shot, you’ll see a square appear on the screen. Move it wherever you like and stick it in the net.
Without the ball, tackling’s easy enough: it’s just fire. Best of all, though, is that you can call for the ball with fire and a tap downwards.
I Play: 3D Soccer jarred a bit at the time ‘cos it was such a deviation from what was “expected” from a good footie game, but the experience of playing as the same guy for a whole match is really engrossing once you’ve mastered it. The only bummer is that it’s pretty easy to lose track of the ball when you’re learning to play. The option of leagues and a tournament would be nice for longevity too. But what’s on offer here - topped off with a kick-ass two-player mode - is a very ambitious piece of software which largely succeeds in what it tries to do. The 8-bit Commodore 64 version is especially, and surprisingly, impressive. ⚽
This was so much fun, and there are still so many strange soccer games to write about. Let me know in the comments if there are any odd ones you enjoy and I should take a look at. I’ll do another five to tie in with the World Cup around November time. Thanks so much for reading, and bye until next week.