Overview

Essentially a part of SNK’s Super Sidekicks series, lying somewhere between SS3 and SS4, Neo-Geo Cup ’98 stands as one of the finest coin-op arcade football titles ever made. Unfortunately, with the death of arcades we may never see quarter crunchers like this again.

Graphics

As with the rest of the Super Sidekicks series Neo Geo Cup ’98 features wonderfully drawn and vibrantly coloured visuals that are still impressive by today’s standards (despite their low resolution). There’s no better place to start off than with the beautiful menu screens which feature continental maps depicting the locations of selectable countries as well as diagramed control instructions. The game also keeps track of which individual CPU or user controlled players have the most goals.

Once you get on the pitch the visuals are simply gorgeous. The playable camera angle is a sideways view that’s lower to the ground than most games. This can take a while to get used to but it’s not too different than the angle you see if you watch a televised match from Highbury; the pitch looks small but there’s still a fair amount of space to play football. The pitch-side details are great with advertising hoardings, crowds and details specific to the region the stadium is located which gives the illusion that there are a number of different stadia. The pitch textures are also gorgeous with lush greens that look like grass rather than plastic.

The player models are likewise impressive with variations in build, hair and skin colour, and hairstyle. There’s no license in the game, neither is there a WE/ISS-style pseudo-license so you don’t get to see caricatures of real players but you can still tell the players on your team apart from how they look. The kits are also detailed with little touches like different coloured cuffs on shirts, shorts and socks. Thankfully, the player models don’t just look good stationary, they’re also very nicely animated with a variety of animations from simple passing and heading animations to the more vicious fouls (including some pretty nasty body-checks and kicks!). The referees are also very detailed, move well and more importantly have some hilarious animations for when they get knocked to the turf (more on that later).

However, while the basic graphics are mightily impressive, what really sets Neo Geo Cup ’98 apart from other arcade soccer titles are the playable ‘cut-scenes’/dramatic gameplay views. Not only are there almost half a dozen different goal celebration cut-scenes (the best of which use a triple panel comic book-style approach) but there are also great graphics for penalty shots (the camera drops down to ground level right behind the ball, facing the keeper and you just see the kicker’s foot as it comes in to strike the ball), and for when you take shots from outside the 18 yard box and the game changes to a head-on-view of the goal. These sequences (many of which are playable) really set Neo Geo Cup ’98 apart in the visuals department.

Sound

Alas, Neo Geo Cup ’98’s presentation isn’t perfect and the audio is one area that is slightly less impressive. With the exception of a few phrases there isn’t any commentary per-se, though you are treated to a nice variety of crowd sounds and the music is pretty catchy. The in-game sounds are pretty mediocre and for some reason the sound effect for kicking the ball sounds like it was captured from bouncing a half deflated basketball on concrete – a hollow, mildly resonant thud. Not too impressive.

Options

For an arcade title, Neo Geo Cup ’98 goes above and beyond when it comes to the options. Firstly the game features 60 (sixty!) playable international teams from every continent, as well as six playable tournaments; a world tournament and five tournaments based in each of the five continents. What’s also nice is that you can enter any team into any tournament, so if you select Brazil you can use them to enter the Asia Tournament and beat up on India, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia (yes, all four are in the game amongst many other Asian teams)! The game also tracks the leading goal scorers for each team by name so you can see which individual players have been the most prolific.

Before each match you also get to select your team’s “Power Up” mode; Full Team, Attack, Defense, Speed, Teamwork, Technique, Captain or GK. I’ll talk more about the power-ups later.

Another tidbit I did find interesting is the little graphic that the game uses to show the ratings of teams. Instead of numbers or bars, the game depicts a pentagon within a circle; each tip of the pentagon representing a team’s Power, Speed, Attack, Defense, or Technique ratings – the higher the rating, the more prominent that angle/tip of the pentagon is. Sound familiar? Yup, it’s very much like the pictogram used in the more recent Winning Eleven games!

Gameplay

Despite being an arcade title, the gameplay in Neo Geo Cup ’98 has quite a bit more depth than you’d expect and has a few novel features that set it apart from other arcade football games.

