As I post this, the World Cup is just wrapping up and wow, what a wonderful event if you have absolutely no expectations. The United States’ coach said they couldn’t win and he was correct. But every little victory was celebrated.
We beat Ghana, the West African nation of 25 million that knocked the United States out of two consecutive World Cups! Woo!
We nearly beat Portugal! Yeah!
We lost to Germany but escaped the group of death anyway! YEAH!
Our goalkeeper is considerably better than the rest of our team! FUCK YEAH!
But if you go into the event with expectations, you’ll likely be disappointed. I can’t imagine what Brazil fans might feel – the host country, favorites to win it all, and they’re knocked out 7-1. They were dominated.
This was written before the third-place match but’ll go up after, so who knows? Brazil may pull out something there. But still.
In the following soccer games, I am Brazil and the computer is Germany.
Adidas Power Soccer
| Developer | Publisher | Release Date | Best-Seller in | Playstation Review Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Psygnosis |
Pysgnosis | 6/96 (Europe) 8/31/96 (North America) |
Europe (Platinum) | #47 |
This may be the first game I’ve ever played to include a commercial break.
Yes, every half time there’s an ad for Adidas shoes.
Adidas’ sponsorship of Adidas Power Soccer doesn’t end with the name on the cover or ads in the stadium. Every other goal is a PREDATOR GOAL; the German company’s shoe flashes up on-screen with the celebrations.
Adidas Power Soccer is the only one of today’s games to try to feature knock-off leagues instead of a knock-off international cup. It features German and French teams, as well as British teams – including Sheffield…Sunday and “Manchester”.
A fast game, Adidas Power Soccer’s arcade mode adds sparking tackles, fiery shots and cuckoo birds over injured players. And since I’m bad at this, being down 3-0 at halftime was the norm. Once my goalkeeper was left defenseless after making several saves – unassisted by one of my players, who was just standing in the goal itself. However, I did actually manage to score goals.
Thankfully, Adidas Power Soccer doesn’t really try for realism. It has the kind of simple, colorful look that worked well on the Playstation in a way pure realism just couldn’t.
Realism is demanded in sports games, but they can’t be too realistic. I was watching a video of Football Manager 2014 and the player complained about a dumb move by one player, calling it a glitch. It may be. But soccer players, even good ones, often do stupid things. They score own goals, they give up the ball to the other team, they regularly bite people. But that’s not the kind of realism people want.
I think I might have killed someone, but I wasn’t even given a yellow card. You can set the referee rate to “blind”, but they seem pretty blind even on default.
Originally I was going to go the NBA Action route and simulate a whole season. However, several games in I was heading for relegation, so I just gave up.
But how are the goal celebrations?: The world GOAL flashes up pretty dramatically, but that’s it.
__________________________________________________________________________
VR Soccer 96
| Developer | Publisher | Release Date | Best-Seller in | Also Known As… | Also On… | Playstation Review Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gremlin |
Interplay | 3/96 (Europe) 7/19/96 (Japan) 10/31/96 (North America) |
Europe (Platinum) | Actua Soccer, Ran Soccer |
Saturn, PC | #48 |
VR Soccer ‘96 is a trying existential nightmare with a soccer game attached.
When starting the cup competition one page of results after another popped up. Advancing through them, witnessing the failures of those who came before, until your number is up.
I couldn’t triumph as the US. I couldn’t as Ghana. The cup was eventually won by Portugal, with runner-up Germany.
Other features include: unnervingly stiff players!
But how are the goal celebrations?: We see the team pumping fists while a big GOAL is displayed on a huge TV.
__________________________________________________________________________
Sega Worldwide Soccer ’97
| Developer | Publisher | Release Date | Saturn Review Number |
|---|---|---|---|
Seg a |
Sega | 10/31/96 (NA) 11/29/96 (Japan) |
#44 |
The best of the games, one that reminds me of Decathlete: a nice-looking arcade (or sim?) sport experience. Also simulates a competition between national teams, allowing you to set up a whole multi-team tournament (VR Soccer just allows you to pick what teams are competing). I remember multiple things about this game, such as: Graphics. Controls. Menus. Goals?
