| ★ AMSTRAD CPC ★ GAMESLIST ★ KICK OFF 2 (c) ANCO ★ |
| A100% | Amstrad Action |
'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go! The passion of the World Cup lives on in the football sim. A game format with the advantage that you don't even have to go outside and get muddy playing it. Footie games were in abundance last summer, when the World Cup was in full swing. So is Anco coo late with the release of Kick Off II. or has it scored a last-minute goal?
Kick Off II is the follow up to Kjck Off, a game released just six short months ago on the Amstrad. The new version promised to add many new features to the game, without losing the excellent payability of the original. There are plenty of options on the screen to choose from. The best thing to do is ignore them - at least for the first few goes - while you get used to the system and how to play the game On pitch you have a bird's-eye view of the action The whistle goes, and they're off! The action is fast and furious. The ball is always central to the action, and the screen scrolls rapidly to accommodate it. The player currently under your control is marked with a white line that follows him around When control switches to another of your team, the line jumps to that player You control to the player nearest the ball. The control remains with thai same player for a while, but after a time switches to the near est on your team once again. This system works well most of the time, but it can be annoying when there's a player just millimetres from the ball which you are unable to take control of. All the rules of our national sport are included in the game - with the possible exception of the goal-robbing offside rule. Corners, throw-lns, free kicks and penalties are all there, as are substitutions and fouls. After you've recovered from your first few beatings, it's time to browse through the options. You can chose to play single matches. international friendlies (which is the same as a single match, just with big team names), a league, or the cup. The league and cup matches each place eight teams against each other in the different types of competition. The results can be saved for continuation later. There are plenty of variables to be adjusted: four types of playing surface, five skill levels, four wind strengths, and a number of options that can be switched on 01 off. Another feature that sets Kick Off II apart from the crowd is the individual players'statistics. Each player has a number of attributes that affect the way he plays - even though you're in control whenever he has the ball. For instance, a slow player will be easily caught, and you'll need to make sure that you pass before it's too late! The greatest criticism of Kick Off I was the dismal graphics. Ported directly across from the Spectrum, and using a dire choice of colours, the game just about scraped a measly 13%. Thankfully, great improvements have been made in KOll. The graphics are designed for the Amstrad. and while they don't exactly set new standards, they look a hell of a lot better than they did. The players are still quite small, but are now multicoloured. The pitch - not surprisingly, really -remains green, with white markings. The two teams are always red and blue, despite the country that they hail from. Curiously, the red team's goalie is also in blue - though the blue's keeper retains the true team colours. This can confuse things when the action reaches the goal area. There's no tune, and the tx are limited to whistles and bouncy-ball sounds. In fact the bouncing ball gets irritating as it's constantly happening, and you soon feel that it'd be better if there were no sound effects at all! Kick Off II is simply the most playable footie game to date. While it's still not as polished as other soccer games, it represents a big improvement over the original version. If you somehow managed to miss out on buying a soccer sim over the summer, then it's not too late. If you did, then it's worth considering anyway! Adam Waring, AA |
|  |
 | Page précédente : Kick Off 1 |  |
Page créée en 419 millisecondes et consultée 6669 fois L'Amstrad CPC est une machine 8 bits à base d'un Z80 à 4MHz. Le premier de la gamme fut le CPC 464 en 1984, équipé d'un lecteur de cassettes intégré il se plaçait en concurrent du Commodore C64 beaucoup plus compliqué à utiliser et plus cher. Ce fut un réel succès et sorti cette même années le CPC 664 équipé d'un lecteur de disquettes trois pouces intégré. Sa vie fut de courte durée puisqu'en 1985 il fut remplacé par le CPC 6128 qui était plus compact, plus soigné et surtout qui avait 128Ko de RAM au lieu de 64Ko. |
