Flashback: FIFA 98: Road to World Cup

I’ve been playing soccer games, both simulators and managment for a really long time. Got some great stories, great victories and painful losts on my back, but it’s 2012 and idea of writing them down came to me a little late. Trying to play the old games all over again and write a new stories is pointless. I don’t have that much time nowadays, plus it just whould not feel the same, whould not feel right.

Of course there is no comeback to the lost data, old save’s were deleted, consoles gone sold, most of the oldies don’t even work on na modern hardware. But I still got a decent memory card in my head and got some memories connected with different games, so I figured it whould be a good idea to bring them back with a “Flashback”. 

These post won’t be filled with statistics, screenshots or videos. It’s just my memories, sometimes a litte rusty and overall, but at least honest 😉

So I decided to start with FIFA 98: RTWC as it was a first simulation of soccer that I played on my PC. I got it very late, but trust me it was hard convincing my mom to buy it, so only thing I could do was wait. Finally in summer of 1997, after bringing home some really decent grades from school I got my first own PC with Fifa Soccer Manager (later I will write about it) as a “starter”. Two months later FIFA 98 arrived and I got it right away. 

On ma Pentium 90 with 16MB RAM, Windows 95 and no 3D support, the game was working a bit slow, but it didn’t affect a gameplay so back then I wasn’t even noticing that. Of course I started the game with a World Cup Qualification Campain playing Poland. As a player used to soccer games on NES, Neo-Geo and a little Amiga, I had to take some time to learn the new Fifa, so playing qualifications on easy level got me straight to the finals and a bit bored on that stage with easy winning. Polish squad didn’t look much as a real one with players like Warzycha, Citko, Nowak or Baluszynski. It was a time when polish national coaches were switching ofen (3 different coaches in those qualifications) and every one had diferent vision. Polish squad in FIFA 98 was at least year old (looked like they took it from Poland – Moldovia 2:1 game in atumn 1996). Still I didn’t care much, I got to play with real players, with real names in 3D, with replays, commentary and some great soundtrack and animations.

Soon I find a real fun in playing season campains with diferent clubs. There was no carrier mode back in the days, so I just played one-time adventures with diferent clubs. The one that still is in my memory was the season I played with Inter Milan. I always had the same tactic. Start with selling most of the players, leaving only biggest stars (not much of them in Inter back then) and get some cash for new guys. After that I was looking for 5 or 6 big names and turn my squad into a dream team, with no subs but still a dream team 😀 I remember having players like Suker, Beckham, Ferrara, Van der Sar, Litmanen, Roberto Carlos and few more in my Inter Milan. I was not much of a gamer back there, so I just enjoyed playing on easy and winning every game 5:0 – don’t blame me I was tweleve 😉

Later I took another qualification campaign. This time it was a bit more serious. I played on higher level and take Guatemala team. We gone from CONCACAF qual. stage to the finals and win the France World Cup. I will never forget one goal in the turnament that I’ve scored with a players ass. Yeah, you see it right, ASS. It was a lose ball in the penalty area, after oponents (I don’t remember who it was, sorry) keeper crushed with the defender and my midfielder got to it first. Instead of shoot at empty goal, I mistakenly pressed cross, and he send a long ball, meanwhile my forward who was standing in the area, turned his back to it and acted like he tried to tie his shoe, ball just hit his ass and went straight to the goal, couldn’t belive my own eyes 🙂 I had that replay for year but i got lost in action so I got no prof, but I watched it so many times, that I still have no trouble with playing it in my head.

I lost intrest in FIFA 98 for a while after geting my Playstation console but I returned later. Why? I spend some hours in the edit mode (it was great back then, why it is so lame right now?!) and created a whole Polish Ekstraklasa. Player by player, team by team, after 3 days of doing nothing but creation a got a had changed Malaysian League (how the hell it got there any way?) into Polish. After that a took control of every single team and start playing a full seasun pretending I’m a producer of League Highlights, oh what a fun it was. I didn’t played the whole season, because I got bored after few weeks 😦

Got your own memories, diary or story about You playing FIFA 98: RTWC? Don’t be a stranger, send it We will be glad to post for the world to see.