__________________________________________________________________________
Thirty-two bits on a screen,
Polygons still jutting,
Thirty minutes of in-game time,
Pretty much stopped me dreaming
You aren’t told what car it does work with, or why it’s incompatible. You’re just told…well, that it doesn’t work with your car.
Created in 1968, the Bucks won their first championship in 1971 thanks to players Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’s also their only championship.
One game that tried to replicate the infamy of Mortal Kombat: Thrill Kill for the Playstation. A four-player fighting game, the Paradox (not the grand strategy one) developed game was to be published by Virgin – only to be cancelled when Virgin Interactive was bought by Electronic Arts.
Bruce Willis starred in an original Playstation game, Apocalypse. The first example of an actor starring in a non-licensed game like it were a movie, he was originally due to appear as a non-playable sidekick. A character you could actually see and hear talk. But he was changed to the game’s hero, a solo type seen from behind who rarely speaks. So Activision paid handsomely to show off Bruce Willis’ ass and have him spout the occasional one-liner in an alright shooter.
Western gamers love Japanese games, but the Japanese rarely play Western games. Crash Bandicoot is one of the few games to cross over – with the help of some retooling to Crash’s appearance and the addition of tutorials.
You won’t find any bizarre one-offs like Yoshi’s Island’s classic “Touch Fuzzy Get Dizzy” or Spyro the Dragon’s unexpectedly difficult “Tree Tops”, or Super Mario Bros. 3’s World 5-3, with its unique Kuribo’s Shoe. If a level type is hard, well, at least you’ll have skills for when you have to cross that invisible bridge again.
Crash’s only true diversion from convention is crates. Added to fill in empty space, they became oddly vital. Crates contain fruit, lives, checkpoints, bonus round symbols and deadly TNT. Jumping on them doesn’t just give you items, but acts as a method of jumping across gaps crate to crate. The bonus rounds especially pivot around complex assortments of crates the player must jump over carefully.
Sidescrolling segments hold up well, though they’re unremarkable. You always know what’s going to kill you, you’re never left confused. You know what you did wrong and know that next time you leap over those pillars, you’ll wait for the lizard to pass.
Sidescrolling levels make use of vertical space: sections involve platforms Crash must spin to create, and take the player up high. Others bounce the player high into the sky to catch fruit or lives on the way down.
Other sidescrolling levels just go on and on and on. A pair of levels on the outside of a temple throw an endless array of obstacles at you: lizards, bats, pushing walls, fire, long falls. Facing the same challenges again and again makes a game challenging, but it also makes it a slog.
My favorite behind scrolling stages are a pair of dark levels, where the only light is provided by Aku masks. The goal is to reach the next one before it goes out and you’re left platforming in the dark. These stages have a momentum to them lacking in the rest of the game.
Levels with precision platforming, like a series of temple levels with fields of quickly collapsing pillars, don’t work in 3D. Possibly because, well, they’re precision platforming in 3D: Nintendo and others largely abandoned precision platforming in a 3D era. But Crash attempts 2D gameplay in a 3D world to varying results.
Of the “gimmick” stages, the most famous are the front-scrolling levels where you outrun a boulder while avoiding obstacles you can’t see. These Indiana Jones-inspired stages became a hallmark of the series. Their gameplay is simple memory: know which way to go or Crash will crash into an obstacle, slowing him just enough for the boulder to hit him. Trial and error. At least they’re quick.
Breaking every crate in a level gives the player a gem. Most gems are clear, but a few are colored. Color gems open up new paths in old levels. These range from a path in the clouds above one level to a crystalline cavern beneath another. My favorite: the last machine level’s gem path is right next to the start and whisks the player to a hallway of extra lives – right above the exit so the player can skip the whole level!
Fade to Black is an early example of the mediocre, behind-the-character 3D action games that would flood the market after the success of Tomb Raider. Alas, if only Fade to Black were mediocre. Its awkward controls, poor level design and the failed attempt at transferring 2D gameplay to 3D worlds make Fade to Black terrible.
Cultural Fragments 
You must be logged in to post a comment.