Video Games

68: Goal!

4 Comments

Genre: Soccer

Developer: Tose
Publisher: Jaleco
Year: 1988

Basic Idea:  Learn to kick diagonally

Review: My favorite soccer game for the NES, though that still doesn’t say much.  The controls are fairly fluid, if flickery when too many players are on the screen.  There’s only one kind of shot, but you can hook or slice it.  Tackling on defense is nice, but perhaps too easy.  Same with headers. Goalies can dive well.  The bizarre thing is the perspective, which is a bird’s-eye view and diagonal.  It’s fine while heading north, but it’s difficult  heading south.

I realize this is a lukewarm review, but I have played it a lot and still have an affinity for it.  You can pick any country you like and do an accurate world-cup tournament, or do a state-side bracket tournament.  The harder teams are insanely hard, but the game is winnable and it’s nice to have a challenging computer opponent.  You can also play against a friend, or with one in the aforementioned tournaments.  Not the best co-op game, but it’s nice to have it.

Shootouts are kind of fun if they happen.  There’s also a bizarre shooting side-game one can play against a friend where you have five attempts to score goals, one-on-three.   It’s not bird’s-eye view, which means you’re playing a completely different game.

Anyway, yeah.  That’s number 68!

 

4 thoughts on “68: Goal!”

  1. [Developer #1]: We should make a soccer game. I love soccer.
    [Developer #2]: Ya, I love the way players zig-zag their way down the field kind of askew to vertical.
    [Developer #1]: Me too! But how can we get that step pattern into the game to make it authentic? Gamers are just going to be lazy and go up/down.
    [Developer #2]: I’ve got it. Let’s put the field on a diagonal.
    [Developer #1]: But they’ll just hold the D-Pad on the diagonal.
    [Developer #2]: Way ahead of you. We’ll put it at maybe 30 degrees from vertical so gamers have no choice but to continuously correct their course with up/down and left/right.
    [Developer #1]: Perfect! This is really going to be a thumb-burner. Aiming shots will be a pain as well. You’re evil.
    [Developer #2]: Thank you.

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  2. Are sports games almost over? I played almost none of them. And actually, this is still true.

    It’s a shame, though, because there aren’t many arcade-style sports games out there anymore. I missed the best ones when they were popular. Oh well.

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