Striker 96 PS1 Review

Striker 96 is a football game developed by rage software and published by a acclaim entertainment for the PlayStation, Sega Saturn and MS-DOS or Windows PC in 1996 and the game is reflective of earlier entries in the striker series that would have been seen on the likes of the Sega Mega drive and most notably the Super Nintendo or SNES. 

The game itself now on PC would receive decent reviews but the Sega Saturn version didn't receive that great of reviews considering it to be quite poor but was also stated that there was a lot of other soccer games were available on both the Saturn and the PlayStation at the time and would therefore try to recommend that people go elsewhere if they wanted to get their soccer fix. 

But the reality is is there were so many games on the PlayStation that there was a plethora to choose from and a lot of times there was many games like this here that did have some notable elements but would often be overlooked because there was such a vast array and selection to choose from. 

Plus it was one of the only soccer games that were available that had both an indoor and outdoor mode to play in and that you could play five aside soccer Indoor door matches itself. 

You would only see indoor soccer modes really being seen later on in the likes of the FIFA entries with 97 to 98 but would later be removed in 99 and the indoor features were really really cool in the FIFA games so it was a pity that they removed them. 

But what does striker feel like to play, well again this is going back off a series of games that were developed during the early 90s that would have seen a home on earlier 16-bit consoles with the SNES and the Mega Drive and most notably the SNES especially for me because growing up one of my best mates that lived across the road from us like we all grew up with the PlayStation but before we had the PlayStation he did have a mega drive for a while and then for years he had a Super Nintendo and he had a version of Striker for the SNES. 

And in all honesty we had great memories with that game, for us that was one of the best multiplayer games that we'd ever played especially with the indoor like you could play outdoor soccer but the indoor was definitely the best mode to play in the game because we used to spend our weekends now this is even before the PlayStation had come out and we would spend our weekends he would stay over at our house and he would take the Super Nintendo over and we would sit the whole weekend playing. 

My parents would go out on a Friday night or a Saturday night and we would stay up till three or four in the morning literally just playing multiplayer games. 

We would play a mix between Super Mario Kart, Mortal Kombat 3, NBA Live 96 and Striker and it was always between those four games and because they were all multiplayer games and we used to just have an absolute blast playing those games. 

There was so much fun, we had so many iconic memories playing those games but Striker was definitely one of the standout games because the indoor mode in that game was hilarious. 

It was so much fun you could literally score from the halfway line because as soon as you kicked the ball we found a trick that you could literally hold on to one of the directional buttons or move with the directional pad around and the ball with swerve as you kicked it. 

So you could literally score a goal from open player literally from the kickoff without even trained to do anything if you knew what you were doing which was mad in all respects and that's how we ended up winning so many games and we just loved the sound effects because the Super Nintendo had great use of sound effects back then and the crowds and even when you scored goals used to be just mad and incredible. 

So for me to go back and to try and play this here to try and relive those nostalgic memories was definitely for me a good experience to try out but I will admit this game it does play really well for what is on offer, now it is hard to pick up and play from what I remember because it does play like the old Striker games. 

But I really admit Striker on the SNES for me was definitely the better game. I found it easier to pick up and play and it's just generally for me it was more fun. 

Having spent time playing this if I compare it to the two, this game is definitely harder to pick up and play. 

I was trying to use those tricks to see if I could score from the halfway line and see if I could swerve the ball and I couldn't really do it as such because even when you do Blast the Ball it doesn't go very far not like it did in the older games. 

So they obviously removed a lot of those unique elements out of it which is a pity but it doesn't take away from the fact that the indoor mode and it was brilliant I have to say I had a great blast playing this here and it was actually one of the best indoor soccer modes that I played on any game so far on the PlayStation. 

Even for the amount of soccer games that are available, the indoor more than this is a lot of fun and you will have a blast but it's more so especially playing with your mates. 

Although I will admit it's not the best soccer game on the PlayStation it's far from it and with the plethora of titles that are available, it's easy to see why this game got overlooked back in the day when you consider it to the likes of your fifas and then your ISS Pros that were starting to come out so even Adidas Power Soccer and there was other titles as well that were starting to show up and even in other regions. 

There was even more games coming out like the amount of football games on the PlayStation one is truly incredible. 

It's just there seems to be no end to soccer games that were starting to appear at that time so it was very easy for games like this to get overlooked which was a pity because if there wasn't the same plethora of games out there and if this game had been released probably earlier in the PlayStation's lifespan say within the first couple of months of the console's release say when in 1995 I think that this game would have sold and got more noticed. 

It would have sold a lot better in general I think but that's just the reality of it, unfortunately a lot of these games were often overlooked but some of them are hidden gems although not considered as the best soccer games but they all had something unique to offer and a lot of these games like I mentioned they do have some cool traits to them that they did have to pave the way for future games in the genre that would go on to see great success and a lot of that would not have been possible only for games such as this here. 

But it's still interesting to go back and play a lot of these old games as the PlayStation had an entire list of games that were so different from what was available back then and even do still stand out even today. 

There's just so many hidden gems and even long forgotten titles that we all have forgotten that time has literally just set Into the Wilderness if you will and for me they are what revisiting and there worthwhile checking out and this is part of it in fairness. 

So it's a great way to go back and explore a lot of these cool little games just to see what they're liking just to see if you can have a bit of fun again or maybe you have played it back in the day and I would love to know your thoughts on striker 96 if you have played it and what did you think about. 

Did you have a lot of fun with these type of games or maybe not so much or did you prefer more mainstream titles on the system? 

I'd love to hear whatever toys you do have in this game so be sure to share it in the comments below and be sure to keep watching to see more content on other games similar to Striker 96, 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...