by Craig Buck

Created on: April 13, 2010   Last Updated: April 27, 2010

==Ok so what is a soccer game?==

Ask the man on the street to name three soccer game series and they would be able to reel off FIFA and Pro Evolution Soccer with very little thought.  Naming a third might prove tricky though.  Naturally, people tend to go for the arcade style games when they think of football games, though, unfairly in my opinion the daddy of them all, Football Manager gets overlooked.  As there is literally nothing on the market to rival Football Manager, I am going to change the title of this review slightly.  I will now be answering the question, ‘What are the best 3 arcade style soccer games ever’ as comparing Football Manager to FIFA is like comparing Wayne Rooney to Fabio Capello.

==What makes a great soccer game.==

There are two distinct camps when it comes to defining what makes a great soccer game.  The first group of people want great graphics so the players they are controlling actually look like the real players.  The second camp, and the one to which I belong prefer to have exceptional gameplay which actually feels like a real soccer match and are prepared to sacrifice a little bit of graphical polish in order to achieve this.  Of course, the game buying public being a demanding bunch want it all, why not have a game with breathtaking graphics and realistic player movements and intelligence.  As games are now evolving, this is becoming more of a reality but it hasn’t always been this way.

==Criteria I have used to determine the top 3.==

As a games player for over 25 years, I have come across some excellent games and I could probably come up with a top 10 list of soccer games throughout the years.  I have tried to keep the criteria simple when deciding my top 3.  The criteria I have used is as follows :-

* The game has to be one that I have gone back to time and time again over a sustained period

* Only one game per series is allowed meaning the top 3 cannot be FIFA 10, FIFA 09 and FIFA 08

* The game has to have been released on an existing platform so that if people find this review useful, the are still able to obtain a copy of the game.

==The top 3==

Based on the criteria listed above, it was quite a simple choice to come up with the 3 titles, the only difficulty was putting them into an order. 

==3rd place – Sensible Soccer (PC and Xbox Live Arcade)==

Sensible Soccer was released in the early 90s an took up far too

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