34
EUROPEAn CLUB
SOCCER
An enjoyable Mega Drive kickabout featuring
chunky sprites haring around a large pitch:
in the pre-FIFA days this felt like interacting
with a real match on the telly. Intriguingly
it lacked a shoot button: instead you held
down B (pass) or C (lob) to add extra power
to the ball. Curious, but the method worked.BEST BIT Rotherham appearing among the
European elite, owing to it being developer
Krisalis’ hometown club.33
LMA
MAnAGER
The first great dugout sim on console. While
Championship Manager nailed text-based
action, LMA on PS1 was all about the visuals:
from 3D matches to cup draws with old
blokes plucking balls from bags. Released in
1999, the series endured through to 2007.BEST BIT Picking a lowly club and reshaping
your squad before a ball had been kicked.32
MICROPROSE
SOCCER
Norwich supporter Jon Hare is a development
legend for making Sensible Soccer – but that
classic would never have existed without this
1988 effort. Hare’s first crack at virtual footy
set the foundations for Sensi via a top-down
perspective, some simple controls and crazy
banana shots.BEST BIT Letting fly from 35 yards on the left
side of the pitch, then directing the ball into
the right-hand top corner.31
WORLD
CHAMPIOnSHIP
SOCCER 2
If MicroProse was a forerunner to Sensi, this
was its underappreciated spin-off – made by
Hare and his crew while working for Sega in
secret. Their experiment to flip the Sensible
Soccer engine sideways scored zero fanfare
back in 1994, though it has since turned into
a cult hit.BEST BIT Developer Wallace Poulter’s 2013
confession that the England squad’s names
came from his days studying at Fens School
in Hartlepool.30
CHAMPIOnSHIP
MAnAGER
The all-conquering Football Manager series
originally went under a different name. This
first entry, lovingly nicknamed ‘ChampMan’,
emerged on Amiga in 1992 and transformed
dugout sims, with every player given a rating
out of 10 after each match. This was already
common practice in newspaper reports, but
revolutionary in gaming.BEST BIT Selecting your team by clicking on
a rectangular box next to each player’s name:
a mechanic which soon became synonymous
with the series.29
FOOTBALL
MAnAGER HAnDHELD
By 2006 ‘ChampMan’ had become Football
Manager, and this PSP release fulfilled the
most geeky of fantasies – playing FM while
on-the-go. Options were limited compared
to the full-fat PC version, but sealing a key
transfer on the bus/train/khazi felt revelatory
at the time.BEST BIT Snapping up a teenage Barcelona
prospect, then building your team around
him for 15 seasons. His name? Lionel Messi.36
MULTI-PLAYER
SOCCER MAnAGER
Another glorious throwback to the Amstrad
and ZX Spectrum, MPSM allowed you to take
over a Division Four club with 30 seasons in
which to ascend the divisions. Its hook was
hosting up to four bosses on one computer,
tussling for strikers and league positions.
BEST BIT Switching to your brother’s team,
selling you his star man and insisting it was
an accident for 30 years.
35
FOOTBALL,
TACTICS & GLORY
The closest thing to digital Subbuteo. You
take it in turns to move, shoot, pass or tackle,
with player stats affected by weather and
fatigue. An active community enables you to
import most major leagues and teams, and
the PS4 and XBox One versions play just as
well as the PC original.
BEST BIT Boshing in a 25-yarder, despite all
of the in-game numbers being against you.
54 June 2022 FourFourTwo
FOOTBALL
VIDEO GAMES