World Championship Soccer
| World Championship Soccer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Sega |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Platform(s) | Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Mega Drive/Genesis, Master System, ZX Spectrum |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Practice Tournament Two Player |
World Championship Soccer (ワールドカップサッカー), known in Europe as World Cup Italia '90, was one of the first games released for the Sega Genesis system in North America in September 1989.[1] It is a soccer game based on the 1990 FIFA World Cup tournament in Italy, featuring 24 different playable countries. It's the first World Cup official licensed franchise game based on FIFA World Cup featuring official logo and the mascot. The game was released in 1989.
It was ported by Elite Systems for DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum.[2] The game was later renamed to Sega Soccer on the Mega 6 compilation cartridge on the Mega Drive removing the Virgin Mastertronic credits
Gameplay
The game presents a top-down view of a simple version of soccer (there are no fouls, substitutions, or strategies). Players must dribble and pass the ball towards one end of the field and try to score a goal by forcing the ball into the opposing team's net. When the player's team has the ball, he or she can either dribble the ball across the field, kick the ball towards the goal, pass the ball in the air to another team member, or kick the ball forward in the direction that the player is currently facing. When the opposing team has the ball, the player can switch between different team members on the field, or slide kick their opponent to dislodge the ball from their control.
When the ball goes out of bounds, the game will switch to a full-screen graphical view for a corner kick or a goal kick. If the game ends in a tie and is not an elimination round match during the championship mode, the game will switch to a graphical penalty kick view.
To start a game, the player must first select which country they would like to be. Teams are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (5 being the best) based on four different attributes (Speed, Skill, Defense, and Keeper). The best team in the game is Brazil, while the worst two teams are China and Japan. Games run for 90 minutes, where each minute in the game is actually 6 seconds. There are three audio tracks during game play, chosen based on the teams in the match.
Playable countries
Upon release, all qualifying games for the tournament had not still been played. This led to not all the playable countries in the video game not being the same as those who in reality participated in the tournament. Due to this, the game features only 14 of the teams that would take part in the final tournament: Austria, Cameroon, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Ireland, Romania, Sweden and the UAE are not in the game.
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