The first soccer game released in North America for the Nintendo 64, FIFA 64 was a disappointment even back in the day due to its lackluster gameplay, graphics, and overall presentation.

This game featured a ton (perhaps every FIFA registered nation plus certain leagues) of teams to choose from but the overall content and poor gameplay did not help at all. It's crazy how just a couple of months after FIFA 64 released, Konami put out International Superstar Soccer 64 which put this game to shame in just about every category.

When I was younger, I used to be very much into football, the era of the football games I’ve been playing will have the players I remember in them. FIFA 64 has official licences for a few countries – although they do so little with it that I’m not sure why they bothered.

The players in FIFA 64 are horrific, nightmarish creatures with distorted arms and legs, and with no proper team management – you can only change formation, there aren’t even substitutions – the only time you ever see a player’s name is when scoring a goal.

While Perfect Striker only had a small amount of Japanese teams, it still feels like it had a lot more stuff than FIFA 64 in every other department. The HUD in FIFA 64 is dreadful, showing just the time (no score!), although you can get a picture-in-picture with a different camera angle that covers up far too much of the main screen. You can make the pitch “damp” but you can’t really tell the difference, there’s no rain effects.

The gameplay itself is equally dismal, being extremely slow and clunky. Even passing feels completely broken, as your players will often kick the ball backwards or just tap it forward slightly. Every match is tedious – which is probably why you can skip matches in the league mode (which seems pointless without any kind of management).

FIFA 64 is a very dismal football game and is not nice to play. It very clunky, looks ugly and the game pelts you with annoying sound effects as you play.