Actua Soccer PS1 Review

Looking back over the long history of PS1 sports games you can definitely see a massive increase in terms of the popularity but also around the quality of games that preceded earlier entries within the genre. 

And while many of these games may not have aged wild when you look at it by today's standards, they are influential in their own right because many of these games had the not existed wouldn't have set the ground or the foundation for modern games that we see today and actua soccer the first game in the series is one of those games to influence the fifth generation of video game consoles and gaming platforms during the mid 90s to set a standards that would gradually move towards greatness later down the line. 

When you look at the likes of football games such as FIFA 98 and even future entries of the FIFA series even the ISS Pro that would later become the Pro Evolution of PES series among many others but they all got their influences and pretty much started from somewhere. 

Although the FIFA series would date back as early as 1993-94 on the likes of the Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo with 2D iterations but actua soccer was the first video game in the sports genre to fully include a 3D Graphics engine that would pretty much revolutionize the way sports games had been played at that time that contained a total of 44 national teams with each team containing 22 players and for its time was revolutionary. 

There was nothing else like it on home consoles or in just in gaming in general and it was later proceeded with actua soccer club edition that focused more on Premier League teams where you could play with the likes of Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and so forth and all being provided with the commentary by the legendary Barry Davis.

 And even going back to my own personal experience I know I have covered actua soccer in a previous video back in the early days of the channel but I thought it was a game that really should be revisited and to do a more lengthy and in-depth video on. 

As not only was this probably the first 3D soccer/football game on any console that's not only just got a release on the PlayStation it was also on the PC and also on the Sega Saturn. 

But it pretty much was leaps and bounds beyond anything that was ever seen at that time and not only that, the fact is that it felt so authentic, you had all the true sounds of a real authentic stadium when you went to play games, you have the sound effects of the football when people would slide tackle each other and kicked the ball, but the highlight reel for me personally was the commentary was Barry Davis. 

Because at the time when I first experienced the game for the first time way back in late 96 early to mid-1997, I was completely blown away by what the game had to offer. 

Now I know actua soccer had been out quite a while at that point but it was the commentary that just made it feel so life-like. 

When I go back to the early days of when I first got to play the PlayStation there were handful of games that really stood out to me aside from the likes of I know I love Resident Evil and all that but when you think of like sports genres there was Formula One. 

The very first Formula One game I played that on a demo and it was just completely just  in aww of how good that game was and the fact that you had Murray Walker that you would hear on TV on a Sunday evening also commentating in the game that felt so lifelike and then when I got to play actua soccer for the first time it also provided the same level of experience and nostalgia because you've got to hear Barry Davis commentating over the games and it felt like you were just watching TV or a soccer game at the weekends or like a big tournament like say the World Cup or european championships. 

And for me as a young person they say in my early teenage years at the time was phenomenal it was just mind blown so actua soccer really set the foundations for what was yet to come. 

It was followed up by two sequels with actua soccer 2 and actua soccer 3. Now I have played them all and there has been other spin-offs in different regions that have been rebranded under different names also but I do consider probably the actua soccer 2 to be the best out of the actua soccer series but it wouldn't have all been possible only for actua soccer, the first game. 

It's really helped to set and pave the way for many other titles in the genre itself and the game did receive favorable reviews when it was released but even I would be honest going back to which the game hasn't aged particularly well because when you try to control the game the controls are for the most part they can be quite sloppy and the artificial intelligence or computer AI can be quite poor especially when you consider them to more modern games or even later games with the likes of the FIFA or the ISS Pro Series. 

They can be somewhat like clunky for the most part but regardless of the playability or the lack of when you compare it to other games, it was the nostalgia, it was the presence, it was the lifelike feel that the game presented was what really made it stand out because no other soccer game before it had actually done that. 

And the fact is you could play it in full 3d where you can move around in Full 3D around the place just added to that even though yes it was a disaster at times trying to figure out what to do, trying to know what button to press, how to kick, how to pass, how to slide tackle and trying to put all the pieces together to even get a chance to have a shot on goal and if you weren't really too familiar with it like I wasn't back in the day, I was terrible at it but I'm not really that good at football games anyway, it would always be a struggle. 

If I'll be brutally honest even recording this video I had played the game previously but I forgot to record it I was recording the gameplay and I forgot to record it and I ended up winning 3-1, I don't know how the hell they did they just scoring goals from literally anywhere and it just didn't make any sense but then of course only relays then when I went to check it I was like oh my God I didn't record it so I ended up having to go back and record this one so it didn't work out the same way as I wanted to but at least it's more neutral and in this sense in this play through so it's not so bad. 

But all in all, right comparing us to more modern games, right it doesn't match up at all really it is what it is, but considering what i presented back in the day for such an early not just a PS1 title but a nearly 3D sports game for its time it was revolutionary like we can't deny that because the actual soccer game itself and the general actua sport series did pave the way for many future entries and other genres not just on other sports genres but even with soccer games with the likes of your ISS Pros your FIFA soccer and among other games. Actua Soccer literally influenced and helped pave the way for those games to exist and to become as popular as they eventually would go on to become. 

So at the time when this game was out it's mostly main competitor would have been the Sega worldwide soccer series which you would have seen on the Sega Saturn and I have played them. 

I own the Sega Saturn for a while and I had Sega worldwide soccer 97 and it wasn't a bad game, if anything it was probably a wee bit easier to pick up and play even though it was still quite clunky compared to actua soccer but that would have been the main competitor at the time really as such. 

But it's just an interesting take on these types of early concepts in early games and it is great to go back and revisit them every so often even though they're not as playable today and they're genuinely are clunky and at times they can be frustrating but if you genuinely are a gaming enthusiast like myself which many I know many of you here on the channel are anyway, it's always good to go back and look at the years gone by to see the progress and the history of games and to see what started and where it currently ended up going. A

And the fact is this it allows us to respect the process of where these games came from and where they went on to be along the way so that in itself is enough reason to really put down actua soccer as a revolutionary or an evolutionary process in the development of video games and even its history along the way. 

While it's not considered to be anywhere near the best game in the series like I said it did help pave the way for future entries in the genre which would go on to be seen and become greatly successful and it pretty much all started with this game if I'll be brutally honest.

And it was very reflective of it time for the early days of the PlayStation, we were getting used to the transition from playing off games like on the Sega Mega Drive, Super Nintendo even 8-bit systems like the Sega Master System, your Nintendo game boys and then to go to the likes of the PlayStation one, the Sega Saturn and to play games like this at the time even though like when we look at the now they would be clunky now but at the time they were just mind-blowing and our little minds back then were just not able to prepare us for what we were seeing at the time. 

These games were in their own way revolutionary and that's why it's always good to go back and reflect on them from time to time just to see and to relive that nostalgia so for me it definitely is a game worth revisiting definitely. 

And I would love to know your thoughts on the original actua soccer for the PlayStation or if you have even played it even on other consoles such as the Sega Saturn. 

I'd love to know your thoughts on the game and if so what stories you have to share and the nostalgia that you've hired from the experiences from playing the game over the years. 

I'd love to hear whatever stories you do have with the 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, 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...