Reviews

1990 – was a wonderful year in my opinion , we had cracking music , I’d just purchased my first 16 bit machine and to top it all we were treated to a long hot summer alongside the greatest world cup competition ever – Italia 90 .

Adidas championship soccer was to be released by Ocean to coincide and challenge the official World Cup game released by Virgin but unfortunately due to delays came out just after the fever had died down.

The programming team chose to use to top down view familiar to anyone who’d played kick off or micropose soccer at the time , the front end was exceptional as you’d expect from Ocean , especially seeing as this was a 128K game only , they really had done their job well , superb in game menus and great intro tunes.

Once you choose your team (England for me – predictably) , the game moves onto the group stage draw , its very atmospheric and really well done , each group of four is drawn out fairly slowly there’s an air of excitement , I’m drawn against France , Bulgaria and Japan , im happy with that , onto the gameplay itself.

Like I mentioned above it’s a top down view , the game moves pretty fast , its in monochrome , green against black and the graphics are detailed , the scrolling is smooth and its easy to pick out your man with an arrow over him , there is a referee who will appears in a small box at the top corner to indicate a free kick , corner etc which works well , the only small gripe I have is that the game can be a bit frantic and it does seem to run away with itself , id not played it for about 15 years though and I might just be out of practice.

As to my campaign , I drew with France and Bulgaria after leading at half time (both games ended 1 – 1) and I lost to Japan (0 –2) thus ending my world cup challenge , but never mind there’s always Graham Taylor and 1994 to look forward to !

Adidas Championship Football could have been a great football game...no scrap that it SHOULD have been a great football game...but isn't and instead it joins a long queue of footie games which aren't very good. How so? Well let me explain.

It contains a well presented introduction, with a lovely loading screen, a wonderful musical score from Matthew Cannon and the game does contain nicely detail colourful graphics. But for me the gameplay is such a letdown, it's very difficult to control the ball and very difficult to...well do anything due to its very fast-paced gameplay. In no time I found myself (Spain) 3-0 down to Yugoslavia having barely touched the ball at all. It's a crying shame the gameplay had to be such a bugger...this was shaping up to be a footie classic but instead it finds itself on par with tripes such as Fighting Soccer and European Soccer Challenge.

If only Ocean had done more to the gameplay department this would have been a smash-hit, instead it became a massive letdown.

This ticks all the boxes to be a mega game but is let down badly by its wayward gameplay which makes this nearly unplayable. It's hard to control, hard to keep the ball and hard to pass or score, if only for that this could have been brilliant. A big disappointment.

1990 Ocean Software (UK)
by David Spicer, Jason Brashill and Matt Cannon

Starts of with a slick presentation, backed with a wonderful tune, again by Mathew Cannon, and a few match options which really set the game mood high.
The problem is down to the game. It's hardly controllable, at least to be any fun.

As soon as I started up Adidas Championship Football I was blown away by the shiny presentation, the wonderful loading screen, the opening graphics and the superb music, it got me really pumped to play a potentially great game, but man what a disappointment!

As soon as the game starts I am treated with such horrible controlling, dribbling with the ball is pretty much impossible. You constantly lose the ball and resort to tackling like a dirty player and if you do manage to keep the ball you can forget about passing it because the ball has no direction, you may as well be greedy and go for glory yourself.

The fact is Adidas Championship Football can look as pretty as it wants too, it just doesn't have the gameplay to match it. In essence Match Day doesn't look so hot and yet its gameplay is much more fun than this.

It is such a pity the gameplay ruins the fun in this, it had all the makings to be quite possibly the best soccer game on the Spectrum, or in the home computer era for that matter but for its unpredictable, unplayable gameplay.

I was massively disappointed with this game. The box art looked cool, the loading screen was awesome, the music was epic, I was so pumped to start playing the game. When I did however, my enthusiasm died very quickly because the game plays pretty badly. It’s hard to control the ball, it’s hard to tackle, it’s harder to shoot.

I was gutted upon realising this wasn't that great a game. The presentation is excellent but the overall product lacks real quality.