The best football games of all-time

Over the years, many gaming companies have tried to cash in on the most popular sport in the world, football. And make a game that makes the player feel like he’s right there in the thick of the action. This has been attempted in many ways, from manager simulations to games where you control the team on the field and in many formats including arcade, console and PC games.

Championship Manager 01-02 (2000)

The Championship Manager franchise, (now Football Manager) dominated the manager simulation genre for years and peaked in the 2001 – 2002 season, according to many fans of the game. Later versions tend to be far more in-depth which does have obvious advantages, but detracts from the user-friendliness of the game. 01-02 has the perfect blend of difficulty, complexity and usability and is probably one of the most addictive games of all time.

Pro Evolution Soccer 5 (2005)

Each year since before the start of the century, the battle between FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer gets played out. While both have had their turn on top, in the middle of the last decade it was all about PES and in 2005, Konami out did themselves. Passing became more important making the game more realistic when it came to end of game results and tackling also changed with this version which added the need for higher skill levels amongst human players.

FIFA 09 (2008)

FIFA 09 is considered by many as the best ever installment of the most famous of all football game series and is the one that put the franchise back on top after a spell trailing to their arch rivals at PES. Over 250 changes were made to enhance the realism, gameplay and response times. Skill and ability stats became more important and even the more talented human players found controlling the players when performing tackles, passing etc. needed a little practice to perfect.

Kick-Off 2 (1990)

When Anco brought out Kick-Off 2 on the Atari ST, it was seen by many as the best football game ever. It had what was considered very accurate representations on the pitch and at least attempted to use real tactics and formations.

Sensible Soccer (1992)

In its day, Sensible Soccer by Amiga was the definitive football game. It had an innovative bird’s eye view and is still popular to this day amongst retro gamers. Stanford University compiled a list in 2007 for the Library of Congress detailing the 10 most important video games of all time and Sensible Soccer was the only football game on it.

 Special Mention

Intellivision Soccer (1980)

Brought out by Mattel Electronics, Intellivision Soccer gets a special mention as it broke the mould and was way ahead of its time. It was the first to give the 3D effect, the isometric point of view and a scrolling pitch, all features that would be used extensively by other sports games for the next couple of decades.

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