Fighting Soccer logo

ACTIVISION £24.99 Joystick

This one or two-player footy game is the conversion of the SNK coin-op machine. The idea is very simple: it is Olympic football you are playing and eleven teams are taking part in a knockout contest. You control one team and have to get through to, and win, the final.

The action is all viewed from above and the player you are controlling is highlighted. To pass or shoot the ball a big direction arrow is moved and the fire button pressed. At the end of the two-minutes-a-half match, the winner goes through to the next round.

This was a jolly nice coin-op game, and although the conversion is very slow everything is there. It is a shame the lack of speed makes it far too easy to win (even on first attempts) because once you have won there is little incentive to come back to it. The two player option helps, but not much.

GRAPHICS 7
SOUND 6
INTELLECT 2
ADDICTION 6

OVERALL 43%


Dabei sein ist nicht immer alles!

Fighting Soccer logo

Welcher Fußballfan hätte noch nicht davon geträumt, mit der eigenen Mannschaft olympisches Gold zu erringen? Fighting Soccer verspricht nun, diesen Wunsch zu erfüllen - wir berichten live vom Spiel.

Die Aufstellung: Ein- und Zwei-Spieler-Modus stehen zur Wahl, wobei zwei Spieler sowohl gegeneinander als auch zusammen gegen den Computer antreten können. Zu sehen ist das Spielfeld aus der Vogelperspektive, und zwar gleicht doppelt: Einmal klein am Rand im Gesamtüberblick, zum zweiten groß in der Mitte der Teil des Rasens, in dem das aktuelle Geschehen stattfindet.

Nach dem Anpfiff geht's sofort los auf Ball und Gegner, was der Joystick nur immer hergibt. Die Feldspieler sind gut animiert und werfen bei der Steuerung keine Probleme auf, nur beim Torwart muß man sich auf sein Glück verlassen. Keine große Hilfe ist der Unparteiische: Er gibt den Anstoß gelegentlich der Mannschaft, die gerade ein Tor erzielt hat! Jedes Match dauert drei Minuten, fünf davon benötigt man zum Titelgewinn.

Wie ist das Spiel nun gelaufen? Tja, die Grafikmöglichkeiten des Amiga werden kaum ausgereizt, und beim Sound sieht's auch nicht all zu rosig aus: "Alle Ähnlichkeiten der vorkommenden Effekte mit der Realität sind rein zufällig und nicht beabsichtigt", hätte gut als Motto gepaßt - das alternativ angebotene Musikstück reißt ebenfalls keinen vom Hocker.

Insgesamt eine eher mäßige Vorstellung, bleibt zu hoffen, daß die nächsten Spiel besser werden! (ur)


Fighting Soccer logo

Activision
Price: £24.95

The recent spate of football games in the arcades has given rise to Activision's latest conversion, Fighting Soccer. Like its arcade counterpart the action is viewed from above and the screen scrolls to keep the ball central. You have a team of five players of which you control the one nearest to the ball. The idea of the game is to win an Olympic Gold Medal by beating your opponents in a knock-out tournament.

You can use all the normal football skills: dribbling, shooting and heading but what makes Fighting Soccer different is that you can also foul your opponents. If you decide that an Olympic medal is worth a bit of foul play then you would better watch out for the ever vigilant referee.

As we have come to expect of Activision the graphics are very good, everything is nicely drawn and reasonably animated. Good use of colour also enhances the appearance of the game. Because the action is viewed from above, when a player jumps of the ball leaves the ground, they get larger to give the effect of getting closer to the screen - a nice touch and very effective.

Sound comes in small doses but what little there is, is quite good, all the normal football noises are present except for one glaring omission - there is no crowd noise. The referee's comments are digitised but they are less understandable than a British Rail announcement.

The strange control system makes it nice and easy to pass, dribble and shoot but almost impossible, to head or foul. Since heading and fouling are two of the game's main features I was disappointed not to be able to use them properly. Another minus point is the size of the pitch - it is just too small, all ten players seem to converge on the screen at once making it extremely difficult to keep any control over the ball. With a lot of practice it gets a little easier, but not much.

Because of the difficulty factor many people will give up after a few plays, real soccer fans with lots of perseverance may get some enjoyment from Fighting Soccer but I think that the repetitive nature of the game may even get to them after a while. If Activision hoped to net a winner with Fighting Soccer then this effort is well wide of the posts.