One year after an original that set the games-playing world alight, the much-anticipated and much talked-about sequel has made its appearance. Kick Off 2 looks set to follow on from Kick Off, but with a host of new features to enhance the superb gameplay. Question is, has Dino Dim been too ambitious? Has he screwed up?
To start with, up to four players can play simultaneously (two players against two players). There's a league competition so loads of you can all compete together. There's a cup tournament, so you can knock your friends out and grab the glory, and there's also the World Cup tournament so you can persuade 23 other people to take a team each.
The gameplay enhancements include a new spotted ball, different match surfaces (including plastic and soggy) the ability to change the team strip, the choice of long or short throw-ins and -possibly one of the biggest differences - the introduction of defence walls during free kicks. There is also a new control touch added to the ball, called after-touch. The player is now able to bend the ball slightly after it's been kicked by holding the joystick in a certain position, which can be very effective but does take a lot of practice.
The other main improvements include the ability to load in teams from Player Manager (the first real follow-up to Kick Off, for one player, which contained a whole management game) so you can play your lovingly-created team in the league against another team that someone else has spent blood, sweat, tears and lots of money building up. Now the player can also have control over the strength and direction of corner and goal kicks. The majority of play is much the same as before. Each team contains - of course - 11 players and the player you are controlling is highlighted by a line beneath his feet. As in Player Manager you have a choice between controlling the whole team, in which case control switches constantly to the player nearest the ball, or playing in one position.
Once you've gained possesion of the ball your man automatically dribbles it and passes and shots are made by pressing the fire button and holding the joystick in various positions. Controlling your team takes a while to get used to, but practice really does make perfect and after a while your handling of the player improves significantly.
GRAPHICS AND SOUND
Spot effects, such as the ball thuds and the crowd cheers, are excellent. The graphics are great too. The action is all viewed from above, which works very well for a game of this nature. The sprites are well defined and wonderfully animated and the pitch graphics are highly detailed including observations such as muddy areas in the goalmouth on soggy pitches and a squeaky-clean surface on plastic pitches. The graphics and sound mix together extremely well and compliment play brilliantly.
LASTING INTEREST
Well, Brian, this will run and run. It's perfect for 'booting up' (groan!) whenever you fancy either a quick 10 minutes or a good hour or three. In years to come this won't be sitting on your shelf collecting dust, because you'll still be playing it.
JUDGEMENT
If you don't own Kick Off, go for this instead. If you do already own it or own Player Manager it's still well worth considering. This is the best footy game to have appeared on any machine and the beauty of the game is the fact that it just plays so damn well. Novices will enjoy it right from the start and it's surprising just how skilful a player can become after just a few short weeks.
Last year, here at Future Publishing, Kick Off inspired us to start a league which grew into a four-division affair with 32 players taking part - even people who'd never played any game before! The league grew into a Cup tournament and hardly any work was done for months - the game actually became officially banned during working hours. Now there's talk of re-starting the whole thing again with Kick Off 2. You can't get a much higher recommendation than that.
My favorite soccer game on my Amiga. It is much better than the PC version. You can choose between several match modes like one player, two player, custom cup, custom league or the World Cup in Italy in 1990.
The Kick Off series was the first soccer game were the ball isn't glued to the player as seem in many older soccer games. And Kick Off was also the game that lead the soccer market for many years. The graphics might not be impressive, but you will find out that this game actually really good. It also includes weather options, referee options, after touch on/off mode, pitch condition like icy, wet etc. and many more things.
Football game
Sequel to one of the best football games of all time. Sequel that is NOT better than it's predecessor! The game is not as enjoyable as Kick Off 1, mostly because of it's super, unbeatable goalkeepers (ok, they're not unbeatable but it's extremely hard to score a goal). There's an option to play leagues, cups and friendly matches and You can play with up to four players at the same time. The view and complete graphics are still the same as in the first game, but as I said - Kick Off 1 is better than this one. At least for me...
Fine Football game. Only one floppy disk, but many features and very enjoyable gameplay. In the first Kick Off you can see the playground from the top. In 2nd, there is an isometric view!
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
People who downloaded Kick Off 2 have also downloaded:
Kick Off, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, Kick Off 3 AGA, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 2, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge 3, Lemmings, North & South, Lemmings 3: All New World of Lemmings
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