Playing every PS1 game - Actua Soccer 1, 2 and 3

Actua Soccer

Football, being a sport which is conclusively played in three dimensions (unlike say, snooker), is something that poorly translates into 2D. As such, with the advent of a consumer machine with the juice to render full 3D environments (however clunkily at first), there was a mad scramble to morph the Beautiful Game into 3D, and corner the market early, start strong, set the tone [that’s enough football clichés]. Much like with the other Actua titles, Gremlin was amongst the first to succeed in mid-1996 with Actua Soccer.

Complete with trademark Gremlin strange real-life advertising hoardings.

It gets a few things right. The gameplay is indeed rendered entirely in (wince-inducingly blocky) 3D, the animations work, and Barry Davies on commentary is actually pretty spot on. The game wants to show off the 3D environment - its main selling point - so there are a multitude of camera angles. The default ‘action cam’ view, while being terrible to actually use, really does bring you in ambitiously close to things.

The same scene occurs after every goal.

It’s not really a good game, though. What is it with Actua games and being too bloody hard? In a pre-FIFA world, gameplay mechanics that are taken for granted now - like the pass button automatically directing the ball at the nearest teammate, rather than aimlessly punting the ball in the direction your player is facing for you to chase after - hadn’t been worked out yet. There is some sort of button system based on triangle/circle/star shapes at players’ feet which I’m sure was explained in the manual, but I couldn’t quite work it out. Goalkeepers are superhuman. AI is subhuman.

A few leftfield choices but otherwise pretty middle of the road stuff.

Licencing complications forced the inclusion of national teams over domestic clubs and leagues, which is a bit dull, though an updated version of the game was released a year later subtitled Club Edition, featuring a roster of club sides, which could tide you over for a few months before the game’s successor blew it out of the water.

Kept my attention for: An afternoon
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 4/10

Actua Soccer 2

By the time of Actua Soccer 2, Gremlin had started splashing the cash to get famous sportsmen to pose on their game box art. While FIFA 97 had to settle for long-locked Frenchman-turned-Geordie David Ginola (and ISS Pro picked up, er, big-haired Colombian Carlos Valderama), for the second of the Actua Soccer games Gremlin somehow managed to bag Alan Shearer. It might be that it only seems like such a coup given that we look upon it with the fullness of time; in 1997 Shearer had only recently joined Newcastle United and still had another 100 or so goals to score before cementing his Premier League legend status.

But this isn’t Alan Shearer.

It’s a big improvement on its predecessor in every department - apart from the excruciatingly garish UI and music, which serve only to drill home the point that they’ve paid through the nose for Alan Shearer, and you will be damn well sure to recognise that.

Scoring a goal gives you a plethora of replay angles, with a quaint red tracer line from your boot.

I never owned any of the Actua games in the old days, but 3D engine rebuilt here for AS2 rings familiar - it was actually built into Gremlin’s football management sim Premier Manager 98 in order to show swanky post-game highlights. It’s probably the superior football engine of its time. Sliding tackles leave muddy divots on the pitch that remain for the rest of the game (I don’t think they have any non-visual impact on the gameplay), the camera is less frustrating (though still fairly so), and Barry Davies’ commentary is still on point. It could even be the most well put together commentary system in a PS1 football game.

It has a bit of a Subbutteo feel to it.

It’s a shame though that you’re still stuck with national sides, as it really harms the replayability. As far as I know, there wasn’t a Club Edition update version here either. We wouldn’t have to wait much longer to re-enact the Premier League, though.

Kept my attention for: A day or two
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 7/10

Actua Soccer 3

The Actua series was at its popular zenith in 1998, and there is no better evidence of the hubristic grandeur that came with it than Actua Soccer 3. Confidence seeps out of its every figurative pore. The main menu music is Robbie Williams’ Let Me Entertain You (which you will quickly tire of hearing). The opening FMV, with slow-mo clips of late-90s club football being shown over the strains of Mascagni’s operatic Intermezzo, is so ostentatious it borders on cringe. You can tell that Gremlin were stung by the previous criticisms around the lack of club teams to play with, and were now going to throw their new licences in your face as soon as you switch on your little grey box.

A definite jump in visual fidelity.

Yes, Actua Soccer 3 got itself club football - and how. Uncontent with simply throwing in the Premier League and handful of the big-name European sides (which would come to serve FIFA just fine for many years), AS3 comes with a cast of hundreds, from River Plate to Barry Town, complete with squads present and correct. Throw them together in a league or a knockout cup, or create your own teams from scratch.

Practice on a training pitch, with bibs and everything.

Is it any good, though? This is the awkward bit. I actually preferred Actua Soccer 2. In a tragedy that mirrors so many modern games, in AS3’s quest for realism and simulation, it actually moved away from what made its predecessor good. The game engine has had a tune-up, but does it really look much prettier? It has nicer lighting effects, but brings with it a permanent layer of fogginess. Everything is so much slower. Gone is the arcade snappiness of AS2. Martin O’Neill joins Barry Davies in the commentary box and still gets everything right, I suppose.

The Mr. Bean film is the latest bizarre advertising board entry.

It just wasn’t quite as enjoyable, and here was where the Actua series more or less ended. Gremlin was acquired by Infogrames a year later and never hit these highs again. In retrospective, it’s maybe no surprise that the only one of the Actua Soccer games still available (an emulated PS1 version on Steam) is the second entry.

Kept my attention for: An hour
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 5/10