Marcel Desailly Pro Soccer

Official Nokia packshot (Europe)

A football game developed by Gameloft subsidiary G Artist and published by Gameloft for the N-Gage, endorsed by French defender Marcel Desailly and featuring 32 club and 32 national teams across six modes including League, Cup, and Career.

The N-Gage version scored 48 on Metacritic — 'generally unfavourable reviews' — with critics citing absurdly small player sprites, poor AI (teammates rarely tackling, opponents occasionally dribbling out of bounds unprovoked), and shallow gameplay depth. The game existed across several platforms before its N-Gage release: it had already shipped on PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Windows, and mobile, where the mobile version fared considerably better (84% on GameRankings). In some European territories the same game was retitled 'Sven-Göran Eriksson's World Challenge' for the UK and 'WM Nationalspieler' in Germany, replacing Desailly's name with a local footballing figurehead. Desailly himself retired from Chelsea at the end of the 2003–04 season — the same year the N-Gage version launched — and from the French national team following Euro 2004, timing the game's release to the tail end of his active club career.

Screenshots