World Cup Italia '90

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World Cup Italia '90

Developer(s)	Sega
Publisher(s)	Sega
Release date(s)	1990
Genre(s)	Sports game
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer
Platform(s)	Mega Drive, Master System, MS-DOS
Media	Cartridge, Diskette
System requirements	80286 (PC version)

World Cup Italia '90 is a football video game by Sega for Mega Drive, Master System and DOS released in 1990. This is the first World Cup franchise game based on 1990 FIFA World Cup. The game gives official groups, teams and the fidelity schedule of the championship.

Mega Drive and Master System versions were released in Europe, Asia, North America and Brazil. The PC version comes on two 5 ½ low density (360 KB) diskettes and sold only in Europe.

After the World Cup, this game was released as World Championship Soccer and later renamed to Sega Soccer on the Mega 6 compiliation cartridge on the Mega Drive removing the Virgin Mastertronic credits.

[edit] Trivia

Despite the fact that the game was based on the 1990 World Cup in Italy, the Genesis version's country lineup is wrong. Countries like Ireland, which qualified for the World Cup were not playable, whereas other countries that didn't, such as Peru, appeared.
One easy strategy to score in this game which worked against all teams was to run from mid-field (from the football starting point) and hold the button to shoot directly in the goal.
Tec Toy, the company responsible for distributing games for all Sega consoles in Brazil, released the Master System version as Super Futebol II, to capitalize on the success of a previous unrelated football game.
Despite being based on the 1990 World Cup, several squads appear to have been derived with some artistic licence. Brazil for example features Pelé, and England have Bobby Charlton among their ranks!