Nudge Circle of Honor Nominee: World Cup Soccer

By Rick Brewster

Yeah, it’s better than the Shadow. (Editor’s note: no, it’s not.)

Everyone has their game. For 99% of you it’s the Addams Family, because you learned to play pinball on the one tucked in a corner of your parent’s bowling alley. Thank god bowling is so boring that kids get into pinball rather than watch. Then again, maybe it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because you hate scoring points and embrace being a masochist.

Those are all fine games and would be fine choices, but here’s the thing: they aren’t World Cup Soccer, so those choices are incorrect. You’re gonna shit on a cartoon dog playing soccer? Doggy soccer?!? No one dislikes WCS, unless you hate having fun. And let’s just remember: pinball should be fun.

But here’s the thing: WCS isn’t just the most fun. It’s also the best for competitive play. Could this be the perfect melding of a home-style pin with IFPA-friendly rule sets? Dear Nudge reader, allow me the pleasure of breaking it the fuck down for you (all while fighting the wildly irresponsible act of contemplating buying one just off the sheer impulsive desire writing this article created inside me).

World Cup Soccer has video game-like levels of difficulty

Next time you play Doggy Soccer (editor’s note, I do not condone calling it this), think of firing up a video game for the first time and selecting your difficulty level.

Easy: Shoot for goals! Easy, repeatable, and worth a decent number of points. It’s fun and a viable enough strategy to use in a tournament setting. Unless your goalie “IIIIS UNSTOPPABLE!”. Let’s be real: even metal goalies rocking back and forth on a regular cadence can go on heaters.

Medium: Play JUST for multiballs. Find that doggone, stupid, rejecting, terribly slim scoop for multiball start and absolutely go to town. I’ll break down why this is a stone cold top-tier mulitball in a later section, but let’s just say you get yourself on over to Germany? Oh, you’re biiiiiig chilling.

Hard: Travel to all nine cities and play the wizard mode, Final Match. If you’re gonna shoot orbits for your tickets to cities, shoot some goals to turn that soccer ball off for your pops feed, unless you wanna get to final match on extra-extra-hard mode. (It took me too long to realize that the soccer ball spins when the goal is lit. You’re welcome.)

It’s. Just. Fun.

Striker, the World Cup Pup, is your teammate to help you score goals and give you pleasant awards for falling in the Striker hole. Get too close to the big spinning soccer ball and it’ll put an insane spin on the ball, which somehow makes the game feel closer to actual soccer?

Striker plays goalie for a TV mode round, where hitting the goalie hits Striker in the head and causes him to see stars. It’s just friggin’ fun! Not just shoot-the-blinking-lights that many games can be boiled down to. There’s some awesome playfield mechanisms, the sound/callouts are excellent, and the game has a pretty good sense of humor throughout it all. You can know nothing about pinball and still have a good time with these silly features under the glass. Unless you hate fun, that is.

It has arguably the best multiball in all of Bally/Williams games.

You can contest me on this claim and I won’t push back too hard. (You could also ask me this question next week, and I’ll say it’s the Twilight Zone’s multiball.) But, Doggy Soccer has an absolute top-tier multiball.

Five shots, a ramp, and a scoop that can be infuriating to hit gets you going - alternate goals for jackpots and ramps to relight as many times as you can. Depending on where you started, you have a dozen or so countries to get through for #1 ranked Germany, which pays off 250 million and starts victory laps at 50 million a shot. The World Cup Soccer Wet Dream™: one or two balls on the left flipper. Shoot goal with right flipper, then shoot left ramp with right flipper. Cradle separate. Wash, lather, rinse, and repeat as many times as you can. Getting into that rhythm and knocking out a few of these gives you that floaty, uplifting, yeah-I-fuck-what’s-up feeling in a way other games just don’t.

The rules hit different… and frankly, so does everything else

Want a game that’s perfectly balanced for competitive play? World Cup Soccer. It’s simple enough to understand but just so satisfying to try and master. Want to have fun, shooting for silly stuff and watching the ball spin and jump around? World Cup Soccer. Craving a game that celebrates your excellent play with animated fireworks and dancing dogs? World Cup Soccer! I rest my case. Go seek one out. Yeah, Alec Baldwin isn’t on the backglass, but you’ll get over it. (Editor’s note: you won’t!)