Hi there!

 

The full German title of this was Pierre Littbarskis Hot Shot:

 

 

In England it was promoted with Gary Lineker. And I must say they both were deserving a much better game than this

 

Despite me hating sports games, I thought to make an exception for once during the World Cup

 

I actually own a few C64 soccer games still from back in the day, like Microprose Soccer (which I loved) and the first two Kick Offs (which I hated), but Hot Shots is one I never tried before.

 

The style is Microprose Soccer, i.e. the ball is mostly glued to the foot of the actual player, which is a bonus in my book already.

 

In all other departments (graphics, music, gameplay, A.I.) it's lacking the polish of Microprose Soccer though, making it a rather lame clone.

 

There's so obvious bugs like that the timer is running when you're supposed to throw the ball in or when a corner is played, which means if you're in the lead you can just wait until the current half is over

 

The game has only one (very unrealistic) play mode. There's 16 teams divided into 4 divisions and whenever you win a game or two you're climbing into the next higher division. It took me 5 games to make it to the top of the first division, then I got a congratulations message that I won the game

 

The game is also way too easy; I won my first game 9:0 (without cheating!) and the last still 3:0. Well, at least so I was alreadly done with the game after an hour

 

Some future day the "Playing..." series may see another soccer game in the form of "Fighting Soccer", but first it'll continue with something else.

 

Greetings,

Manuel