Kick Off (computer game)

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kick off
Studio Anco
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 1989
platform Amiga , Atari ST , PC ( MS-DOS ), SNES , Game Boy , ZX Spectrum , C64 , Atari 8-bit computers
genre Football simulation
Game mode Single player , multiplayer
control Joystick , keyboard , mouse (PC), game controller (game consoles)
medium Floppy disk , module

Kick Off is a soccer simulation series. The first part was developed by Dino Dini for Anco and published in 1989 for Amiga and Atari ST . This was followed by ports for the PC , Commodore 64 , Atari 8-bit computer and the consoles from Nintendo and Sega . Up until the appearance of Sensible Soccer in 1992, Kick Off or its successor Kick Off 2 was a leader in the field of soccer computer games.

While the graphics, which show the game from a bird's eye view, did not differ significantly from other games of the time, one element of the game was new and groundbreaking: In contrast to other football games, the ball did not stick firmly to the player's foot, but instead drove him forward more realistically here.

Other features that are standard today in soccer games were also introduced by Kick Off . This includes action replay, yellow and red cards, fouls and injuries. The players also had different skills with strengths and weaknesses, which was a novelty.

In 1989 an expansion appeared under the title Extra Time , which, in addition to new tactics and player skills, also added new referees with different behavior and types of pitches such as artificial turf or "muddy". Extra Time was only released for Amiga and Atari ST .

In 1990 the game was published again in Italy under the title Franco Baresi World Cup Kick Off . Except for the name and a new title screen, nothing has changed.

Kick Off 2

In 1990 Kick Off 2 was released for Amiga , Atari ST , PC , C64 , Amstrad CPC and the ZX Spectrum . It was the last part of this series which was programmed by the inventor Dino Dini. Kick Off 2 is still very popular today , so fans still play tournaments with this game.

In addition to the changes that the extra-time additional disc already brought for kick-off , there was a revolutionary innovation with the after-touch that also became standard at football matches. The after-touch enabled the ball to be steered after a shot was fired, allowing spectacular goals and banana flanks to be scored. Other innovations included a tournament mode and the ability to choose the team's jersey colors. It was also possible to import your team from the Player Manager game .

In 1990 the game won the Golden Joystick Award from EMAP Images as the best game of the year.

Numerous expansion disks were offered for Kick Off 2 :

  • 1990 - Giants of Europe
    Contains 32 of the most popular European club teams such as Milan or Manchester
  • 1991 - Return to Europe
    adds the UEFA Cup, the Cup Winners' Cup and the European Cup with the respective teams
  • 1991 - The Final Whistle
    Improvement of the gameplay by adding new character traits for the players, a revised corner kick control, selectable offside rule and a two-player team mode
  • 1991 - Winning Tactics
    A number of new tactics for both Kick Off 2 and the Player Manager

Two more additional discs titled Super League and The Maths Disk were announced, but never released.

Great kick off

In 1991, Super Kick Off was released. This game is a conversion of Kick Off 2 for consoles. The actual gameplay was hardly changed, but some options from the extra discs such as the offside rule have been adopted. The development and conversion were done by other development studios such as Tiertex and Imagineer and the game was released for the Mega Drive , Master System , SNES , Game Gear and Game Boy .

successor

From 1994 to 2002 successors appeared regularly, but they could no longer build on the success of the first two parts.

Kick Off 3

Originally this part from 1994 should appear much earlier and still under the direction of Dino Dini, but this changed from Anco to Virgin. Development was then taken over by Steve Screech, who had previously worked on the graphics for Kick Off 2 . The biggest innovation was the choice between a simulation mode and the easier arcade mode, where you could also deactivate various rules. There were also graphical changes, so you could choose between the well-known bird's eye view and a new isometric view. The game was released for Amiga , PC , Mega Drive and SNES .

Kick Off 97

With this part a real 3D view was introduced. The movements of the players were digitized using motion capturing .

chronology

  • Kick Off (1989)
  • Kick Off 2 (1990)
  • Super Kick Off (1991)
  • Kick Off 3 (1994)
  • Kick Off 96 (1996)
  • Kick Off 97 (1997)
  • Kick Off 98 (1997)
  • Kick Off World (1998)
  • Kick Off 2002 (2002)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richie Shoemaker, Chris Anderson: Kick Off 97 Review. ( Memento from February 22, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) PCZone August 13, 2001. (English)