Firstly let’s get things straight, it’s Football and not Soccer. Now we have cleared that up, let me get stuck into the review for 90″ Soccer which is currently available on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S. I’ve grown up playing through almost every football-orientated game that has ever been released. Spending my childhood days bunking off school to play Championship Manager all day long and still playing every annual release of FIFA even now.

That said, these days there doesn’t seem to be a lot arriving in the football genre. Year after year it is FIFA, the rebranded Pro Evolution Soccer and the excellent Football Manager series. Naturally, I gravitate to anything new that represents the beautiful game we all know and love so I thought I’d give 90″ Soccer a go and for less than the price of a pack of four beers from the supermarket, it may be worth your hard-earned pennies.

Introduction

After glancing at some screenshots of the game it reminded me of fond memories of a game I played back on the Sega Mega Drive as a 7-year-old named Italia 90. The game was played from a top-down perspective and most kicks were diagonal across the pitch. Football games didn’t really evolve until around 1994 when the FIFA brand started to really bed in and become more well known. I was a little confused about the title of this one but it became quickly apparent that matches are 90 seconds long and aren’t really tied to the ’90s era specifically. So whilst it reminded me of a past game gone by, I don’t think it drew any direct inspiration from the games I used to play other than the retro visuals.

Gameplay

You’re restricted to just 90 seconds with each match and whilst it would have been nice to have the option to make these longer, if it is the premise of the game as a whole then fair enough. I feel with games that have a top-down view it is important to have a fast and free-flowing game of football. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel that with 90″ Soccer and whilst it isn’t all doom and gloom, I found a fair few factors a little frustrating.

Passing the ball around, tackling and shooting is simple enough, but the animations and ball appear to stop dead after every interaction. Trying to latch onto a loose ball doesn’t feel natural and I lost count of the times my player idly ran past only to have to track back to collect the ball. It just feels a little messy and whilst playing consistently for a period of time it does become almost tolerable, it didn’t feel fun. Scoring goals is probably the more enjoyable factor of the game, pretty much like real life really and I did have countless spontaneous moments whilst attacking which brushed some of the bugbears aside temporarily.

There are a good number of countries to choose from and the ability to play through leagues which makes for variety in the gameplay. I was pleasantly surprised to see online play but when searching I couldn’t find any players so I do plan on gaming with a friend who has purchased this in future to test this side out. Local multiplayer is a choice if you like gaming with family and friends.

In Conclusion

90″ Soccer, unfortunately, doesn’t play as fast and fluidly as similar titles even from decades ago. I fired up the backwards-compatible Xbox 360 version of Sensible World Of Soccer almost immediately after playing this and even after 13 years this was much better in visual presentation and how it feels to play. Understandably this is probably a low-budget production with a small team working on a title with such a low price point but with such clunky gameplay and almost blurry aesthetics, it doesn’t stand out even in a quiet genre sadly. If you’re after a casual kick about for a few quid though and a laugh with some mates then it may be worth the £4.19 asking price.