What's the best old-school soccer game?

[MidnightMatinee]

16 bit or less?

I'm just getting into the real football, and words can't begin to cover how painfully ignorant I am on the subject. (not that that should prevent you from trying, should the occasion arise)

I figured the best way to understand it was to begin with a simplified experience-back in the days when games came in a cartridge format, memory space was at a premium, and often the programmers were only able to present a streamlined experience...

Who came closest to recreating the science of the game?

Who best expressed it's art?

Are any of those games still entertaining today?

[Fleck]

I dont know if N64 is 16bit or whatever, but International Superstar Soccer 98 was a damn good soccer game, the best ive ever played... just phenomenal...

[Kronos]

FIFA 99...in my opinion, EA took a step back when they came out with FIFA 2000.

FIFA 98 actually got me interested in soccer...so thats another game

[srd....]

fifa road to the world cup 98,is a good game,but not really old school,sensible soccer would better suit the crown of best old-school game.

[somebody]

I quite liked the game Goal.

[Ted Cikowski]

ISS 98 does not count, the N64 was two 32 bit processors. FIFA 98 and 99 don't count as they ran on 32 bit systems.

Sensible Soccer DOES count. It was a pretty basic and fun game from an overhead view.

FIFA 96 on the 16 bit sega genesis was fun too though I may change my opinion if I played it today. I went back and played NBA Live '96 (which I loved when it came out) and it's pretty terrible.

[TruxHalapino]

Sensible Soccer DOES count. It was a pretty basic and fun game from an overhead view.
And pure genius! playability-wise, nothing NOTHING ever comes close to Sensible Soccer/Kick Off 2. Ah, those days when Amiga 500 ruled the world.

If you are up to it:
http://www.ko-gathering.com/downloads/

[srd....]

i had my copy of sensible soccer on the c64,on a good old fasioned tape,after all it only took about 15 minautes to load and provided loads of eye candy while you were waiting :D

ahhh.....happy days....

[ZeekLTK]

Nintendo World Cup for NES was great! :D

[smistry]

My favorite was Emlyn Hughes International Soccer on the Commodore 64.
It was awesome for the Time and would still give fifa a run for it's money.

[Spoon]

Sensible Soccer DOES count. It was a pretty basic and fun game from an overhead view.




Dude that game frickin ruled. I had SWOS 94/95 and 95/96 on my Amiga 600.
Good times, by far the best soccer game ever in my opinion. I will never forget heading home the game winner agianst Man U with Plymouth Argyle (d3 at the time) in the FA cup. The game needs to come back out.

[Freddy Garcia Lives]

I quite liked the game Goal.

Since that was the only soccer game I owned before the recent fifa games, I have to say I liked it. Introduced me to what soccer was and taught me the lesson I didn't want to learn, soccer for the US in the eighties must have sucked 'cause I had a hard time winning with them even though I knew I could score from the top of the box even with the post everytime.

[Wizardscharter]

I quite liked the game Goal.Me too - remember it was "GOAL!" with an exclamation point. Great game. Well before that Commodore had an indoor soccer game that did a very good job with angles and defense with the limited graphics of 1983/4. My friends and I played that one like Halo and Madden are commonly played now.

All that said there is no greater old school soccer game than fooseball with one man at the GK level and tilted corners. None of this Tornado/Tournament-three-men-back crap.

[jkl;]

International Superstar Soccer for SNES was great technically, while Nintendo World Cup for NES/Game Boy was great fun (shoulder charge and slide tackle everybody!)

[bringbacksoccersim]

The Sensible Soccer games were incredible in there day and still are! Nothing on the PC has come close to its gameplay and certainly nothing has its fun factor. It was brilliant :D

I liked the Player Manager on the Amiga, too. If only the games that followed it kept the same basic interface instead of trying to look the Ultimate Soccer Manager :(

TruxHalapino... thanks for that link. Haven't a clue how to get it all running though, can you help?

[TruxHalapino]

The Sensible Soccer games were incredible in there day and still are! Nothing on the PC has come close to its gameplay and certainly nothing has its fun factor. It was brilliant :D

I liked the Player Manager on the Amiga, too. If only the games that followed it kept the same basic interface instead of trying to look the Ultimate Soccer Manager :(

TruxHalapino... thanks for that link. Haven't a clue how to get it all running though, can you help?
There's a tutorial on that page, I followed it and it worked for me.
Gotta warn you though, I couldnt manage to get it to work with my keyboard, mouse nor gamepad. Only with my old digital joystick

[iansfavouritecopilot]

Sensible World Of Soccer is the king of everything ever. If you press 'm' you get £1m. If only life was that easy!
The Manager (best management game ever, man, and I think its freeware now)
Kick-Off
Goal!
(more recently) Ultimate Soccer Manager 98

I had this one game where you played as the England goalkeeper in the Sensible Soccer-style graphics and all you had to do was take goal kicks towards on-rushing Dutch players. The balls were bombs and it was quite brutal

[DjTannerr]

My dad and uncle would always play goal. They loved that game, which sucked for a young me.

I personally loved Nintendo World Cup. River City Ransom meets Soccer. it was awesome. Especially the super fireball moves when you press A + B

[FC5280]

Nintendo World Cup for NES was great! :D

The discussion should have ended after this game was brought up.

[iougs]

Match Day II for C64 ... that was the shiznit once you passed the team selection.

iougs-