20 Severely Underrated 90s Video Games You Forgot You Loved

15. Ultimate Soccer Manager 98 - PC, 1999

I still remember being at Electronics Boutique (you kids today may know it as GAME), and looking side-by-side at the unnecessarily oversized cardboard boxes that housed Championship Manager and Ultimate Soccer Manager 98. While I later learned that Championship Manager was the deeper, 'purer' football management sim, I was charmed by USM's aesthetic and wide scope of club-related matters you could get involved in, such as building your stadium and the surrounding area, arranging sponsorship deals, and even watching the actual matches - something Champ Man wouldn't dare until it turned into Football Manager. The whole game was presented in a kind-of first person perspective, where you'd click areas around the stadium to enter them, such as your office, the changing room, and the chairman's office. Once in these pre-rendered areas, you could catch up on match results using good old Teletext, read newspapers talking about the previous day's results, and listen to voicemails from (a usually pissed-off) chairman following matches. This unique presentation meant that USM 98 felt as much a role-playing game and broad 'club management' sim as it did a club manager sim. Should you want to revisit it, you can find USM 98 in the dark recesses of abandonware sites these days, and a group of fans even released a 2012/13 seasons update for it.