#21: Microprose Soccer (Sensible Software/Microprose, Amiga, 1989)

Microprose Soccer represents our first foray into the world of football, but (spoiler alert!) it certainly won’t be the last. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Because, as it turns out, the sport of football is kind of a big deal in British culture. For an awful lot of people, it is, in fact, the most important thing that there is; football clubs are worshipped with something akin to a religious fervour. And even among the less devoted segments of the population, an interest in football is often taken as a default assumption, at least if you are male. “What team do you support?” can and will be asked by total strangers, and your answer is used to judge your value as a human being.

This game, on the other hand, seems to hold little reverence for football as an institution. No, Microprose Soccer recognises that the whole thing is just a bit silly and plays accordingly, including such features as “banana kicks” which allow the player to change the direction of a played ball mid-flight, with adjustable degree of absurdity, and rain which causes tackling players to spin out of control and slide across the entire length of the pitch.

[…]

I remember playing an awful lot of different football games in my C64 and Amiga days, but most of them, not for very long. Microprose Soccer was, for a time, the only exception. Because while the others strove for realism above all else, Microprose remembered that, first and foremost, games are supposed to be fun.