Backyard Soccer


Backyard Soccer, known in Europe as Junior Sports Football, is an association football video game in the Backyard Sports series, developed by Humongous Entertainment and published by Infogrames. It was first released in 1998 for Macintosh and Microsoft Windows, in 2001 for the PlayStation, and in 2008 for iOS. The PlayStation version of the game, alongside the PlayStation 2 version of Backyard Basketball, were the only Backyard Sports titles released in Europe.

Gameplay

The player selects a team, aiming to win promotion from the "B" Division, to the "A" and then Premier Division. If in the top four by mid-season in any division, the player's team will be invited to the Off-The-Wall Indoor Invitational. After winning the Premier Division, the player's team will be invited to represent the United States in the Astonishingly Shiny Cup of All Cups Tournament. Regardless of the tournament's outcome, the player's team will be placed back in the Premier Division for another chance at the Cup.
There are several power-ups that a team can use. To activate a power-up, the player has to click on the opponent's goal.
Backyard Soccer received moderate reviews. Its gameplay was criticized for the hard-to-use controls for the PC version and long loading time, while its graphics were praised on all platforms. Brad Cook of Allgame stated for the PC version, "when it comes to their Backyard Sports series, though, I think they missed the boat in one really crucial area: game controls."