Kick Off 2 (1990)

[C3pp4r3ll0]

The Kick Off franchise is a series of football simulation computer games, first released in 1989. Kick Off, the first game of the series, was designed by Dino Dini and released by Anco for the Amiga and the Atari ST in 1989. The game was received well by the games industry at the time and won awards.



Critic Reviews:

• ST Action - Highest accolade they could give.
• Amiga User Int - "Best computer game ever" 97%
• The One - "Ultimate soccer simulation" 96%
• ACE - "Brilliant, BUY BUY BUY" 92%
• Amiga Format - "Best footy game to have appeared on any machine" 94%
• ST Format - "What a game! gem to play. Magic" 90%
• C&VG - "Championship winning material" 95%
• The Games Machine - "Probably the best sports game ever" 92%
• Commodore User - "No other footy game can touch it" 90%
• Amiga Action - "Surpasses all other football games" 93%
• PCW - "Nothing short of brilliant"
• New Comp Express - "Computer football event of the year"
• Zzap!64 - "So realistic, so fun, and soooo addictive" 96%

Awards

• Awarded UK. 1989 INDIN Best 16 Bit Product
• Nominated UK. 1989 INDIN Best Programmer (2nd place, the winner was "Bullfrog" for "Populous")
• Awarded 1989 EMAP Images Golden Joystick Award Best 16 Bit Product. (EMAP is a major UK magazine publisher).
• Voted the 7th best game of all time in Amiga Power.[3]

 

[C3pp4r3ll0]

This game is part of my childhood ; no matter if it did not own official licenses of the championships and players; it was simply beautiful and fun to play with a realistic movement of the ball (for the time) and a gameplay that would be the envy even today some soccer games.
I never expected to read a news story like yesterday on the blog of playstation, for me it was like a bolt from the blue :

Dino Dini’s Kick Off Revival Coming Exclusively to PS4, PS Vita in 2016

For me it is a dream come true .
By the way within the European division of Sony, there must be some nostalgic managers of some games for Amiga, considering they have already announced for PS4 an old Amiga's game title like Shadow of the beast.
I hope that it is not a mere nostalgic marketing operation, but that in addition to the original name, these games are really linked to their ancestors .