RIVAL FOOTBALL GAMES APPEARED TO MEET THEIR MATCH WHEN KICK OFF WAS RELEASED IN 1989 BUT THEN DEVELOPER DINO DINI WENT ONE BETTER WITH A BLISTERING SEQUEL THAT HIT THE BACK OF THE NET FOR SCORES OF FANS

WORDS BY DAVID CROOKES

IN THE KNOW

» PUBLISHER:

ANCO SOFTWARE

» DEVELOPER:

ANCO SOFTWARE

» RELEASED: 1990

» PLATFORM:

ATARI ST, VARIOUS

» GENRE:

SPORTS

Whether or not you enjoyed playing Kick Off, there was no denying it was one helluva speedy game. So here are some fast facts. Kick Off came out in 1989. It offered a bird’s-eye view of the action (like Tehkan World Cup and MicroProse Soccer before it). It took practice to master. The ball wouldn’t stick to the players’ feet. And the ping-pong passing nature of the action proved compelling.

If there were shortcomings (and there were), some were addressed by the data disk, Kick Off: Extra Time. It added extras like new team formations, extra referees, a shot power meter, control over goal kicks and a useful feature called After Touch. Kick Off’s developer and publisher Anco then released Premier Manager. This took Kick Off’s match engine and blended it with a soccer management sim – the first time that management and playing elements had been combined.

» [Amiga] The overview of the pitch comes in handy when defending against corners!

Premier Manager hit shop shelves in 1990 but, despite having worked on three releases separated by mere months, Anco wanted more. A decision was made to build upon Kick Off and Kick Off: Extra Time by producing a sequel called – what else? – Kick Off 2. In doing so, the series’ prime creator Dino Dini also sought to develop something of a footballing ecosystem. “I wanted players of Kick Off 2 to have a reason to buy Player Manager as well,” he says.

The most obvious motivation was the ability for gamers to import their own tactics and teams from Player Manager and go head-to-head with other like-minded souls. “It meant gamers would come at Kick Off 2 from different angles – playing and managing,” Dino says. “I had this vision that people would work at getting the best team they could to complement their own skill in Kick Off 2 and that they would take their team to a friend’s house and have a good old bash at it.”

“IN A MOMENT, YOU SUDDENLY SCORE THIS FANTASTIC GOAL”