I’ve been playing sports games on PC for as long as I can remember. There have been some great ones and, of course, some not-so-great ones. I’d put Actua Soccer 2 in the “not-so-great” category.
Overall, the game is okay. The visuals aren’t terrible, the commentary is good, and it seems like a decent football game at first glance. However, the controls, especially for ball handling, are its biggest letdown. I found the ball control frustrating; often, instead of controlling the ball, the player seems to run around it like a headless chicken or completely misses it. The AI (and I use “intelligence” here very loosely) is really bad—especially the goalkeepers, who are so terrible they’re laughable.
One of the worst parts of the game is the snowy match days. It’s just a bright white field, and it looks terrible, almost like the texture is missing. I’m not sure if it would look slightly different with a different VGA card, but I highly doubt it.
You can’t see the lines and have no idea where anything is—it just looks awful. I can’t believe this made it into the final release.
Long story short, I wouldn’t recommend this game if you’re looking for a retro football game. It’s just not fun. Maybe if you’re patient enough to invest 10-12 hours into figuring out how to manage the ball without being blinded by snowy matches, you might eventually start enjoying it.
The game was released in 1997, the same year as EA’s FIFA 98, which is significantly superior to Actua Soccer 2.
Enjoy!
Hardware Specs used in the video:
Gigabyte GA-6BXC
Intel Pentium II MMX 266mhz
32MB SDRam
ATI Rage 128 Pro
Creative SoundBlaster Live!
40GB Seagate HDD (IDE)
Microsoft Sidewinder Gamepad
