"I quit soccer to play Atari!"
So says Pele in one of the commercials for his game. I think this should be a meme: "I quit (blank) to play Atari!"
Pele's recent death inspired me to check out this game again. I read a New York Times obit that paints Pele as a godlike athlete, a human so surprising and graceful, it was enough to choke me up.
By the time the Atari 2600 game was released at the beginning of the Eighties, Pele truly had quit football. Soccer. Whatever.
Pele's Soccer was the first sports video game, as far as I understand, to feature a celebrity name and face on the cover. This is another example of an Atari first that became an industry standard.
Pele's Soccer was originally "Championship Soccer," which in my experience seems to be a more common cart. Sears also released it as "Soccer." Later, some Pele games would be developed for the Sega Genesis in the mid-Nineties, proof of Pele's lasting fame.
As far as the gameplay, even though there are fifty-plus variations, the games are essentially the same variety of pass and kick, if at different speeds and altered goals. Personally, I find Pele's Soccer amusing enough, for a round or two, anyway. I laughed at the constant back-and-forth trading between teams, which are really triangles of blocks, as well as the continual up-and-down scrolling of the field. Running back and forth across a field and never scoring goals? That's accurate to soccer in real life, right?
My favorite thing about this game is the fireworks and cheering that occur with each goal. "Love! Love! Love!"
If you like retro sports games, you may enjoy this. Otherwise, I recommend Pele's soccer to nerds and collectors only.
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