Playing every PS1 game - Adidas Power Soccer & International 97, 98

The decade or so between the mid-late 90s and the mid-late 00s was a curious period where marketing departments for big brands made tight bedfellows with videogames in a way probably unfamiliar to newer consumers. It was not in the ‘modern’ way, wherein your Call of Duty player character takes a short break from gunning down waves of hapless virtual conscripts in order to take a refreshing slug of Monster Energy Drink^TM; nothing that cynical. I’m talking about actually making full-fledged games based around your product.

What this concept brings to mind in the first instance is the epidemic of average-to-terrible (and occasionally really good) movie tie-in games that we don’t get at all anymore. But we also had games like Pepsiman, M&Ms Shell Shocked, and also The Mission, a game that doesn’t even have the name of its brand (Nike) in its title. So it came to be that in the early days of the PlayStation, Adidas churned out a trio of football games to serve as a vehicle to promote Predator football boots and other sporting clobber.

Adidas Power Soccer

At first look, this is a game that borrows much of its look and feel from Virtua Striker. There’s a big, un-football-like countdown timer in the centre of the screen. There are flashing icons above the players to indicate whether they are being controlled by ‘1P’ or ‘CPU’, and a pitch map in the centre-bottom. Even the animations bear a resemblance to the arcade kick-em-up. Resemblances in terms of gameplay? Now, I’ve not played Virtua Striker, but I am willing to wager that the similarities end before we reach that particular department.

Familiar fake player names abound.

Unfortunately, Adidas Power Soccer is not a good game. The visuals, whilst not quite reaching 4-4-2 Soccer territory, are ugly, with goalkeepers resembling the Hunchback of Notre Dame jankily hoofing the ball forward for the players to chase in a staccato manner. That is if they actually do chase the ball, or betray an awareness at all that they are participating in a game of football. The CPU AI is poor even by early-PS1-sport-game standards.

Another goal goes in while nobody reacts.

There are a few interesting curios within the game, though. Two-footed death tackles have a button press mapped just for themselves. You’re frequently reminded that you’re essentially playing an interactive Adidas advert, with ‘cutscenes’ (Adidas TV spots) interspersed before and after loading screens. At half time, expect to be treated with an advert for the now iconic Adidas Predator. Just like in real life, I suppose.

Is there any other kind?

The commentary, while decidedly laconic and sparingly used (which is a plus, because it’s bad), throws in an interesting line when a robust-but-not-blown-for-a-foul tackle is made, where the chap I don’t quite recognise on comms declares that the lack of a stoppage will only fuel calls for a ‘third eye’, which I guess is what they called VAR back then. If only we could warn them.

A true Citi Bank^TM Moment Of Success!

Such trivia isn’t enough to redeem anything, though. You can only play in one way - two-foot tackle an opposing player, run with the ball 30 feet, pass to nowhere, repeat. Early 5th-gen football games really weren’t any good.

Kept my attention for: 45 minutes
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 2/10

Adidas Power Soccer International 97

I loaded this game up, and was a bit taken aback when I saw what seemed to be a rehash of the original game’s opening FMV. Not quite shot-for-shot, but the same pre-rendered 3D footballers daintily punting a football about. Then I got to the main menu… which was exactly the same. Then I started a game, which was also exactly the same serving of footballing dross as its predecessor. I wondered whether this was just a re-release of the original?

Shame on you, Psygnosis.

I googled, and…no! This is a full-priced, honest to God sequel to Adidas Power Soccer. What a scam.

Kept my attention for: 3 minutes
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 1/10

Adidas Power Soccer International 98

Thankfully, this one is actually a whole new game. It’s not much good either.

It’s not as bad as its predecessors. The visuals have received a general facelift and are probably just about passable for 1998. There’s a new practice mode, and lots more teams and tournaments including the Africa Cup of Nations, which I don’t actually recall appearing in a game for another 15 years or so.

It can snow now.

That’s about it, though. Scoring is still stupidly hard, where the method is still to keep piledriving shots goalbound and hope that one of them eventually finds a way to skip the automated save animation. I discovered that if you pass the ball at the goal, sometimes the goalkeeper gets confused, turns his back on you and calmly shepherds the ball into the net.

The red-line-goal-tracer, potentially nicked from Actua Soccer.

So yes, the AI is still diabolical. Players stand in offside positions, players actively run away from the ball after goal kicks and passes, crosses are a lottery and defenders part like the proverbial red sea in the face of forwards running with the ball. As a football simulation it fails rather thoroughly.

Players casually strolling in the opposite direction are a constant.

Commentary is less sparse, but this makes things worse, as Brian Moore phones in generic line after generic line, espousing how lovely it is that football has ‘captured the imagination’ of the world (while players run around aimlessly), and proudly informing the player that ‘all the season tickets are sold out’ while commentating on a World Cup match.

I’m done with football games for a while.

Kept my attention for: Half an hour
Did I finish it?: N/A
Overall: 3/10