Control is simple with the joystick for movement and three action buttons. On offense A is to shoot/low pass, B is a high pass and C is a short pass/speed burst. One of the most interesting things about Neo Geo Cup ’98 is the fact that you can only shoot when you’re within 30 or so yards of goal, and only when an icon appears above the player you’re controlling says ‘Shoot’! In all other instances the shoot button is actually for low 15-20 yard passes. If there’s a teammate in the direction you’re facing then the ball goes straight to him, if not it goes into space. The B button is a lobbed pass that goes to a teammate in the general direction you’re facing and is good for crosses, while the C button pushes the ball forward about 5-10 yards. This can be used for very short passes or more often as a speed burst. This type of dash/speed burst is particularly neat as the ball isn’t magnetically attracted to your feet when you knock it forward (a la Fifa) and so if you’re not careful you can easily loose the ball if you push it too far ahead.

On defense, A performs a sliding tackle, C switches players and B is a “Rough Play” tackle. What’s a “Rough Play” tackle? It’s kind of what Craig Short did to Robin van Persie, or what Lucas Neill did to Jamie Carragher last season – a physical assault! This kind of tackle ranges from a kick to the midsection to jumping on top of the player you’re attacking! This kind of rough-housing has an effect on the Power Ups I mentioned before. If you’re on the receiving end of a particularly bad foul (and the referee makes the call) then the team on the receiving end of the foul receives a temporary power up, the nature of which you choose before the game. So for example, if you picked the ‘Captain’ Power Up before the match, if you get clobbered and the ref calls the other team on it, your Captain gets a temporary ratings boost. It’s a pretty neat feature to balance out the fact that sometimes you can get away with a nasty tackle or two. It’s also pretty neat to see the cut-scenes that accompany a successful ‘Power Up’ which feature comic book style panels.

Another entertaining gameplay feature is the shooting. As I mentioned, before Neo Geo Cup ’98 has an odd shooting method whereby you can only shoot when you’re within about 30 yards of goal. Now while this sounds kind of prohibitive, what’s neat is that if you do manage to fire off a shot from outside the 18 yard box, the game instantly switches to a close-up view from behind the shooter. You then have a split second to target your shot by moving a crosshair to the area of the goal you want to shoot at. The game also switches to this view when the CPU has a chance to shoot from distance! As such it brings skill to offense as you have to have quick reflexes to move the target to an open corner of the net, and on defense you have to be quick to follow the CPU’s moving target/crosshair to make the save!

Of course, without a solid game engine, both the power-ups and distance shooting would be nothing more than mildly amusing gimmicks. Fortunately, even for an arcade game Neo Geo Cup ’98 plays a mean game of football. Though the ball physics aren’t completely unscripted they’re still pretty damn good and what’s most impressive is that so much of this game is played in the middle of the park with some very intricate build-up play. It’s nothing like Goal!Goal!Goal! for the Neo-Geo where it’s end to end with nothing in between. As a result, even though you’re playing this arcade game with comic book graphics and cut scenes, the meat and potatoes of the game is still real football!

I also love the little touches in the game such as the involvement of the refs. For example, you can inadvertently knock down the ref (kick the ball at him) and once he’s face down for a few seconds you can go on a fouling rampage without getting caught! It’s very WWF but also a lot of fun, yet it doesn’t happen so often that it ruins the balance of the game.

Unfortunately, it’s not all roses in SNK land and the game does falter when it comes to the difficulty level – it’s just a little bit too easy for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a mindless breeze, but it’s not nearly as challenging as some other arcade football titles. Another problem, but one that’s inherent to this type of game, is the short halves. I really wish you could stick in a few more quarters (or press select, ho ho) to select the length of the halves because it seems that 3 minutes just isn’t long enough!

Longevity/Replay Value

It almost goes without saying that Neo Geo Cup ‘98’s multiplayer adds a ton of life to the game, but the single player is still perfect for a short pick up and play session long after you’ve mastered the game. That said, I just can’t help but think that if difficulty was higher this would be one of my favourite games of all time.

Overall

Neo Geo Cup ’98 is arguably the best coin-op football games ever. It may not be a ground breaker like Tecmo World Cup, and it may not have the difficulty of Goal!Goal!Goal! but it it is a shitload of fun. Sure the game can be over the top, but at the end of the day it’s the game’s great balance that makes it a winner. It’s just too bad SNK haven’t carried the series onto today’s consoles.

Lavan Chandran

5/08/2005

Screenshots taken from:  Neo Geo For Life