Euro Club Soccer review - Sega Megadrive

Euro Club Soccer from Virgin is based on their home computer footy sim Manchester United Europe, but with a whole host of updated options. It adopts a horizontally scrolling grandstand-view style of play, with the ball sticking to the players' feet as opposed to being a free rolling spheroid.

The object of the game is to pick your favourite team from the one hundred and seventy on offer and take them all the way to the finals of the European Cup championship by trouncing fifteen other randomly-selected computer teams. Up to seven tournaments in which up to nine players may participate can be saved on a battery back-up to make the lengthy campaign more palatable.

What the Mean Machines staff thought

Presentation-wise, this is superb. The tournaments, save mode and general options are all out of this world. Sadly, though, the gameplay isn't of the same high standards. There are several sloppy points which mar the action, namely the poor collision detection, low player intelligence and very awkward control which make putting together passing moves very tricky and frustrating. It's a shame these are present, because had the game been more rigorously tested and these irritations removed, Euro Club Soccer could have been an outstanding soccer game - especially with its excellent graphics. As it is, its flaws means that most players will get more frustration than joy out of this.

The home computer game, Manchester United Europe wasn't all that bad and this Megadrive version promised to make any number of improvements. Sadly, for the poor state of Megadrive footie titles, European Club is in fact worse than its ST predecessor! The graphics aren't all that bad, with some small but colourful, detailed and fairly well animated sprites and a plethora of fine intermission screens to gaze at. Sadly, there are a number of gameplay upsets which spoil things. Firstly, the collision detection is very poor, which puts the dampers on activities such as tackling, passing, shooting and generally moving the ball about. Secondly, the players seem to have all the footballing abilities of the Baboon All-Stars second XI, with their passes and goal attempts being particularly feeble, not to mention those frustrating huge slides which masquerade as tackles. This combined with the coma-inducing slow pace produces a piece of software as disappointing as they come.