Actua Soccer 2 PS1 Review

Actua Soccer 2 is the sequel to the iconic actua soccer game that was first released on the PlayStation back in 1995 and the sequel was released in 1997 and then later in North America in 1998 under the name Fox Sports soccer 99. 

The game would also get a subsequent port on Windows PC and this game drastically improves on a lot of the major gameplay mechanics, aesthetics, visuals and pretty much a ground up overhaul of the original in many ways. 

At the time of its release it was considered to be one of the best soccer games seen on the PlayStation and this was before the likes of the FIFA series or even the ISS Pro Series where they really started to take off and the game sold quite well in numbers and it sold over 250000 units and it got fairly decent reviews in magazines. 

People mainly stating about the Improvement of the overall gameplay and the feel. 

You felt like you're a bit more flexibility in terms of the overall controls of each of the players on the screen and the camera usage was a lot better compared to the original. 

And graphically it was just a lot smoother to look at as well and it still gives you access to a multitude of different teams, the international level where you can play in different tournaments and you can also work with different character stats and attributes and it has a good multiplayer function as well that you can play with your mates. 

While at the time it was considered to be one of the best soccer games seen on the PlayStation when you compare it to more modern day games it hasn't really aged all that well although still plays pretty decently by today's standards but it's just it wouldn't be as well refined compared to when you look at the likes of the FIFA series that would later be prevalent on the PlayStation alongside the ISS pro games. 

They would become the two dominant forces in soccer games in the sports genre but it really all started pretty much with actua soccer taking the limelight for the first few years and while the game did sell decently in numbers it did receive a good decent cult following as are many fans still of the actua soccer series.

 It does play decently although even though it is a vast improvement over the original by today's standards it is still considered to be clunky and somewhat unresponsive in some ways even going back for myself personally playing this years later it's tougher to play than what I remember. 

I remember when I got this, I bought this back years ago and I actually got it second hand in a game store and I got it fairly cheap at the time and I remember getting into it I really enjoyed it I played it a ton back in the day because I was a big fan of the first actua soccer game so I played this one equally as much. 

And funny enough I wasn't too bad and like I'm not great at soccer games but I could get into this I just had to figure out a way of how to control the characters. 

I found that you had to nearly run around in circles a lot of the time just to get away from players because the computer AI in the first game was also heavily criticized for being clunky, unresponsive and just being low or poor quality and while it has improved in the sequel It's still not great when you consider it to to other soccer games that were seen later on the PlayStation. 

It still can be a bit clunky and a bit all over the place at times so there was a lot of work arounds that you would have to use like when you had the ball it was very hard to kind of get a feel for what was going on because you couldn't necessarily sprint with the ball but if you double tap the Run button you could kick the ball ahead of yourself a little bit just so that you could sprint ahead of it which gave you somewhat of an advantage. 

But if a player was running alongside of you they'd always keep niggling at you and keep tipping the ball away from you which ideally that's what you're supposed to do in soccer anyway but in this game it just became somewhat of a hindrance and it was the clunky AI that actually caused a lot of issues so you found you had to use a lot of work arounds. 

I'd find you'd have to literally run around in circles because you couldn't necessarily dribble the ball as such to like you could do in the FIFA games where you could do little neat tricks and so forth so what you had to do is you literally had to run around the player just to get them just to move out of the position enough that you could have a bit of space to run through and try and have a shot on goal. 

Now back in the day I was a lot better at the game compared to now. 

At least I was able to actually win games in it but then I suppose I put a lot more time into it as well and for what it is it is a good game and for me one of the better earlier soccer games on the PlayStation that would only have been bettered really by likes of FIFA 98 and ISS Pro 98 and later games in those series.

 But this was the best soccer game on the PlayStation pretty much at that time in the early 1997 when it was released. 

While it may not have aged while it's still a good piece of gaming history and especially sports history and one of the most notable features of the game is the sound effects and the commentary from the legendary Barry Davis so that was always for me the main highlight of the game itself because that was what I loved about the original game is the atmosphere that It presented as whatever you can say about the graphics and the clunky nature of the gameplay it definitely got the atmosphere right. 

It definitely made you feel like you were listening to an actual soccer game on the TV at the time which was really cool. And that's definitely one of the most noticeable things for me that I can take away from the game in terms of nostalgia for what it actually presented to you and the feeling it gave you from all those years of playing. 

And while it may not be as refined as modern soccer games for me it's still a piece of history and I genuinely do believe that if you're a fan of the older soccer games and even the actua soccer series it's one of those games that you should revisit from time to time just to relive that nostalgic element of it and just to get a brief insight as to how games looked and played back in those days.

As these games even though they may not have aged well, one thing we have to remember is that these games in their own right have set the standard and paved the way for future games that we would later see and even play today because without games like this modern games wouldn't really exist or they wouldn't exist in the way that we see them. So in some ways it's a good tribute to these games just to give them the time of day and even just to give them the respect that they deserve really. 

And I would love to know your thoughts on actua soccer 2 for the PS1 if you have played it yourself back in the day and if so what did you think of it. 

Did you enjoy playing this version of the game and is it your favorite game in the series like it is for me? 

I'd love to hear whatever stories you have this iconic game so be sure to share it down in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to actua soccer 2, you can check out the blog where we will be diving into the iconic elements of these classic video games and as always keep those gaming memories alive...