Super Soccer

Super Soccer is a football simulation developed for the Spectrum 48/128 by Imagine Software in 1984. It can be controlled by keyboard or joystick, and can be played by either a single player or up to eight players in tournament mode.

The object is to use your players to kick a ball into the opposing teams net. The team with the most goals at the end of the playing period wins. There is a game timer at the top of the screen and this stops while waiting for the game to restart or for a free kick. There are five definable action keys for left/right/up/down and kick. Each team has only one active player at any one time. That is the player to whom the action keys apply. Active players have a small 'halo' above their heads to indicate who they are. If the active player strays too far away from the ball for too long the player nearest to the ball becomes the active player. So the game is simply a matter of positioning the active player next to the ball and kicking it. Except that it it is not that simple. Opposing players will tackle your player to take control of the ball, the ball may go out of play, kicks may go further than expected or may be blocked.

To add to the realism, when a goal is scored the players of that team can be seen jumping up and down and before the game can restart they have to jog back across the centre circle to their own half.

The main menu offers the following options:

Number of players : this can be single player or up to eight. If more than two players is selected then the game defaults to tournament mode.

Mode of play : whether single match, tournament, or practice

Time of game : The game length defaults to 10 minutes but can be set to 20 or 30 minutes

Level of play : there are three levels of difficulty, the default level is 1

Colour editor : This allows the player to change the colour of the pitch, the border, and the strip of each team.

Names editor : The teams have the names of major English clubs of the 1980's. Use this option to change an existing team your favourite if you want to play as Barcelona, Miami or Rotherham.