World Soccer was developed and published by SEGA for the Master System in 1987. In North America this game was released under the name Great Soccer, which should not be confused with the game also called Great Soccer that was released in Europe and Japan.
This was another game my sister had for her Master System as I grew up, and thus it was the first Football/Soccer game I played. I remember this being the game I played the least of our Master System games, and by the time my brother got a SNES with International Superstar Soccer, this game felt even more obsolete.
So, this is a football game (or soccer for all you yanks), and it seems to follow the rules very liberally. For example, there’s no free kicks or penalties here (at least I don’t think so), although you can be called off for offside. There’s 8 teams to choose from, namely Argentina, West Germany, France, Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, USA and Japan. I think some teams are harder to beat than others, but not completely sure about that. Now, why it is Great Britain instead of England, why they got Italy’s flag wrong, or why teams like USA and Japan are in this game, is beyond me, but the gameplay is what matters.
As for the gameplay, you can either pass or shoot, although I found the most successful strategy playing against the computer was to just use the shoot button, since the passes always got interrupted. When not in control of the ball you will tackle automatically if you get close to an opponent, and you can steal the ball this way. The controls however aren’t very fluent, but easy enough to get used to. If there is a draw at the end of the game you will also get to play a penalty shootout, which works well enough for an 8-bit game. You can also choose to just play a penalty shootout.
The menus, however, just feel quite unfinished, with just text on a black background, but at least the team select screen looks fine, and when you pick a team you even get to hear an 8-bit rendition of that country’s anthem, which is pretty cool.
Graphically, there is nothing special here, although the penalty shootouts look quite good for its time. Musically, there’s just the anthems, the main title theme, the theme when you win a match and the theme that plays during a match. All of them are decent and at least above average in my opinion. I also really love the anthems and think that is a neat touch.
Overall, World Soccer is decent, but nothing special. Playing against the computer does get old after only a few matches, but I could imagine the multiplayer being fun for a longer time. Otherwise, there isn’t really much to this game.
Is it worth Playing?
Not really, it simply hasn’t aged that well and lacks the fun of something like Ice Hockey on the NES to mention a contemporary sports game. You can avoid this one without missing anything. The only thing that I find interesting with the game are the anthems. That said, it is a decent game, but I can’t say that it is worth playing.
Final score: 6/10
Screenshots via MobyGames: http://www.mobygames.com
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