Kick Off 2

Timed Sega exclusive

Viewed top-down, the controls involve trapping the ball under your foot, giving you time to prepare passes. Running with the ball is tricky at first, as it doesn't stick to your foot the way it did in contemporary football games. Complex moves such as overhead kicks, back-heels and long-range through-ball passes can be completed with practice.

Released: 31 December 1990
Platforms: Amiga Atari ST Atari ST/STE Commodore C64/128/MAX Game Gear SNES Sega Master System/Mark III ZX Spectrum
Genres: Association football Sports
Developers: Anco Tiertex Design Studios Enigma Variations
Publishers: Imagineer U.S. Gold Misawa Entertainment
Modes: Multiplayer Single-player
Perspective: Bird view / Isometric

About

The Kick Off franchise is a series of football simulation video games created by Dino Dini. Kick Off was published by Anil Gupta's publishing house Anco Software for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. First released in 1989, Kick Off was well-received and won awards.

After the release of Kick Off several sequels were released. Player Manager was released in 1990. The game was the first game to combine a management environment (including tactics, league play, transfers, and detailed player attributes) with a football game engine (based on that of Kick Off). Kick Off 2 was released in 1990 as a sequel to Kick Off. The game introduced a number of new features as well as several small alterations.

Keywords

soccer
football

Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

With Kick Off the ball did not stick to the player's feet but instead was realistically kicked ahead from the players. This added a degree of difficulty and skill requirement at the same time. Other attributes, such as action replays, players with different characteristics, different tactics, fouls, yellow cards, red cards, injuries, injury time and various referees with different moods are also featured.

Development

Kick Off was released in 1989. Kick Off was first developed for the Atari ST and then ported to the Amiga. Several expansion disks were released for Kick Off 2. In 1992, Dino Dini left Anco and signed a contract for Virgin Games, which released Goal!

in 1993. Anco released Kick Off 3 in 1994. The game used a side view instead of a top-down view and bore little resemblance to Kick Off 2 apart from the name. Anco Software published the first versions of Kick Off for the Amiga and Atari ST.

Reception

ST Action – Highest accolade they could give.

Amiga User Int – "Best computer game ever" 97%

Releases by platformdates and regions as published

Platform	Released	Regions
Atari ST/STE	31 December 1990	Worldwide
Amiga	31 December 1990	Worldwide
Commodore C64/128/MAX	31 December 1990	Europe
Game Gear	31 December 1991	Europe
Sega Master System/Mark III	31 December 1991	Europe
SNES	25 December 1992	Japan · Europe 31 December 1992