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

[Team Andromeda]

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'

" Where's my tea". The game was fab and the closest anyone ever got to the perfect 3D Sensible Soccer game. Me and my mate also loved that Man Utd Europe game on the Amiga (with the late Les sealey on the cover) even though we both hated Man utd as a club.

Striker was good for a laugh on the Snes( loved the intro music to that game with the mode 7 pitch zooming in) , Fifa Soccer on. The Mega CD was ace too

[Mayhem]

Rather pleased to see a couple more mentions for Emlyn Hughes, it was arguably the most football like football game of its time.

[Gradius]

Tehkan World Cup in the arcades was pretty good. It was a table top game with trackballs.

Had lots of fun playing J League excite stage 94/95 on Super Famicom too.

[Cepp]

Nintendo World Cup! I loved pulling off the special moves in that game.

Fifa 98 & World Cup 98 were probably my most played football games followed by the first Pro Evo. I'm very fond of all three.

I tried Virtua Soccer a few times in the arcade but could never get one with it; that series just never felt right to me.

I guess these don't really count but I put an insane amount of time into Premier Manager 98 and Championship Manager 97/98 all to take Oldham Athletic to the top.

[teddymeow]

The worst footy game in my mind is FIFA 64 on N64.

What an absolute travesty of a title.

[JazzFunk]

The worst is easily GOAL! on the Acorn Electron. I saved about ten weeks of pocket money up to buy that turd of a game. Even Artic World Cup was WAY better!

[Leon Retro]

Even Artic World Cup was WAY better!

[JazzFunk]

In this case, Leon, I actually AM.

It was about six quid back in the 80s, loads for me at the time. It is SO bad. It was actually more disappointing than Electron Commando, and that is truly saying something.

The Acorn Electron version of Commando was worse than Fred West.

[Team Andromeda]

Used to enjoy Pro Striker on the MD too, that looked and played really good at the time.

[Leon Retro]

It was about six quid back in the 80s, loads for me at the time.

When it comes to wasting money, I had a close shave. I had ordered 'Gazza's Superstar Soccer' for the Amiga, but when I went to collect it, the guy behind the counter said a new game called 'Stunt Car Racer' had come in, so he did a demonstration and it looked soooo good that I changed my mind about Gazza's and bought Stunt Car instead.

Amiga footy games that I enjoyed:

Microprose Soccer(A nice update of the classic C64 game.)

Kick Off 2(Played really well once you got used to it.)

Manchester United Europe( I don't support Man utd, but this was a decent game in all areas.)

Sensible Soccer(Such an addictive game.)

[samanosuke]

Some of my footy game memoirs...

Championship Scooer for the Atari 2600 was one of the first football games I played and it was truly awful. It played three aside and the players formed the points of a triangle, sticking to the formation in a way a football manager could only dream of by never deviating from it, and the player controlled all three in unison. Was slow, sh*te, and not like football at all. My cousin had a football game for the Intellivision that played a lot better.

Match Day for the Spectrum was where it all began for me. Absolutely *loved* the MOTD theme playing as the players walked out; even though it sounded a little off-key, it really set the scene. I hated the sequel by the way as the players looked goofy and I hated the control scheme which seemed to be like the god-awful Super Soccer.

Some other footy game for the Speccy whose name escapes me was a budget release whereby you picked two teams and then watched a footy game being played out. Yep, you couldn’t play it, and no it wasn’t a management sim either. It was as if the developers had created a graphical engine but lacked the nous to make it into a playable game, and the publisher thought f*ck it, let’s release it anyway. Looked great from the screenshots, hence me wasting £2.99 of my hard-earned paperound money on it.

Kick Off 2 for the Amiga which I absolutely hated. My mate adored it and played it all the time, but all I remember is how difficult it was to actually get a player on to the ball as I kept running past it. Load of old, over-rated tosh.

Sensible Soccer is where it’s at. Now this deserved all the plaudits. So good and never been bettered in 2D, maybe in 3D too for sheer fun factor and simple pick up and play mechanics. If you know the rules of football, you can play it. The same can’t be said of FIFA, even if you’re, say, a seasoned PES player, it’s still not immediately accessible and vice versa.

Football Champ in the arcade is amazingly good fun. Surprised it’s not been mentioned yet as it was so fast, playable and a right laugh at the same time. It was the blueprint for the Super Sidekicks series and I felt that until the fourth iteration of SS (unfornate abbreviation, there), it always remained inferior to Football Champ.

[Escape-To-88]

I'm a big fan of the meaty looking arcade titles:

Football Champ
Soccer Brawl
Neo World Cup '98
Super Sidekicks series

Quite like the first Virtua Soccer too, and played a ton of ISS on the SNES. All this current crap holds zero interest for me. Not a fan of all that SWOS stuff either.

[buster_broon]

Aye I also enjoyed microprose soccer as well, unsure if I played it on the C64 or electron though

[Tobal]

Best speccy football game will always be Footballer of Year.

[Jaz]

Best speccy football game will always be Footballer of Year.

Great game..on the C64.