The first football game of the NES offered a choice between seven national teams and five different difficulty levels.

Soccer is one of the earlier titles in the NES Sports series, it also ranks amongst the worst. Back in 1987 it might have cut the mustard, but in this day and age it is too dated to be worthy of splashing the virtual cash on.

Rather than support a full team of eleven players you only get five players, and a goalie of course! In the options can select which country you wish to play as from an arbitrary choice of only seven, pick a skill level to increase the challenge and decide how long you wish the match to last. You can of course choose to tough it out against the CPU, or a real life buddy.

The controls are very simple, you can only kick the ball or swap the active player. Determining if your player will shoot or pass the ball is a bit of a lottery. Also tackling other players for the balls seems completely random too. However with a small bit of practice you can score goals without too much trouble. It’s an incredibly unchallenging and shallow experience from start to finish.

Graphically this game is not going to impress anyone, we can’t begrudge that in such an old game. What is less forgivable is the lack of music, it’s just complete silence on the title screen and when you win or lose – would it have hurt the developers to have put some sounds in?

The main problem in Soccer is it is just so damn S-L-O-W, the speed in which the players run after the ball is painful to endure these days. It really does spoil what might be an otherwise OK game. We would advise avoiding this and waiting for a better game such as Nintendo World Cup on the NES or indeed Super Soccer on the SNES – both of these games can run rings around this dire title.