Game Off - Celebrities is one version of a set of games created and promoted by Captain Fats. The game is centred around a group of family or friends having to perform different tasks in order to collect each of the 5 types of card in the game. This version of the game is based around British, or well-known in Britain, celebrities or historical figures. Other versions on offer include Adult, German/Spanish Celebs, as well as of course the original game.

These 5 types are Mind, Body, Courage, Skill and Luck. I won't be listing out the full rules of the game 1-by-1 here but the objective is to challenge someone else in the group, determined by a dice roll, to play against in order to obtain one of these cards.

Each card relates to a certain type of challenge which can be summarised as:

The rest of the group take a vote on the person they think completed their challenge the best and that person wins the card. This is why 3 players are needed as a minimum. In the event of a tie, a luck card decided the winner. The first to collect one of each type of card wins!

Now, I managed to play this game with the minimum of 3 people, I would have preferred more but for obvious reasons that aren't workable currently. (Note: If you're reading this from the future, google the history of 2020). Anyway, the game definitely had the feel of a party game.

The rules were quick to pick up and the 3 of us were promptly getting competitive in an attempt to beat out the others. As with most games, of course, some cards offer more fun than the others. My personal favourite that I had to do was the 'Ronnie O'Sullivan Off' where my opponent and I had to take turns hitting the dice with pencils into the game's box, like in snooker. I won this of course.

The Mind cards were especially fun too as they allowed to debate and argue your case, vying for the judge's vote. I can see a few heated discussion cropping up among a larger group of friends and a few drinks. 

The game doesn't take too long, it depends on how many players you have and the speed at which you perform the tasks. For our game, it took up about 20-30 minutes since there were a lot more opportunities to win the 5 cards and there was only 1 vote needed to decide the winner each time.

Once able to start-up my group's Friday night table-topping session I will certainly introduce the game to the mix, I would love to see how this plays out among a group of 6+, all of whom are have a 'jolly' time of it.

I believe this game would be perfect for students at university looking for something to spice up their pre-drinks or for a family get together at Christmas. 

Due to the nature of the game, replayability is not an issue unlike with question0based card games, making the price point acceptable in terms of how much game time you can get out of the set.

You can pick up the game for the price of £12.99 on Amazon by clicking the link below.

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Well, the short answer is “barely”.  Our man Keith gives us the lowdown on what footy fans had to suffer before EA’s beast of a game:

In the same way that Sky would have you believe that football didn’t exist before the inception of the Premier League in 1992, Electronic Arts would probably be pretty happy if people believed that football video games didn’t exist prior to the release of FIFA International Soccer in late 1993.  We’ve gotten so used to the yearly installments of FIFA (plus the tournament tie ins) and Pro Evolution Soccer over the past two decades that it seems unimaginable that any other football games even existed.  However, for better or worse (much worse in some cases…) they did, and here we take a look at just a few of them….

World Soccer – (Master System)

Released in Europe in late 1987, and in the US under the title ‘Great Soccer’ (err, ok…), World Soccer was the first console football game I ever played or owned.  At the time, bearing in mind that I was about 7 or 8 years old when I got it, it seemed ok at first.  But young Keith soon grew weary and frustrated with this second rate sim.  Although the pitchside view and cutesy sprites looked ok, the controls were clunky and unresponsive, there were no free kicks whatsoever (apart from offsides!), and it was almost impossible to score!

Gazza’s Superstar Soccer – (Amiga, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum)

Endorsed by and named after everyone’s favourite blubbing boozy Geordie, Gazza’s Superstar Soccer is a haunting reminder of how bad things used to be.  Bizarrely, it has no scrolling.  This means there are three fixed views of the pitch, a side on view of the middle third, and as soon as the ball goes to one end of the pitch it switches to an end to end view where the camera appears to be floating above the centre circle… If this wasn’t distracting enough, the game is also uglier than Gazza’s fellow Geordie and erstwhile England teammate Peter Beardsley (sorry Beardo), and the players all appear to be doing a poorly choreographed version of Riverdance.   Michael Flatley must be spinning in his grave.  Whats that? He’s not dead? Oh…..

Kick Off – (Amiga, Atari ST, NES initially, everything else later…)

First released in 1989, Kick Off became a huge success, and its developer Dino Dini became a well-known name amongst gamers of the time (in true football style he even ‘transferred’ from Anco to Virgin Games in the early 1990’s).   It was another game with a top down view, which worked well.  It was quite difficult to get the hang of, and dribbling with the ball took a fair bit of time and skill to master, but this did add an air of realism to the way it played.  It was notable at the time for various features such as action replays, players with different characteristics and skills, tactics, injuries and even different referees with different moods!

European Club Soccer – (Mega Drive)

Originally a PC game titled “Manchester United Europe” (I feel sick just typing that…), this sim from Virgin was released on the MD in 1992 and featured 170 teams to choose from, including those from the 1st Division at the time.  A classic case of style over substance, this is a very well presented game with decent animation and fairly detailed sprites.  However the gameplay lets it down terribly.

It’s a shame as it looks good, there are lots of options (tactics, kits, lots of teams, tournament mode), but the sloppy gameplay and plodding nature of the game suck all the fun out of it.

Sensible Soccer (Atari ST, Amiga, PC… then everything else!)

Developed by Sensible Software (hence the title…) and known affectionately by aficionados as Sensi, this was originally released on the Amiga, Atari ST and PC in 1992.  It featured a top down bird’s eye view similar to many older football games, but from much higher up.  It was most notable for its aftertouch feature which allowed you to put a crazy amount of swerve on the ball after you had a shot.  It was also a departure from most other footy sims at the time in that the ball ‘stuck’ to the player as he dribbled, as opposed to him appearing to tap it front of him as he ran, which was the case in other games.  This allowed a greater degree of control and added to the game play immensely as you can dribble round players in a way that had never been properly captured before.

They think it’s all over….

So there you go.  We’ve barely scratched the surface of retro football games, as I decided to only cover the ones I have previous experience of, and I wanted to end this article on a positive note with Sensible Soccer.  But for every Sensi, there’s a World Cup Italia ’90…  Now its over to you. What are some of your best loved/most hated retro football sims?  Let us know…

- Keith