''World Championship Soccer'' (ワールドカップサッカー) is a soccer game running on Sega's Mega-Tech arcade cabinet system and was released as one of the first games for the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Syst ...

system in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

in September 1989. The European Mega Drive release, ''

World Cup Italia '90 ''World Cup Italia '90'' is a football video game by Sega for Mega Drive in 1990 and Master System in 1991. The Mega Drive version is the European release of ''World Championship Soccer''. The Master System version was released in Brazil as ''Su ...

'', was published jointly with

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part of ...

and

Virgin Mastertronic Virgin Interactive Entertainment (later renamed Avalon Interactive) was the video game publishing division of British conglomerate the Virgin Group. It developed and published games for major platforms and employed developers, including Westwoo ...

and was an officially licensed franchise game of the

1990 FIFA World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being Me ...

featuring the official logo and mascot. After the World Cup licence had expired the game was renamed to ''Sega Soccer'' on the ''Mega 6'' compilation cartridge on the Mega Drive removing the

credit. A different game was also released as ''World Cup Italia '90'' for the

Master System The is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...

in 1991 but this is not connected to ''World Championship Soccer''. In 1990 the game was ported by

Elite Systems Elite Systems is a British video game developer and publisher established in 1984 as Richard Wilcox Software. It is known for producing home computer conversions of popular arcade games. Elite also published compilations of games on the Hit-Pak ...

for

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

.World Championship Soccer – MobyGames
/ref>

Gameplay

The game presents a top-down view of a simple version of soccer (there are no fouls, substitutions, or strategies). Players must dribble and pass the ball towards one end of the field and try to score a goal by forcing the ball into the opposing team's net. When the player's team has the ball, the player can either dribble the ball across the field, kick the ball towards the goal, pass the ball in the air to another team member, or kick the ball forward in the direction that the player is currently facing. When the opposing team has the ball, the player can switch between different team members on the field, or slide kick their opponent to dislodge the ball from their control. When the ball goes out of bounds, the game will switch to a full-screen graphical view for a

corner kick A corner kick is the method of restarting play in a game of association football when the ball goes out of play over the goal line, without a goal being scored and having last been touched by a member of the defending team. The kick is taken ...

or a

goal kick A goal kick is a method of restarting the play in a game of association football. Its procedure is dictated by Law 16 of the Laws of the Game. Award A goal kick is awarded to the defending team when the ball goes out of the field of play by cro ...

. If the game ends in a tie and is not an elimination round match during the championship mode, the game will switch to a graphical penalty kick view. To start a game, the player must first select which country they would like to be. Teams are rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (5 being the best) based on four different attributes (''Speed'', ''Skill'', ''Defense'', and ''Keeper''). The best team in the game is

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, while the worst two teams are

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Games run for 90 minutes, where each minute in the game is actually 6 seconds. There are three audio tracks during game play, chosen based on the teams in the match.

Playable countries

Upon release, some of the qualifying games for the tournament had not yet been played. This led to some of the playable countries in the video game not being the same as those who actually participated in the tournament. Due to this, the game features only 47 of the teams that would take part in the final tournament:

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

and the

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

do not appear in the game. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Reception

The One The ONE is a shopping centre in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is built on the site of the former Tung Ying Building at 100 Nathan Road. It was developed by Chinese Estates Holdings and opened in 2010. Owner Joseph Lau Luen-hung g ...

'' reviewed the home computer versions (Amiga, Atari ST, DOS) of ''World Championship Soccer'' in 1991, criticising the "rudimentary" ways the player may pass and shoot the ball, stating that "There are no fancy overhead kicks, headers, volleys or half-volleys here, nor anything that gives you effective control over the strength of your kick." ''The One'' furthermore calls ''World Championship Soccer'' a "mediocre alternative" to '' Kick Off 2'', but expresses that while "there is nothing wrong with ''WCS's'' structure - it is more accurate than ''Kick Off 2's'' 'three points for a win' World Cup, and the quality of the teams is varied enough to keep you hooked ... the action lacks substance." ''The One'' calls ''World Championship Soccer'' "basic, no frills" soccer.

References

External links

* {{moby game, id=/world-championship-soccer 1989 video games 1990 FIFA World Cup Amiga games Arcade video games Atari ST games Commodore 64 games DOS games Association football video games Sega video games Sega Genesis games Sports video games set in Italy ZX Spectrum games Video games scored by Mark Cooksey Video games set in 1990 Video games developed in Japan

Gameplay

Playable countries

Reception

See also

References

External links