New Star Soccer

New Star Soccer, also known as NSS, is a computer game series published by New Star Games, which lets the gamer create and control a new football player as he moves through the ranks of the football leagues and national teams. Its creator, Simon Read, was inspired by Sports Interactive's Championship Manager, and Gremlin Interactive's Footballer of the Year.

Gameplay

At the beginning the gamer is able to specify everything, from player's nationality, team and division, to selecting his strengths by assigning a fixed number of points across various skills (flair, strength, pace, passing, etc.). Once this is done the game begins, with a full fixture list for each season, including continental and national team matches.

Starting out as a young footballer working way to the top, the gamer controls many aspects of a footballer's life: relationships with his team-mates, manager, fans, supporters, girlfriends, and family; own money management and expenditure; training; club and sponsor contracts, and many other features.

In the first two versions of the game, NSS 1 (2003) and NSS 2 (2004), the action on the field was a running text commentary of key elements of the match, where certain situations required intervention to make a decision on how the player acts, like whether to pass, tackle or shoot, for example.

Since the third version of the game, NSS3, released in 2005, the gamer controls his player with the keyboard, joystick or gamepad. Matches are played out in 2D graphics giving full control of the player's actions.

A fourth version of the game, NSS4, was released on November 7, 2008 and features an entirely new game engine with improved gameplay, including 360° control, more realistic dribbling and 3D graphics. NSS 4 was the first in the series to feature a Macintosh version of the game, and Linux support has also been discussed. Beta versions are also being made available to the general public in the official forum.

The fourth installment also includes a database of over 30,000 players, 3000 teams and stadiums. It was the first to include different promotions and relegation rules. It is hoped in the future competitions like the Copa Libertadores can be included.

New Star Games also released Sensational Soccer in 2006, similar to New Star Soccer, but where the user can play as the entire team, without the personal aspects of the game.

The fifth version of New Star Soccer NSS5 is currently in Beta testing, with the full version planned to be released in August 2011.^{[edit] Awards}

• In December 2005, Game Tunnel named NSS3 "Sports Game of the Year" and placed the game as the 10th best independently produced game of 2005.^[2]
• In January 2006, PC Zone named NSS3 "Indie Game Of The Month".^[3]

References

1. ^ Read, Simon. "New Star Blog". New Star Games. http://www.newstargames.com/newstarforum/entry.php?418-What-s-happening. Retrieved 21 May 2011. 
2. ^ "2005 Top 10 Games of the Year" by Russell Carroll, Game Tunnel, December 29, 2005.
3. ^ "PC Zone magazine's review of New Star Soccer 3", Pc Zone Issue 164, January 2006.

External links

• New Star Soccer
• Game Tunnel's award
• New Star Forums
• New Star Games' Blog