The FIFA World Cup is well underway in Qatar now – and fans from all over the globe are tuning in to cheer on their national sides and favorite players. The days are full of live televised action for the first few weeks of the competition. But when there is some downtime, there will be plenty of gamers switching to their consoles, when they are not searching for a good site at MyTopSportsBooks in order to put their money where their mouths are.
There have always been plenty of soccer video games to choose from. From the very early days of gaming, the designers have known that there is a market for titles that faithfully replicate the beautiful game. The EA Sports FIFA franchise is probably the best well known. But here are five others we have enjoyed over the years.
Pro Evolution Soccer
Up until a few years ago, Pro Evolution Soccer, or Pro Evo (or PES!) was the other games franchise that annually went head-to-head with the behemoth that is FIFA. Indeed, there are many gamers that will still stand by the assertion that Pro Evo was actually a better game than FIFA.
But increasingly shorn of the licenses enjoyed by the official FIFA games, Pro Evo had to make do with made up teams and players – and that just didn’t cut it with the modern player. UEFA did provide some much-needed licenses but it still couldn’t compete and it ended up being a free-to-play game.
Sensible Soccer
Older PC heads will fondly remember the Sensible Soccer series. The graphics were not up to much compared to what is available today. But the gameplay and simple controls made this title utterly addictive. A great database of players and teams also helped with the realism angle.
The original was updated by Amiga to incorporate an international feel and morphed into Sensible World of Soccer, with an even greater range of teams. The revamped version brought out on the Xbox 360 in 2007 was just as well received and was boosted by the, by then, retro-style graphics.
Football Manager
Why worry about complex tricks and special moves when you can concentrate on just coaching, or managing, a team? As the series has developed, players have been given control of even more football manager duties – if they want them – as they attempt to prove that they could make it in real life if they were given a chance.
Fans of the game have discovered players and there have even been reports of clubs signing footballers thanks to the knowledge gained from this title. With fantasy football games becoming even more popular and the tactical side of the game becoming big business, Football Manager is set to run and run.
Figure 2 Updated graphics and engines have made soccer video games more realistic
World Soccer Winning Eleven
This one is a little bit of a cheat, if we’re honest. World Soccer Winning Eleven – and its offshoots – was the North American and Japanese title for the Pro Evolution Soccer games. Konami obviously thought that they needed to specifically make sure that potential customers knew what they were buying.
Obviously, as we said about Pro Evo, there were some who preferred this game to the FIFA rival. But as the sport became even bigger in regions of the world where it wasn’t as popular before, EA Sports used the FIFA name to make their title the de facto soccer game.
Sega Soccer Slam
FIFA is such an all-encompassing game when it comes to soccer that it is sometimes difficult to think of other titles from the past. Sega Soccer Slam is one game that managed to find an audience for a while, when it was released for Game Cube and for the Xbox.
Where FIFA always prided itself on the realism portrayed in its game, this one went the other way and incorporated special moves and other controls designed to appeal to gamers who maybe were not actually soccer fans at all. That’s not a bad tactic to use when you go up against the big boys in the industry.
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