Previous Next

It really would be great if the Electron had its own version of Kick Off, wouldn't it? Doubtless this thought occurred to the 4th Dimension shortly before it commissioned Arcade Soccer. What it was at the time (1989) was the Electron's first scrolling football match, released in an effort to persuade the kids that they didn't need to upgrade to an Amiga at all. One suspects however that it had the opposite effect, as it may look like football but it's not really football because it doesn't adhere to many of the rules of the game. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief however, then come right in and join us for a kickabout.

The first thing you notice, unfortunately, is the blur at both the top and bottom of the screen; the sign of a game that's so big it has to use the screen memory for some of its storage. Commence a "friendly" match (by pressing 0) and the bit of the screen that isn't covered in junk then shows the centre circle with a flashing player inside of it, facing in the direction of the opponent's goal and ready, on your command, to boot the ball or start running with it. Whichever you choose, you'll force the playing area to start scrolling and, if there's one disappointment that may make you wish to bury your copy of Arcade Soccer underneath an entire football pitch, the scrolling is that disappointment. What happens is that, as soon as the ball reaches the edge of the playing area, all action stops while the screen scrolls to keep up with it.

You'll recall that Arcade Soccer plays by its own rules. One of its rules is that having your players restricted to their side of the football pitch isn't necessary, meaning that you can boot the ball as hard as you can at kick off and, after the jerky screen scroll follows it, you'll find another white-shirted teammate hanging around the goalmouth just waiting to take the shot. As you can imagine, in this sort of game, no offside rules can apply. It's sort of silly and it's sort of tragic to see players conveniently appearing exactly where you need them to be but I understand why the game has been programmed this way. The Electron just doesn't really have the memory to allow for anything more complex and the players move so slowly that, even if it did, you'd probably be waiting an age until they reached the ball.

Control in the one-player game is with the Electron's standard ZX:? and RETURN combination, and your players tend to cover more ground if you make them run diagonally rather than in a straight line. For the most part it doesn't matter however as Arcade Soccer has some of the craziest controls you're ever likely to encounter in a football game. Obviously you, as the player, generally want to control the player who is closest to the ball because generally that player stands the best chance of kicking it towards your opponent's goal. Regrettably, as the screen scrolls (generally every second or two), control moves from one magically appearing player to another. On many occasions the player under your control is simply scrolled away and you suddenly find the dude who just appeared is now your slave. For a few seconds, that is, until he too is junked - just as he was about to reach the ball! - in favour or a player who is further away! There's a word to describe this, and that word is Aaaaarrrggghhhh!

Now there is an option in Arcade Soccer for either one or two players (A real rarity for an Electron game; there are barely any other two-player games!) and I have to confess that the problem is not as acute in the two-player game, simply because both players suffer the same indignation throughout each game. In a one-player game however, it's very difficult not to be sounded thrashed by the computer every time. It just seems to have much more control over the actual player closest to the ball, rather than having to spend all of its time frantically trying to determine who's got the flashing T-shirt.

The whole game straddles that line of being so bad at representing an actual soccer game that it becomes most amusing to play, particularly with its vast array of configurable options. For example, goalies in Arcade Soccer have skill levels. Rather than take control of the goalie when a shot is taken therefore, you simply watch the goalie either save the goal or let it in. Give you goalie a higher skill level and he's more likely to save it. This feels as stupid as the rest of the game's features which include: a decidedly-odd World Cup and Challenge section, long pauses at half and full time and a noise that sounds like television static whenever one side scores a goal. Oh, and the inlay of Arcade Soccer screams "It's brilliant!"... but the quote is unattributed - it was therefore probably written by 4th Dimension themselves!

Don't get me wrong, Arcade Soccer is by no means terrible. However, the praise with which is was met when it was released was laughable even at that time; can you believe, for example, that Acorn User said it was "remarkably realistic"?! To who, exactly? Perhaps they meant it was remarkably realistic provided that you'd never actually played football before, or hadn't played one of the infinitely better variants on a home computer with the memory power to simulate the game to a more realistic degree. At the time I had, and so I found Arcade Soccer a poor relation. Playing it now, and even through a glow of nostalgia, it may not be terrible but it does feel laborious, unfair and tedious.

As one of the later Electron games, and sold exclusively via mail order, Arcade Soccer is actually quite a rare cassette. As one of only two Electron football games, and with some collectors desperate to collect football games per se, it's not seen all that regularly nowadays. So if you haven't been dissuaded and do want to add it to your own collection, expect to pay anything between £4 - £20. As it's good for a couple of goes, the bottom end of that price range makes it relatively bargainous. I'd think twice about whether it's really worth having in the medium-to-high ranges though.