Kick Off (series)
| Kick Off | |
|---|---|
Amstrad CPC cover art for Kick Off
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| Developer(s) | Dino Dini |
| Publisher(s) |
Anco Software Imagineer |
| Platform(s) | Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Amiga, MS-DOS, ZX Spectrum, NES |
| Release | 1989 (original) |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player or multiplayer (up to 4 players) |
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.
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.
In 1992, Dino Dini left Anco and signed a contract for Virgin Games, which released Goal! in 1993. Anco released several further editions of the Kick Off series between 1994 and 1997, but these games had little in common with Kick Off and Kick Off 2. In 2001–2003, the KOA collaborated closely with Anco developer Steve Screech in an attempt to relaunch the Kick Off and Player Manager series. Kick Off 2002 was released. Anco started to work on another sequel Kick Off 2004 which reached beta status. The attempt came to a halt when Anco closed in 2003.
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. mIn 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.
With Kick Off the ball did not stick to the player's feet but instead was realistically kicked ahead from the players, in a manner similar to that of Nintendo's Soccer, released in 1985 on the NES. 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 also featured.
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