Emlyn Hughes' International Soccer Review

By Kristan Reed Published 26 October, 2007

Gentlemen prefer football.

Version tested: Retro

It would be easy to slap Commodore's real International Soccer in our first team selection of C64 classics. We could quite justifiably wax on about how important it was to the development of football games (and it really was), but, well, the truth is this 1988 Audiogenic effort was about ten times better, so it gets the nod. The old grizzled warhorse with the medals and the dodgy knees gets to sit in the dugout for now.

Enough with the football metaphors. Audiogenic knew full well what it was doing when it, ahem, borrowed the International Soccer moniker and slapped Emlyn Hughes' smiling mug on the box. To all intents and purposes, this was very much International Soccer, dusted off, buffed up and reinvigorated for an audience starved of a decent alternative (no, really).

In many ways it borrowed everything that was good (and bad) about Commodore's 1983 version, and with some excellent control additions it became the Pro Evolution Soccer of its day.

'Emlyn Hughes' International Soccer' Screenshot 1

In terms of its good points, it had a ton of options that were unheard of back then - such as team stats, the ability to complete edit your team, customise the strip colour, and enter a full league and cup season with up to three friends. Being able to save all of this to tape or disk also added so much to the game's longevity, and it encouraged players to really master its intricacies once the competitive urge kicked in.

The controls were absolutely revelatory, too, featuring the unprecedented ability to pull off a full range of passes, crosses, backheels and even sliding tackles - though mastering all of these moves with just one fire button at your disposal was no mean feat. That said, in 1988 no other footy game in the home or in the arcade had even come close to offering this level of depth.

It was a real shame, then, that Audiogenic elected to ape International's hilariously blocky graphical style so precisely. Presumably a stylistic choice as a homage to the original, it looked crude and ugly then, and almost two decades on just looks comical, but loveable in an ironically retro kind of way. If you can see beyond the ludicrously chunky players, this was, along with Microprose Soccer, the best 8-bit football game around.

8 / 10

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About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (6) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kentmonkey #1 4 years ago

    I spent many hours on this game, I used to love it. There was even a spot you could score from on the pitch every single time, which was great to exploit in multiplayer! :o)

    Great game, big pile o' shite now, but great game for it's day.

  • monkie_king #2 4 years ago

    was that just below the goal, shooting straight up? it used to confuse the goalie, who didn't seem to understand perspective. that was on the cart version that came with the machine, anyway.

  • Ryze #3 4 years ago

    Hi fellas.

    Excellent section.

    I bought this one on the Amstrad.

    Slow, but playable.

    These retro reviews need more game info - including the format(s) and year of release.

    Agree?

  • Ryze #4 4 years ago

    In fact - If I go dig through my boxes of old stuff - I'll find that I have the original big tape box for this with the game intact.

    I've got my Amstrad - and it works, but I have no monitor. I modded (broke) my lovely colour monitor to work with the MegaDrive.

    Gorgeous picture till I killed it in 1995.

    Thanks Alan - I loved my Amstrad. Kept me sane during a crazy, stressful era of my life.

    Thanks.

    /eyes water

  • furrycheeky #5 4 years ago

    Loved it, so much customisation available. Red pitch sure, green ball OK, kits, names you got it. Not like EAs Fifa even on Next gen only allowing you to change 1 person and not teams etc.

  • Ant1975 #6 2 years ago

    This was an amazing game at the time. Its the first game i can remember there being a backheel move and actual proper jumping and heading. me and my mates used to set up leagues, we had all the teams painstakingly created and saved to tape and had to load them in as we played the games as there was only 8 team slots i think. We used the team tabs league ladders from shoot as the table!