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Game(s):
Kick Off, Kick Off Extra Time, Kick Off II, Player
Manager, Final Whistle, Return to Europe, Giants of Europe, Goal!.
Computer System/Console:
Amiga 500
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In
1989, Anco (and Dino Dini) produced my favourite series of home computer
games for Amiga 500, with Kick Off II being the BEST of all!
Kick Off II had plenty of features that gave a whole
new dimension to football games.
Fouls, Yellow Cards, Red Cards, Injuries (and Injury Time!), Substitutions
were all part of a unique fun mixture.
Each player had his own attributes (strength, stamina, speed etc), his
own number and you could choose them from a given list.
Your team could choose their ideal tactic
system. My favourite was the 4-3-3 system which proved to be lethal
for ALL my opponents. In Player Manager, you could create your own tactic
system which could be loaded into Kick Off II!
One of the fun parts was the referees. There were plenty of them with
different names and most importantly different moods!!! Some of them
will never give a foul, others will show eight red cards in a row!!!
Some of them were even treating nicely only one of the two teams...!
Kick Off II did not have music during the game,
but the sound effects were good enough to create a terrific atmosphere.
The best attribute of all, was a revolutionary feature called "after
touch". It was a ball-controlling feature which was on effect after
kicking the ball. It could produce some wicked spin, height or power
to the ball depending on our action. For example, if your player was
running upwards, you shot the ball, moved the joystick downwards and
kept pressing the shoot button, then the ball will take off just like
an F16-fighter in a flight simulator!!! This was not an easy feature
to master, but I liked it and played it sooo much, that I actually won
the Greek "Kick Off II Competition" organised by the greek
computer magazine PIXEL (February 1991). As in Tehkan World Cup, I would
have never been half as good in this game without the endless tournaments
between me, Stefan Raabe, Christos Psarris, my brother Chris etc etc
etc...
Besides all the above, there were other features, like the Action Replay.
Any time during the game you could press "R" and see a replay
of the last 10 seconds. If it was a nice replay you could save it and
place it inside your golden replay archive!
And yes, I still have an Amiga 500 and the original Kick Off II disk!!!
:)
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Game:
Tecmo World Cup
Computer System/Console:
NES
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Don't mix this game with some other arcade games
from Tecmo (former Tehkan). This game was released for NES! And yes,
it is a Tehkan World Cup edition for NES! Graphics and music are limited
compared to the original, but in my opinion it is a very good try!
I had no clue about the existence of this game until Marcos Cavalieri
sent me a series of emails about it!!! And I actually used to have a
NES (which was the prize of the 1991 Kick Off II competition!). Many
thanks to Marcos Cavalieri who also added that this is a rare game.
Well, since I (Master Peter) had never heard about it, it MUST be rare!!!
:)
If you wish to view some animation made with the help
of MESS, click HERE! (98 Kb) |
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Game:
Sensible World of Soccer
Computer System/Console:
Amiga 500
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This
game was popular too, but I will never understand why...! It was a neat
game but it didn't have much fun features and the stadium area was just
too small, just like watching a real game from a two km height!
I admit that this game was a huge success, but I noticed that real football
game lovers often ended up with Kick Off II. SWOS was a game that I liked
a lot, not loved! :) |
