Italy 1990

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Game Review

The FIFA World Cup 2018 is starting, so it's time for some football nostalgia! Italy 1990 (know as World Class Soccer in the US) is a soccer sim developed by Tiertex and published by US Gold in 1990.

As you can imagine, the game is set during the 1990 FIFA World Cup that was held in Italy. The game was released for the Amiga, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC. Tiertex didn't do a very good job with the official 1986 world cup soccer game; in fact, they lost the official FIFA license. However, with Italia 1990, they definitely created a better title.

We are not talking about a gameplay similar to Sensible Soccer or Kick Off. This means the ball is always attached to the players. But despite a challenge level probably too low, the overall presentation of the game is well done and it's able to create a nice experience.

The game received decent reviews from the magazines, and there are some people with nice memories of this game.

Review by: Manu
Published: 13 June 2018 2:53 pm

Users Reviews

How many memories, with this game ... How many hopes ... and what disappointment ... Sigh!

Italy 90, gives you the opportunity to relive the unrepeatable Italian nights of the 1990 world championship.
How not to remember the wide eyes of the Italian striker Schillaci ... how not to remember the tears of Gazza ... how not to remember the determination of the late Diego Armando Maradona ... The dramatic sequence of penalty kicks between Italy and Argentina ... who had reached the final even though they had not had an excellent first phase, while the Italian team had had a more regular path. The Italians played at home and were favorites ... but ... things went differently ... And what about the much-talked-about final between Germany and Argentina, with a penalty given to Germany towards the end of regular time? Well with this Italy '90 ... you can relive those unforgettable world football evenings ... (maybe) ...

Yes ... because the game intends to simulate that fateful soccer world cup and at least in intention it seems that everything goes smoothly. But ... alas ... things are not quite like that.

The version that the friends of "gamenostalgia" offer us is the one for the Amiga. Unfortunately, the game already features a rather limited options screen. In fact it would be possible to play only a friendly match against the computer or against a human opponent. And then, of course, the actual world championship. So no training session, no possibility of being able to edit the teams present, and not even a world championship with a different formula can be played.

One could also accept this situation, unfortunately it is only the beginning. The teams in the field are controlled in an approximate way, then, at least I have not seen any other button, with which to be able to differentiate the shots .. the passes, the long balls, to hit the ball with the head not even talking about it. But what really bothers is this ... while you are carrying out your action, on more than one occasion, suddenly, your player ... simply ... vanish, to appear enchanted much later!

But then the list of anomalies goes on, the players "go through" the opponent's body !!! That's right ... if a player is controlling the ball, just come in from behind, cross the body of the player who was controlling the ball and get hold of it !!! The goalkeeper ......... it is difficult to determine if he is controlled by the computer or if we take control of him ... Anyway ... I have never seen more incompetent goalkeepers. A weak diagonal shot is enough to beat them. In the event that he manages to block some shot, in putting the ball back into play, it is almost always returned to the feet of an opponent !!!

In the 90s, my brother gave me the Commodore 64/128 version as a gift. Frankly, on that version, I don't remember the presence of all these embarrassing errors present in the verision for Amiga ... Too bad, the idea was good ... As it is, it's okay just to remind us of our youth .. .....

Review by: Maurizio Petta
Published: 14 July 2022 10:06 pm