English Football Games on the Amiga
English football games aka soccer games on the Amiga ran at 50 frames per second with ultra-smooth, per-pixel hardware scrolling of their playing fields. In addition, they featured clear graphics, accurate controls and good user interfaces.
The best English football games on the Amiga were made by Dino Dini, Sensible Software and Realms of Fantasy between 1989 and 1998. Kick Off maintained a loyal following even after the advent of Sensible Soccer.
English football games on the Amiga are as playable in 2024 as they were three decades ago.
Note that screen-scrolling can also be anchored to interactable objects or core-gameplay objects. For example, in English football computer games it is not the currently controlled football player to which screen-scrolling is anchored, but rather the football itself: the viewport updates (scrolls) based on football position, not player position (and the controlled player changes based on the football's position).It is a technical feat that EFCGs maintain ultra-smooth scrolling under frequent and sudden changes in direction.
List of English Football Games on the Amiga
- Microprose Soccer (1989, Sensible Software)
- Kick Off (1989, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off: Extra Time (1989, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off Player Manager (1990, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off 2 (1990, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off 2: Giants of Europe (1990, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off 2: Return To Europe (1991, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Kick Off 2: The Final Whistle (1991, Anco, Dino Dini)
- Goal! (1993, Dino Dini)
- Sensible Soccer: European Champions (1992, Sensible Software)
- Sensible Soccer 92-93 (1992, Sensible Software)
- Sensible Soccer International Edition (1993, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer (1994, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer 95–96 (1995, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer: European Championship Edition (1995, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer 96–97 (1996, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer 97–98 (1997, Sensible Software)
- Sensible World of Soccer 97–98 World Cup Edition (1998, Sensible Software)
- Premier Manager (1992, Realms of Fantasy)
- Premier Manager 2 (1993, Realms of Fantasy)
- Premier Manager 3 (1994, Realms of Fantasy)
Kick Off by Dino Dini of Anco (1989-93)
One of the most notable additions of Kick Off 2 is its after touch controls that allow players to curve or dip the ball post-kick or -throw-in. (After touch was actually first employed in the Kick Off expansion, Extra Time.)
The ST/Amiga versions of Kick Off 2 allow for 1-4-player simultaneous: up to 2 players vs. computer or 2 players vs 2 players.
MicroProse Soccer (1989)
Originally coded by Sensible Software for the C64 in 1988, the Amiga version of MicroProse Soccer came out in the same year as the original Kick Off. Thus was it overshadowed by Kick Off.
Sensible Soccer by Sensible Software (1992)
Sensible Soccer attempted to dethrone Anco's Kick Off by adding even more features to the English football game.
Sensible World of Soccer (SWOS) by Sensible Software (1994-98)
Premier Manager by Realms of Fantasy (1992-95)
Premier Manager is a series of English football management simulators developed by Realms of Fantasy (1992-95):
In Premier Manager 3 you can watch a representation of matches in real-time, complete with bitmap overlays and digitized commentary.
While not English football games at all, the Bitmap Brothers' Speedball and Speedball 2 play very similarly to Kick Off and Sensible Soccer. For example, when you throw the ball in SB2 you can curve its flight post-release just like you can curve the football post-kick. This is known as after-touch control. I knew of no players of football games that did not also like the Speedball games for the same reasons: fun in 2-player mode, accurate controls and smooth scrolling.
However, the football games are much harder to master than the Speedball games because the football does not "stick" to the player that has it.
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