Goal!

The Good
The control system of Kick Off 2 allowed for some clever tricks to be performed, and required a lot of practice for the best to be got out of it. This was basically taken forward into Goal!, but most of the game's faults were corrected as well.

Set pieces can be played in a number of different ways, with a view line allowing you to set up a precise aim. The corners are especially versatile.

Real teams and players are now present, with several files representing the best teams from several nations, and one from Europe as a whole. Players can be easily 'transferred' between these, team lineups can be selected, and teams can be moved between files - which, contrary to the words of the existing review, effectively means you can take your team to play in Europe after a successful domestic season. Overall the detail of the player attributes and data is ahead of the crowd.

The range of options is amazing - especially in version 2 which has a fully definable cup competition to go with the leagues. 5 different speed levels, selectable for yourself and your opponents, 10 different refs, 4 different pitches with greatly varied reaction (thankfully not including Kick Off 2's horrid plastic pitch), wind on or off, view the pitch left-right as well as top-bottom, variable match lengths....

The Bad
The control wasn't as instinctive as Sensible's, and matches occasionally got bogged down in a succession of hit-and-hope play. If you didn't grasp the controls quickly, it was tempting to give up.

The Bottom Line
A follow-up to Kick Off 2, using a similar control system. This means that you can trap the ball (by holding down fire - release it to spray a pass to the nearest player), and pull off moves such as overhead kicks and diving headers. When the ball approaches a striker in the area, tap fire to release a 'Super Shot' - a great remedy to the common football game problem of finishing being too hard.

Alongside the standard gameplay modes, there's an 'Arcade Challenge' featuring five increasingly difficult matches, in which the margins of victory affect your overall score.

The Good
Easy to access, difficult to master. The ball is not yours: you need little practice to move with it, but it takes months to master it. Player's Acceleration/Deceleration.

The Bad
Goalkeepers could be better!

The Bottom Line
Graphics & sound are pretty, but in my opinion playability couldn't be better. The only game I come back to re-play.

The Good
The gameplay is awesome. You only need one joystick with a single fire button to achieve all the soccer moves you can imagine. This is a kind of champagne soccer game. You can score a lot but there is many ways to do it and that's the best part. I even scored a goal on a corner kick once. You need to practice a bit in order to understand all the moves that are possibles, how to keep the ball, give an effect to the shot. It's worth it!

The Bad
In order to play, you have to load a team database first. This team databases don't work together and that's the problem. I give you an example: you couldn't do a national league and the european championsleague. Hence, if you had done well in your national league you didn't get to play an European cup the next year (you didn't get to play the next year anyway). But also there was a database with all the best European team of various country (the setup default one and the best). I remember that one could edit the database (import team, change player names, change jersey style an colour etc.)

The Bottom Line
From my point of view, it brought to top-down view soccer game as much as ISS brought to 3D soccer game.