Reviews

Best Spectrum's football game.

If you want to play football in our beloved speccy, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer is the best choice.

GOOD THINGS
* A huge amount of customizable options
* Two player support, vs and cooperative
* Awesome physics for the spectrum
* Fine graphics

BAD THINGS
* Only eight teams in the league

The first thing you can notice when you load the game is its interface. Mouse-style cursor moves through redefinable keys, and its gui it's very advanced for its time.

In the menu you can select all the options that suits you better: team names, player names, player skill, pitch color, player ink color, game lenght and much more. Editing the teams at will is a great feature that increases the replay value.

The graphics are not perfect, but they make their job well. Players are clearly displayed and are more realistic than other games games like Match Day or its sequel. Animation is quite smooth and color clash is dealed in an usual manner, monochrome display.

For a newbie, it can be a bit tricky to get into the game, because dribbling or retrieving the ball may need a bit of practice to master the inertia, but there is a practice mode and ten difficulty levels.

The beeper is hardly used, although you can hear how the players kick the ball, some chants or the crowd celebrating a goal.

Game A.I. stands a reasonable challenge, besides you can ask a friend for help and double the fun. It also allows you both to play in different teams of the league.

SUMMARY
Graphics/animation: 4/5 Mono but detailed sprites
Sound: 2/5 Use of sound is pretty limited
Playability: 5/5 Man, that's football
TOTAL: 5/5 Soccer got no better in the spectrum

There were so many disappointing football games on the Spectrum. EHIS offered both the skills and the chaos of the game.
EHIS doesn't need all of the team slection options that it crammed in. The gameplay was good enough on its own. Back in the day the magazines didn't really rate EHIS but it has stood the test of time far better than the rest.

Your Sinclair magazine only rated this game a 5 out of 10 in '89.

A game that combined strategy and action, so very well, specially the action part, should have had more respect people!!

The strategy part is a bit more basic so that may have influenced the review.

I think if this game had been released before Match Day, the Ocean game would simply disappear in the memory of us all, together with all the other action football games.

I still love Match Day but just because it was so new and exciting back them, today if I play an action football game it as to be Emlyn Hughes.

This along with Match day 2 provided most of us young Robsons and Lineker wannabes with a computerised footy fix.

Played in the same style as the aformentioned Match day 2 (now refered to as MD2) , it was a horizontally scrolling fast paced all guns blazing football simulation.

I say simulation rather than arcade game , because it was a bit deeper than its rival MD2 , the combination of joystick manouveres could result in some spectacular passing moves and fabulous flicks , back heels and attempts at goal.

You could also design your own league or cup competition , change skill levels, design (to a point) a player based on various skill levels to designate.

It's a cracking game , one that still gets a play even today , i did prefer the more sedate MD2 , but this was a really good alternative footy game to bang on when you wanted a bit of fast action.

Sadly the only thing really stopping it from getting a 5/5 was the unrealistic sort of skating on ice type gameplay , which at times looks ludicrous as players slide in / past / around the ball.

Its close but it's not the king of footy games some make it out to be.

To many, Emlyn Hughes International Soccer is the best soccer game on not just the Spectrum but on the 8-bit home computers and possibly on any system known to mankind. It is probably the most complete soccer game for it's time, the scrolling, the control, the options you had, it all made this the champion of soccer games. Simply brilliant.

Easily the best football game on the spectrum.

The best football game on the Spectrum. No contest, most of them weren't even close to it.

Not bad but a bit overrated !!

Emlyn Huges plays fairly well but not as well as Match Day ... for example .

Best soccer game on Speccy.
Fast and very smooth. The movement of the players is rather realistic with its inertia. Ball physics and enemy IA contribute to a good and addictive gameplay.

At eighties was very nice to play leagues and championships with friends. So was at my cousins home, until CommodoreAmiga and KickOff2 came. =)

Simply the best in soccer games on the ZX Spectrum.