Pele's Soccer - tragically underrated

[RickR]

In honor of Pele, who died today...

I want to talk a bit about Pele's soccer.  I feel like the popular opinion of this game is that it sucks due to the crude graphics and difficult gameplay.  However, I'd like to argue the opposite.  It's a great game that captures the flavor of soccer very well.  It reminds me a lot of Activision Dragster, another underrated game that gets overlooked because many don't understand the controls.

In Pele's Soccer, the key to playing and winning is to PASS THE BALL amongst your trio of players.  Example, dribble with the back left guy, and keep moving forward until a defender challenges you.  Then quickly diagonally pass to the front guy.  Once the defender catches up to him, pass back to one of the rear guys.  This passing and movement really works well once you get the hang of it. 

To score, ideally you want to pass diagonally from the rear guy to the forward and then BOOM!  Send the ball diagonally in either direction to beat the goalie.  Getting the timing down right here is so satisfying!  And then you get that super satisfying colorful fireworks show!  I love it. 

Like I said, it captures real soccer well, as timing and passing play very important roles in the flow of the game.

The game is really fun as a single player against the computer (who actually plays pretty well) but becomes 10 times better with two equally matched humans.  I can remember spending hours with this game in the summer with friends.  Winner gets to keep playing! 

I think you all know I love sports games, and this is one of my favorites on the 2600.  What do you all think?

Edited December 29, 2022 by RickR

[TrekMD]

I've never really played this game.  It's an early game, so it doesn't necessarily look as good as later games but it does seem to have decent gameplay.  Not being a sports person, I had no idea who Pele was until many years later.  May he rest in peace.