''Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona'' (referred to in title as ''Peter Shilton's Football'') is a multiplatform

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

simulation video game Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...

that was released in 1986 for the

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for "Colour Personal Computer") is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spec ...

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 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 ...

and

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer developed and marketed by Sinclair Research. One of the most influential computers ever made and one of the all-time bestselling British computers, over five million units were sold. ...

. The game's title refers to the "hand of God" goal scored by

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona Franco (30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional association football, football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two ...

against England at the

1986 FIFA World Cup The 1986 FIFA World Cup was the 13th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in Mexico from 31 May to 29 June 1986. The tournament was the second to feature a 24-tea ...

Gameplay

While the game is ostensibly a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

simulation A simulation is an imitative representation of a process or system that could exist in the real world. In this broad sense, simulation can often be used interchangeably with model. Sometimes a clear distinction between the two terms is made, in ...

video game, it differs from other football games in that the player only ever controls the

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

: instead of playing a full match, the player is presented with a number of preset scenarios (such as a standard attack, or a set piece like a

corner kick A corner kick, commonly known as a corner, 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 defe ...

penalty kick A penalty shot or penalty kick is a play used in several sports whereby a goal is attempted during untimed play. Depending on the sport, when a player commits certain types of penalties, the opposition is awarded a penalty shot or kick attempt. ...

) where the player is expected to save the shot on goal - to do this, the player can move freely within the six yard box, and jump or dive sideways. Once the shot is saved or the goal is conceded, the play stops and the game goes on to the next scenario. The game features three game modes centered around the core mechanic: * In Practice Session mode, the player is simply presented with a series of attacks they must save, with no score kept. * In Play Game mode, the action happens within the confines of a football match, with two halves and a final score; while not seen, the player's team is able to score goals as well, but much like real life, as a goalkeeper, the player can only ensure their team doesn't concede any goals, and has no influence on whether their team scores any. * In Skill Upgrade mode, the player has to save four consecutive shots to get to a higher skill level, after which the attacks get progressively more difficult to save. If successful, the player receives a 4-digit code they can enter the next time they start the game to resume from that skill level. The player must pick one of sixteen teams of the

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was the top division of the Football League in England from 1888 until the end of the 1991–92 season, when its teams broke away to form the Premier League. From 1992 to 2004, the name First Division was g ...

, although no player names or team colours are featured. The Commodore 64 version has some extra

sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. In m ...

s and some limited digitized speech.Peter Shilton's Handball Maradona
, s64.emuunlim.org:88

Reception

AllGame RhythmOne , a subsidiary of Nexxen, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel. Blinkx was founded in 2004, went public on the Alternative Investment Market, ...

gave the game a score of 2.5/5 stars. Writing for

Zzap!64 ''Zzap!64'' is a computer games magazine covering games for computers manufactured by Commodore International, especially the Commodore 64 (C64). It was published in the UK by Newsfield Publications Ltd and later by Europress Impact. The magazi ...

Julian Rignall Julian "Jaz" Rignall (born 6 March 1965, London, England) is a writer and editor. He has also produced content for corporate websites such as GamePro Media, publisher of ''GamePro'' magazine and ''GamePro.com'', marketing collateral and advert ...

judged the game as "vastly overpriced and not really worth buying", noting that while the core gameplay was fun, the repetitive nature didn't provide enough replay value.

References

1986 video games Amstrad CPC games Association football video games Commodore 64 games Cultural depictions of association football players Cultural depictions of British people Cultural depictions of Diego Maradona Europe-exclusive video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games based on real people Video games developed in the United Kingdom ZX Spectrum games {{Video game stub