England Championship Special

England Championship Special is a video game in the sports genre developed by Tiertex Ltd. and published by Grandslam Video Ltd. originally released in 1991. It is currently playable on DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64.

Featuring the English national team in a top-down game of soccer, England Championship Special represents British publisher Grand Slam's attempt to capitalize on England's respectable qualification in the 1990 World Cup semifinals and the popularity of Anco's acclaimed Kick Off series.

Released in 1991, English Championship Special sits somewhat awkwardly between the 1990 World Cup (England reached the semi-finals, their best result since 1966, and then lost to Germany and Italy in the third-place play-off) and the 1992 European Championship, to which the 'Championship Special' part of the title refers. The squad composition is based on the 1991 status quo, meaning that they will go into the Euros with World Cup veterans like Waddle, Beardsley and Wright, but without 1992 players like Alan Shearer or Alan Smith, infamous replacement for Gary Lineker in the Sweden game.

Although Grand Slam got the England national team and manager to officially endorse the game (so it has names and photos of 20 squad members, from Robson to Gascoigne), it did not buy the Euro license. They will take on seven of the 22 European nations for the title of 'Champions of Europe' in a bland international tournament, from the group stage matches to the final.

Mimicking Kick Off in style and outlook, European Championship Special is geared towards high-speed gameplay with a very low level of complexity, with a single key action for kicks and headers. There are no cards and hardly any penalties, primitive AI and straightforward gameplay mean that there are goals in abundance, and the weather system turns out to be just wind speeds, which turn out not to affect the ball at all.

It is possible that we have multiple downloads available when different versions exist.