Complete Onside Soccer PS1 Review

Complete Onside Soccer is a football simulation game that was developed and published by Telstar electronic Studios for the PlayStation and MS-DOS in 1996. 

It is a very different type of soccer game as it was one of the first games in the genre to implement both playable features and also managerial elements. 

The game allows you to play the teams on the pitch where you can control the individual elements, players controls movements and so forth but you also do have access to a managerial section where you have basic functions that allow you to have control over various aspects of a team's stats. 

You can deal with trading players, you can also deal with finances stadium expenses, it gives you all of the basic options that are outlined in a typical football management simulator alongside of giving you also the ability to control the games as well which was one of the first games to be kind of like an all-in-one package if you will. 

There was another game known as kick off world that also implemented similar features that would have been released in around the same time and there wasn't too many soccer games at that period that tried to combine all of those packages. 

The gameplay itself features graphics from polygonal style characters and you have all of the abilities that you have in typical football games where you can pass shoot, hit the ball and so forth but the gameplay is very very fast paced compared to a lot of other soccer games available out there and you do have the ability to play as multiplayer so you can play with your mates and you do have different weather conditions and various features that you can also add into the mix. 

The game and even the camera features are also played from various isometric perspectives but you can change the dynamics of the camera at different points but ideally you can only really change it at the start of the match or before the match starts. It will give you an option to pick a point of where you want the camera to be positioned but you can't really change it then once you go into the game. 

The game is playable for what is on offer but it's definitely one of those games that in all honest opinion from my own experience isn't ideally beginner friendly. 

You can get into it with time and effort but it's one of those games that is difficult for an absolute newbie to come in. 

Even more season players sometimes probably will find difficulty with this as compared to other soccer games that were out at the time it wouldn't be considered to be as well put together or well fleshed out. 

It wouldn't be as well perceived in terms of how it plays and feels as yes the pace of the game is extremely fast-paced, sometimes it's too fast for the average player to really know what's going on but mixing all of the other elements and even having the ability to focus on the more managerial side of things can cater for both dynamics and different types of players. 

Some players might favor having the ability to have various control over finances, trading players, so that they can pick the best players for the team. 

So it is a dedicated management sim in all respects to it so I think that's primarily where the game definitely stands out among its piers but in terms of his playability when you do compare it to other games of the time it does lack in that department because it just isn't as well fleshed out and it's just harder just to control overall. 

It can be difficult to string passes together and even just to score goals whereas the AI can be a bit more aggressive and they will take advantage of you a lot more. 

And I know from your own experience years back as one of my brothers had this game when we had the PlayStation years ago and In fairness he played this game a lot and he managed to get into it and to win games but he did admit that he found it to be quite a struggle but he loved the management sim aspects of the game. 

He's always been a big fan of the management sims like even Premier Manager and all those type of games that you had control over the finances, trading and selling or buying players and just changing and tweaking the overall stats and have everything working with the background stuff that builds a team up over time so he enjoyed that as much as he actually enjoyed playing the actual physical game itself because even he did admit that that was probably the hardest part of the game was when you were out playing. 

But you could choose the point where you could let the computer do it as well so you could leave this to not choose or pick a side so that you can let the AI from both sides determine the results of the game and that way then he could just focus on the likes of what he needed to do in the background with the management features. 

Even though it was quite basic compared to more detailed management sims that would later come out with  Premier manager 98, 99 and other football games but it definitely had a lot of features even though this is far from the best soccer game on the PlayStation but what it lacked in many of its playable features it more than made up for it with all of its simulation elements in terms of the management aesthetics as it was one of the first games to really Implement that and that was where it helped it really stand out as a catered to different dynamics of players that if people didn't really want to play the soccer elements as such you could spend a lot of time on more of the back end with all the management stuff.

 So it was definitely enough here to cater for different types of players at the time but it really just depends on your own preference or play style but there is definitely enough here to suit different types of players if that is something you're into. 

Now if you're looking for more polished soccer games you would be better going with the likes of ISS Pro or the FIFA series as they have much more of a dynamic feel to the play style whereas this wouldn't be as easy to pick up and play. 

It's not to say that it's impossible it just it will require a lot more effort and thought and time put into it to really get to grips with the controls compared to those other soccer games. 

But what it does do it does do quite well and the fact is that it offers a variety of different things that you can do will definitely cater to different types of soccer fans out there and especially if you do like these older type of soccer games and if you want to get a taste of what early management or part management sims felt like this game here would be one that might be worth looking into. 

Looking back over my own experience I did spend time playing with this for a while although I was never as good as it but my brother put a lot of time into this game and fairness he enjoyed it for what was an offer but like I said he enjoyed the management aspect of it a lot more than the playing aspect. 

But it's really just down to people's preferences but even at that there is people out there that can enjoy this game and that do enjoy it or have enjoyed it so it is worthwhile actually looking into in all respects if you're looking for an early version of these type of titles. 

So I would love to know your thoughts of complete Onside Soccer for the PlayStation and if you have played yourself back in the day and if so what did you think of this game overall.

 Do you enjoy these type of soccer games or management sims or maybe not so much? 

I'd love to hear whatever stories you do have of these type of games so be sure to share them in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Onside 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...