Kick Off - by Dino Dini
Simply the best.
I remember seeing Kick Off 1 being demonstrated on an Atari ST in a computer shop, and I was blown away by its smoothness, game-play, and pace. Football games I'd seen up until then had been games with little stickmen, virtually no animation, and so very slow. But this game moved the genre to a whole new level.
I got it for the Amiga and remember setting up a league with a bunch of friends - each of us would put money into a pot every week, and at the end of the season whoever was top of the league won all the money.
Kick Off - Extra Time was a great add-on to the game, adding extra things, one of which was called 'after-touch' which enabled you to put a swerve on the ball when passing and shooting. You could also add off-sides to the game too, which was the first attempt of its kind.
Kick Off 2 came out a year or two afterwards and was even better, with more options, and the ability to create your own tactics and save them. The one drawback to the Kick Off series was the games pace - it was blisteringly fast. So fast it was almost like playing kick and rush, with very little tactics involved. That all changed when the Kick Off 2 add on was released, called Kick Off - Return to Europe. This had an option to reduce the pace from normal, to slow. And on slow speed the game actually played at a realistic pace, much more inline with real football. For the first time tactics meant something in the game. - with different players having time on the ball to play their own style of play - from long ball, to a slower paced possession-based game.
Kick Off 3? The less said about it, the better.
I remember seeing Kick Off 1 being demonstrated on an Atari ST in a computer shop, and I was blown away by its smoothness, game-play, and pace. Football games I'd seen up until then had been games with little stickmen, virtually no animation, and so very slow. But this game moved the genre to a whole new level.
I got it for the Amiga and remember setting up a league with a bunch of friends - each of us would put money into a pot every week, and at the end of the season whoever was top of the league won all the money.
Kick Off - Extra Time was a great add-on to the game, adding extra things, one of which was called 'after-touch' which enabled you to put a swerve on the ball when passing and shooting. You could also add off-sides to the game too, which was the first attempt of its kind.
Kick Off 2 came out a year or two afterwards and was even better, with more options, and the ability to create your own tactics and save them. The one drawback to the Kick Off series was the games pace - it was blisteringly fast. So fast it was almost like playing kick and rush, with very little tactics involved. That all changed when the Kick Off 2 add on was released, called Kick Off - Return to Europe. This had an option to reduce the pace from normal, to slow. And on slow speed the game actually played at a realistic pace, much more inline with real football. For the first time tactics meant something in the game. - with different players having time on the ball to play their own style of play - from long ball, to a slower paced possession-based game.
Kick Off 3? The less said about it, the better.