Shack Chat: What's your favorite soccer video game?

Soccer video games are some of the most long-stranding and popular games in the industry. For the past couple of decades, EA has stood as the company leading the charge with its FIFA titles, but now that is changing. With this shakeup of tradition comes an opportunity to reflect on some of the soccer titles that grabbed our attention. So let’s talk about our favorite soccer games!

Question: What is your favorite soccer video game?

Mario Strikers Charged - Ozzie Mejia, Senior Futbol Editor

Some may be reading this and wondering whether I meant to say "Mario Strikers: Battle League." To say that I say no, because, as I noted in my review of that game, 2007's Mario Strikers Charged for the Wii had a lot more going for it. There were more characters, more abilities, more items, and more unique stadiums. This felt like a more complete package than Battle League, and I'll never understand Nintendo's recent philosophy of revisiting old franchises only to offer less than what the classics did (Hello again, Nintendo Switch Sports).

I'm as big a fan of traditional soccer as anybody, but give me an arcade-style offering like Mario Strikers anytime.

Mega Man Soccer - TJ Denzer, wonders if Mega Busters count as using hands

I don’t have a ton of interest in soccer games. The sport is cool to watch and I appreciate the global interest providing incredible players and squads from around the world. It’s just not my jam. Here’s how you get me interested, though. Make it a soccer game specifically based around one of my favorite video game characters. Mega Man Soccer is that. You get to play with soccer squads composed of Mega Mans (Mega Men?) or the other robot masters, complete with their special powers intact.

I have a chance of blasting your pesky goalkeeper with a charged Mega Buster before I hit the goal? Sign me up.

FIFA 2002 for Nintendo GameCube - Asif Khan, Shacknews CEO/EIC/EIEIO

There have been a lot of great soccer video games throughout time, but I have to single out FIFA 2002 as my favorite. The way the game took advantage of the Nintendo GameCube’s controller’s trigger buttons was revolutionary at the time. Players could add a curve to passes, shots, and lob passes by holding down the trigger.

My team of choice, Argentina, had several players who were capable of scoring from half field. Some people may view glitchy things like this as a negative, but FIFA 2002 provided hundreds of hours of hilarious gameplay for me and my buddies back in the day. Argentina’s Lopez, Crespo, Aimar, Zanetti, and Ortega were all deadly weapons in the game.

While the FIFA video game series may be dead in 2023, the memory of decades of great games will live on throughout time.

FIFA Soccer 64 - Sam Chandler, It’s football

As someone who played soccer every weekend in a league, every lunch time, and every opportunity I could as a kid, it should come as no surprise that one of my favorite soccer games is also one of the first ones I played: FIFA Soccer 64.

The graphics haven’t aged well, and certainly the gameplay and mechanics don’t hold a candle to today’s technology, but by jove does it bring the nostalgia. I love the sound of the crowd and the commentators. Even the gameplay is simple yet refined. I might have to whip out my N64 and boot it up for a match or two.

Rocket League - Donovan Erskine, Owns the Delorean car

I might be stretching the rules here, but I’ve always described Rocket League as “soccer cars”. As someone who admittedly never got into soccer (and therefore rarely played any soccer games), Rocket League is undoubtedly the “soccer” game that I’ve played and enjoyed the most. It’s a modern classic. It’s simple and straightforward, but the skill ceiling is astronomically high. I don’t play it as much these days as I did a few years ago, but that game holds a special place in my memory.

Super Mario Strikers - Steve Tyminski, Stevetendo show host, Feetball Star!

What is my favorite Soccer video game? I don’t get into Soccer too much unless the World Cup is going on and cheer for the USA and the Netherlands. That being said, there are a few Soccer video games that I could go with for this question. I would love to say Mega Man Soccer but I have never played it. I love the idea of Mega Man taking time off from defeating robot masters to play Soccer with them.

There was also a small PC game that was on some website that we used to play all the time growing up during breaks in class. However, my answer is Super Mario Strikers, the Game Cube game. There have been a few Mario Soccer games to come out since Strikers but they have failed to keep me going. My brother and I would play this game for hours and have some heated matches. There are plenty of marks on the wall and maybe even a broken futon from playing Super Mario Strikers too much but I’ll leave that up for interpretation.

Mario Strikers: Battle League - Bill Lavoy, Clumsy Assassin

I think I’ve played one soccer (football if we’re being fair here) game in my life, and that was Mario Strikers: Battle League. I’m just not a big soccer guy, but that game occupied my life for about three days when it was released in 2022. That’s more than I can say about any other soccer game that’s ever existed.

There you have it team, all of our favorite soccer games. Did we mention yours? If we didn’t, let us know in the comment section which soccer game you love more than the rest. Be sure to check out our Shack Chat page for a look at all previous topics we’ve discussed!

Shack Staff

Shack Staff stories are a collective effort with multiple staff members contributing. Many of our lists often involve entires from several editors, and our weekly Shack Chat is something we all contribute to as a group.