Reviews

And yes, two years after Championship Soccer, there was Championship 6-a-Side Soccer which Mark Hardisty wrote in 1992 and actually sent it to D&H Games for publication but was turned down, I can only imagine why. Well you can play with up to eight players again but we have more teams to choose and Westfield are nowhere to be in sight, but neither are the team I support so I just went and picked Leeds Utd just because. Like last time there's group draw done to separate the teams, and there's three in a group this time rather than four, Leeds are in Group E with Man Utd and Liverpool, thank you very much for that. And then it proceeds to show me info for Sheff Wed vs. West Ham Utd, not this shit again, actually you have a choice this time of whether you wish to watch it or not so of course I said no and it skipped to the result. The main problem is, the game plays through each group's games at a time, in this case Group A and then Group B and then the top teams from both groups play a qualifier match which the winner goes through. As I am in Group E, it took a while for me to play my matches, which means a lot of repetition of skip matches, not wanting to trade players and not wanting to view the groups, over and over and over and over and over again. But at last it's my match and again we can change the squad but we can also change tactics as well. As you might have guessed, this is now a 6-a-Side soccer match instead of the 5-a-Side matches seen in Championship Soccer. You can choose to skip your own match but I'm watching because I feel like I've waited my whole life for this moment. Our match screen this time doesn't look as bare and the text is slower and easier to read but our “pitch” display remains and is larger, looking more like a Christmas cracker rather than a present from the previous game. This time however there is no sound at all, even when there is a shot on goal or when a goal is scored, no sound whatsoever, plus as the text is slower so too is the whole match itself by the looks of it, except we play 12 minute halves here so it's not a full on drag. Anyway we beat Man Utd but lost to Liverpool who topped the group and we're out. There's a final round featuring two groups, the two winners face off in the final, the winners are champs and then we start all over again. I wish to make not that at the start of each season there's a FA Cup holder and a League holder, yet none of these are featured in the game, it's just the Sixes tournament and that's it. It is a a slightly better programmed game, it makes some sense where as Championship Soccer made none, but it's just a tedious, boring drag of a game, and in the end this is why D&H rejected it, because it pretty much has no lasting appeal even for a football manager game. I mean at the end of the day I done all that skipping just for two matches. Simply put, this nor Championship Soccer are worth your time.

Review prologue:
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After reading user YOR review, I decided to have a look at this game.
So my review is as follows:

Review part 1:
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After the initial menu, which by the way is nicely presented, and after having selected my team, a screen mentioning the team groups is being drawn. A message with the words "Please Wait!" is visible. 10 minutes have passed, and I'm still waiting for the Group Draw screen to move forward, I see the letters "Please Wait!" changing colors so the game has not blocked.
(11 minutes now)...

As I can't continue this review, I'll be back whenever the game decides to move along, meanwhile 12 minutes and counting.

Review part 2:
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Here I am again after waiting for more than 15 minutes for the Group Draw screen to move forward (I lost count so probably more).
This alone is more than a reason for a game to be rejected by a publisher, but hey my browser is slow so maybe it's my software fault.
After this a new screen appears with 3 options "Next, Back, Continue", I pressed the option "Next", nothing happened, pressed it again, nothing, and again, nothing, then I pressed Back and Continue... nothing. I enabled the Caps Lock, pressed the "Next" option again and... ok, here we go. Not enabling the capital and lowercase letters to be both used is usually a programming rookie mistake and although annoying is forgivable. So, moving along...
After a couple of screens, the option to watch the game appeared. At that moment I looked at my watch, it marked 5pm exactly and I pressed Yes to watch the match.
Match Begins, and I may say the screen is dissapointing, not that it matters much in a managenment game, it matters but it's secondary. I started reading the game comments which although basic provide an idea of what is happening, passing , shooting, defence, etc, it's all commented and you get a small basic map of the field to give you an idea of where the ball is at. Now I look at the time again and it's 5:05pm, and the total match playing time is now in 8 minutes! 8 minutes! Which means I'll have to wait approx. 30 minutes for the end of the game. And judging by the slowness of this game, it may take a lot more...
Edit: my watch now marks 5:10pm and total match play is 11 minutes. Oh my.
(In my head I'm listening to the Clash's song "Should I Stay or Should I Go?").

Review part 3:
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(will it ever be written?)