Long before EA started churning out annual FIFA games there was Sensible Soccer. And before Sensible Soccer, there was MicroProse Soccer. It was a popular Commodore 64 title developed by Sensible Software (yes—they of Sensible Soccer fame) and released in 1988, though in the United States it was initially released as Keith Van Eron's Pro Soccer.
As part of Ziggurat Games' mission to shovel tons of buried retro classics onto Steam, it's now available to buy. The music is terrible, granted, but the graphics are sure to please anyone with a lingering fondness for the 8-bit home computer era. It looks like this is the MS-DOS version as it's running through DOSBox, so it's definitely not the best version of the game, but hey, it's still a nice slice of history.
Here's some footage:
MicroProse Soccer was pretty popular at the time, but Sensible Soccer definitely upstaged it before gradually declining in popularity through the late '90s, making way for the dominance of FIFA and PES. Can we get Actua Soccer next, please?
It's part of a big Ziggurat retro drop this month: other unearthed gems include some old Data East arcade games, like the 1991 platformer Caveman Ninja and isometric action RPG Gate of Doom.
