Ultimate Soccer

Ultimate Soccer is a 1993 soccer video game by Rage Software released for the Mega Drive, Master System, and Game Gear by request of Sega which even allowed their mascot, Sonic, to be featured in the game menus. It was followed by Striker also for the Mega Drive, Striker '96, released for MS-DOS, Sega Saturn, and PlayStation, and Striker Pro 2000, released for PlayStation and the Dreamcast. While never published to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Rage developed other games for the Nintendo console, including Elite Soccer, Manchester United Championship Soccer (also had version named after Eric Cantona and Lothar Matthäus) and World Soccer 94 – Road to Glory.

Focused on national teams (with a total of 64, all with fake names and individual team values), it had one of the highest option counts for 16-bit football games. Up to 18 different settings can be changed, including ball weight, weather, surface, tightness of ball control, passback rule and perhaps the most remembered of all, the ability to play 6-on-6 indoor football. Several game modes are available, including friendlies, penalty shootout, Ultimate League, Ultimate Cup (group phase and knockout stage) and Knockout. However, the game lacks both passwords and battery save, and all competitions must be completed in one sitting. Up to eight players can play if two 4-player adapters are used.